Bringing special operations thinking to Army basic training

World Defense Review ^ | September 13, 2005 | W. Thomas Smith Jr.

[VirginiaMil]

Brigadier General James H. Schwitters is in many ways the face of leadership in the 21st-century American Army: Thoughtful, deliberate, battle-seasoned, all business, nothing like “the perfumed princes” the late Col. David H. Hackworth railed against for so many years. Schwitters is simply a bone-hard warrior with a calculating mind and far too many parachute jumps (operational and training) under his belt to continue counting. He knows how to fight, survive, achieve the given objective, and think outside of the box to accomplish all three. He’s the kind of general-officer the Army – in fact the entire U.S. Defense Department – is increasingly turning to in the global war on terror.

Not surprising. The war on terror is a war best waged by men, like Schwitters, who have mastered the art of operating in an environment where nothing is as it may seem.

[mzbzybee]

My son Andrew leaves for basic on Sept 21.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Those men used to be more common in our military if such men can be considered common at all.

[rivercat]

Tell him not to sweat the Drill Sergeants, don't take anything personal, it can be "fun" (in a twisted sort of way) if you make it "fun", and it'll be over before he knows it :)
Send him a letter as often as you can, and if you send a care package with cookies or something, make sure you send enough for all. They told us that if we received food care packages that we either had to eat it all in one sitting or share with everyone :)

[rivercat]

Oh, yeah, and once he gets out of training, he should work on maxing out promotion points as soon as possible, it's never too early to start. I made Staff Sergeant in 4 years and 2 months this way. Oh, and he should learn to play Spades.

[goarmy]

"My son Andrew leaves for basic on Sept 21."

He'll develop life-long bonds. Also, if he stays in long enough to hone his leadership skills, private industry will salivate over him for their management positions.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

When my son was in basic just about 8 years ago his civilian friends played a joke on him.

They would send him mail first addressed as Sgt. -- then latter in basic as Captian then fianlly as Colonel. The drill sergeants would really hammer him at mail-call. Mostly 50 - 150 push-up to get a piece of mail.

The letters only had one sentence, "How you doing buddy?"

B-T-W both my son and daughter we in the Army so I know it does them a lot of good.

[kimosabe31]

A really good article from a source I haven't been aware of. Thanks. However, Gen Scwitter seems strongly committed to the concept of the gender-integrated military, whether out of a sense of resignation to feminist interests OR he really believes US military forces are more effective on the battle field (the bottom line)with women in the force...hard to tell. For my money,it's a convoluted concept...and the women should remain at home raising their children and baking chocolate chip cookies and not on the battlefield enticing our already "horney" GI's. I doubt lectures on sexual harassment are going to be any deterrant.

[NraFreedom]

I have a son who is a Marine. It is good to see the SO training coming to all the branches of the service. I told my son, who probably already had his mind made up that going into the Marines was a smart move just for the fact that their training improves "survivability."

Now that I have four nephews (from two different families) joining the Army, I am glad to see that the Army is changing the emphasis to small independent units combined with the SO mindset.

Overall, this is a real good thing. Now we need to get the training brought back to the level it used to be and get the males and females trained totally separate.