It was a bright, hot, sunny day at Ft Dix, New Jersey, in the early '80s. I was standing at attention, in formation outside the barracks of my Army Basic Training company, along with my fellow recruits. All of us were hot, all of us were sweating in those first-generation, heavy cotton-polyester Battle Dress Uniforms (BDUs). None of us had gotten enough sleep. All of us had been shouted at, sworn at, dropped for pushups, and left in the "dying cockroach" position (lying on the back, arms and legs straight up in the air) for extended periods. The day before, one of my squadmates had fallen out for formation without the chin strap on his helmet; the drill sergeants made him climb up into a tree in the company area, flap his arms, and yell "I'm a s***bird, I'm a s***bird," over and over, for about ten minutes.
The NCO in charge of us on that particular day was one of the senior drill sergeants, originally from the Philippines; his accent was so thick that most of us couldn't understand what he was shouting at us. That rarely ended well for the recruit being shouted at. On this particular morning, he burst out of the company office, walked over to our company, and bellowed something that sounded like "Arrebera - HOOH!"
We had no idea what to do. The Senior Drill stared at us for a moment, then shouted, "Whassa matta? Don' you unner'tand English? Get down! Get down!"
We got down and started knocking out pushups. With the benefit of many years of hindsight, I'm pretty sure he played up his accent on purpose.
That was how it was done in those days, at least in the Army training companies. I have it on pretty good authority that the Marines had it even rougher. But this was in the days when we were still training for a major ground war in Europe, a war that may well have been kicked off with a few thousand Soviet tanks crashing through the Fulda Gap. Things were serious, and many of the older NCOs and officers were Vietnam veterans, who had been there, done that, and had the t-shirt. Their job was to make us fighters, so if it came down to cases, we would do the job of un-aliving bad guys, or at least, not produce a complete Charlie Foxtrot on the battlefield. If we couldn't handle the stress of being cursed at, shouted at, or having a drill sergeant scream at us at the top of his lungs while banging the brim of his campaign hat against the bridge of our nose, then we didn't have the right stuff for combat.
Basic training in our armed services, for the last few years, hasn't been done this way. But Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is taking us back to those days.
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What's the purpose of basic training? I'll only speak for the Army, because that's my experience, but the broad strokes are the same in all the services. The Army's basic training mission is to produce soldiers. To produce warriors. To instill aggression, physical and mental toughness, to handle stress, to take orders and act instantly, aggressively, with no doubt or hesitation - to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect. Other countries, other civilizations that had organized militaries did the same thing. The initial training of Roman soldiers was nothing short of brutal. The WW2 Japanese training process included severe beatings for recruits who screwed up. The Soviet Union was rumored to accept a certain percentage of fatalities in training, and while I've never been able to confirm that, it wouldn't surprise me.
My Dad used to tell me tales of his initial entry training in 1943. He described having to "brace" against a wall if an officer or NCO passed by: Flat against the wall, head touching the wall, palms against the wall, as much a part of the paint as he could make himself. He described eating "square meals" in the mess - no talking permitted, sitting at attention, with the spoon or fork lifting the food straight up to mouth level, then straight to the pie-hole.
It was all about discipline. And, according to Dad, it worked.
That's what these training programs should do. No "time outs," no black stress cards, and no bearded dudes in the women's barracks. These programs should produce tough, fast, lean fighters, disciplined and motivated. The military is not like any other institution, in or out of government. It's not a jobs program. It's not there to provide a benefits package to anyone with the neurosis du jour. The military is about mission, and that mission is to protect and defend the Constitution, to protect and defend the liberty and property of the citizens of the United States of America. To do that, we need just what is described: Tough, fast, lean fighters, disciplined and motivated. That's what the basic training program, back in those Cold War years, made us into. That's what those programs should still be doing now.
Heraclitus's axiom still applies:
Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.
We need fighters, and more, we need warriors. The rest can be screened out.
That's what military basic training should do.
