Yeah, but keep in mind that there are different kinds of jobs in the army and some jobs take more IQ than fighting spirit in our high-tech army. We don't want to scare away the few nerdy small-town kids who could be great at communications and computer systems but are never going to be great warriors. We need to take a flexible approach to training and start molding recruits to take on different roles in the army. Get the smart but less agressive kids onto a different track for support roles. Sure, everybody has to learn to shoot rifles and defend themselves and their unit, but we can have some flexibility in the way we train people. Just my 2 cents thrown into the debate.
I disagree. I was a complete wimpy nerd in high school, but for some reason I wanted to go into the military. I went to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and their boot, called Indocrination or Indoc, was run by the Marine Corp. (I don't know why). We ran twice a day, every day, (except Sunday mornings). We did pushups until we dropped. The midshipmen DI's screamed at us made us put all our clothes on then go into the shower and do pushups in the hot steamy shower in July. This formerly wimpy nerd bulked up and got a lot stronger, etc. The experience changed me quite a bit.
I don't think the military ever forced anyone out. Any weakling or fatbody who really wanted to stay put up with abuse until they could keep up. Once you start keeping up it is a really good feeling.
I disagree. Whatever your MOS might be, a warrior mentality is required to perform mentally as well as physically. These new soldiers today are not nearly as disciplined as they were just ten years ago, and I predict that this will lead to major problems.
I agree with you completely, this is the 21st century and a more hi tech military of geeks and I mean diciplined geeks.
Yes we still need to retrain and mold new recruits in the way to be a cohesive team we may lose more that actually are the types best suited to playing the aptly descibed video game warfare systems like the global Hawks and soon robotic warfare.
I think its a good idea but time will tell, the old timers disagree I know and they think it will weaken our military but that type of training was meant for ground warfare troops of a massed army trading shots for shots or landing on beachheads but warfare isn't like that anymore, our enemy hides, is underground, lives in secret in our neighborhoods.
Whatever it takes to create the best MINDS and Spirit is what I believe in, some if not a majority of recruits really need jarhead bootcamp dicipline, they cannot make anything useful of themselves on their own and thus adopt the military as a family, I know because I've seen it up close in my own family, my brother was a useless shit until he enlisted in the Army, it made him grow up and become an adult, harsh it was but some people have to be directed that way.
What the military needs is the Nintendo era of recruits and the old way of boot camp may very well discourage a lot of really healthy minds. I would rather see a military of competent geeks than a bunch of moron rednecks. Another country may rely upon massed effect like China or Russia but we the US cannot do that so we can make it up in quality if possible, hopefully the programs arn't too soft and PC constrained.