Sensitive Drill Instructors – A Good Idea?

A little over a year ago, in an effort to retain more recruits, the Army ordered drill sergeants to take a more sensitive approach.  That means less shouting.  According to Pauline Jelinek’s October 10, 2006 Associated Press article, “Army tones down drill sergeants,” the head of Army National Guard recruiting, Colonel Mike Jones, said, “trainers found today’s generation responded better to instructors who took ‘a more counseling’ type role.”  It sounds like boot camp is in danger of becoming summer camp.  Will drill sergeants/councilors soon be organizing volleyball games, the making of s’mores and choruses of “Kumbayah”?

 

The military is not my area of expertise, but I thought the purpose of boot camp was to inure recruits to the hardships of battle and to weed out those unsuited to combat.  The rigors of boot camp were designed to develop physical and mental toughness as well as abilities that include following instructions, improvising, strategizing and sizing up situations.

 

In Jelinek’s article, Jones said positive results of the change are that it lowered attrition and eased recruits’ fears over whether they can make it through basic training.  Those changes could turn out to be changes for the worse.
 

Kinder, gentler basic training decreased the number of recruits who drop out during their first six to 12 months by nearly 7%.  In the short run, that is good because money spent on training is wasted when recruits drop out.  It may not be good in the long term.  How will those who can’t deal with being called “maggots” by their drill instructors react to being shot at by the enemy?  If captured by an enemy force with no qualms about demoralizing, torturing or beheading prisoners, such individuals may eagerly reveal our troop positions and strategies.
 

Easing potential recruits’ fears about whether they can pass basic training may get more people through recruiting office doors, but will they be the best people the military can get?   Knowledge that basic training is grueling may encourage potential enlistees to give long and careful consideration to the decision to enlist.  It is not a decision to be taken lightly.  The recruitment advertisements of a few years ago used to emphasize that service provided job skills and money for college.  Yet, the military was not meant to be a jobs program or a scholarship fund.  The purpose of the military is to fight wars.  Those who join the military should be patriots who believe in the value of military service and who are physically fit and mentally suited for it.
 

Two things may be responsible for the feeling that a change in basic training was needed.  One may be that many young people were overprotected as they grew up.  Since about the 1970’s schools taught children that “words hurt” and required kids to report their disputes to adults rather than settling matters among themselves.  Games such as tag and dodgeball have been banned for fear of injuries and so the less athletic children won’t feel bad.  In the interest of raising children’s self-esteem, participation awards often replaced prizes.  Some school systems even banned the use of red ink for corrections because red was too “stressful.”  The result may be a generation of wimps who can’t handle being yelled at by drill sergeants.
 

The other thing that may be responsible for the change in basic training is the push to have more women in the military.  This has already affected physical performance requirements.  For example, in her book, Women Who Make the World Worse, Kate O’Beirne wrote, “Men receive the same grade for doing seventy-two push-ups in two minutes as women do for performing forty-eight.”  Is it possible that being spoken to in a harsh manner encourages women to drop out of basic training?  According to O’Beirne, almost 47% of enlisted women leave the service during their first three years compared with about 28% of the men.  The problem with attempting to recruit and retain substantial numbers of women in the military is that, while some women perform well, many women are physically or mentally unsuited to that career.  Traditionally, women weren’t warriors.
 

O’Beirne also reports that Bill Clinton’s “consultant on gender integration,” Madeline Morris, advised Clinton’s Army secretary that the military should cease its “masculinist attitudes.”  They are “dominance, assertiveness, aggressiveness, independence, self-sufficiency and willingness to take risks.”  I thought those attributes should define our military.  It is not possible to enter into or fight wars without willingness to take risks.  It is impossible to win battles without dominance, assertiveness and aggressiveness.  Independence and self-sufficiency are necessary to survival in battle if an enemy foils a unit’s strategy or if a soldier becomes separated from his unit.
 

Our military is currently fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Meanwhile, Iran and North Korea threaten.  This isn’t the time for a kinder, gentler military.  To keep our country safe from terrorists and hostile governments, our military must consist of the smartest, the bravest and toughest.   Units are only as strong as their weakest members.  Basic training is the time to let them go.
 

Copyright Eva Ellsworth, 10/15/06, all rights reserved