Posted on 04/28/2019 4:20:34 PM PDT by SMGFan
I spent a year in Great Lakes, and came away wondering why the hell people live there? Here in San Diego, I have a few friends from there, WI, MN, etc, and let’s just say none of them have any intention to move back...
There were 4 guys who died while I was in basic training. It was meningitis. I don’t even know for sure that it made local news. It probably did, I just don’t know for sure.
What draft? The one that ended shortly after I was inducted after enlisting instead of getting drafted in 1967? Which was before what I consider to be the “modern military”. The draft culled men from across socio-economic lines from the inner city ghetto boys to the upper crust trust fund screw ups. Everybody was thrown into the same basic training and came out of it in much better shape than they were in when inducted and came out a good bit more humble, too. Of the thousands of recruits I joined in San Diego in 1967, I don’t recall seeing more than a real small percentage who were sickly or obese. Nowadays, it seems like the obese are prevalent in the all-volunteer military. Something doesn’t add up.
I was responding to someone who wanted to bring back the draft. My comment stands
I went thru Navy bootcamp in Orlando...June, July & August. Guys were dropping like flies on the Grinder (concrete parade ground). It was brutal heat.
Terrible. Probably a pre existing issue that nobody caught. Full military funeral.
You wrote “the draft is” when perhaps you meant “the draft would be” since there is currently no draft.
For many it is the first time for strenuous activity. I went into basic training in January after playing college football that previous fall. I didn’t have a problem.
Time to reintroduce PE in school. There is a minimum year or two but training and fitness should be every year. About 3 years ago I witnessed an Aussie school girl at a fair in the U.S. walk up to the Marine recuiting booth, jump up to the pull up bar and started cranking pullups. She stopped at about 30 or so. The Marines were impressed. I don’t think they see that too often.
If you recall when someone ran the staff duty’s on/off road bike up the flagpole at C&E Schools, that wasn’t me.
The fifty pieces of take out chicken from Chicken on the Run called in for him might have been...
...I don’t even remember what made us so mad.
A blown out knee and bicuspid aortic valve shut down my son’s plans for joining the military.
My tough-as-nails husband thought I was over-reacting when my son complained of chest pains and I wanted the cardiologist to check him. My son was only 5 at the time and my husband chalked it up to growing pains. My mommy radar told me it was something more serious.
I was right.
We are lucky we detected it early; sadly, lots of parents are not. He will need surgery in his 30s to replace it.
I’ve seen several videos of soccer players dropping dead on the pitch.
I always remember as a kid the day that Chuck Hughes, the Lions WR dropped dead on the field, that memory still haunts me.
And Hank Gaithers also comes to mind. Although IIRC Gaithers stopped taking his meds, which probably contributed to his death.
In almost all of those cases it was a heart-defect they were born with, and there was nothing they could do.
Retired Air Force. I was a runner before I went to basic, so I was in good shape for Lackland. Back in those days, the annual Air Force PFF consisted of a yearly 1 1/2 mile run; it wasn’t unusual to watch people chain-smoking before they embarked on their annual run. During basic, I remember watching our TI’s (training instructors) smoking on the side of the PT pad while other TIs led us through exercises and training runs. Of course, our training was nothing compared to what Army and Marine Corps recruits endured, but on occasion, a recruit would die during basic.
Even in the era when I began my military career (early 80s), most USMC recruiters ran PT prep sessions ahead of basic. Most still do it to this day. After all, it doesn’t look good for a recruiter if many of the kids they send to basic never get that Globe and Anchor.
I was actually at the C&E school during that time (Aviation Radio Repair for my 5937 MOS). One of my most vivid memories was pulling guard duty at the building where they had the crypto equipment, surrounded by a 15-foot high chain link fence. Was told there was a secret submarine base and that I should be on alert for Russian spies. Imagine that, a secret submarine base in the middle of the Mojave desert! I was only 90% convinced it was a newbie prank. The other 10% of me was on the lookout for the Russians so I had a heightened awareness marching around the building in the middle of those hot desert nights.
How about you just calm down and drink your cocoa
Sorry for her and her family’s loss. Sad that it turned out this way.
S happens.
I would be interested to know how many men drop dead at some point in basic training.
Found this, and it’s interesting.
1977 - 2001
Traumatic deaths during U.S. Armed Forces basic training, 1977-2001.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
A Recruit Mortality Registry, linked to the Department of Defense Medical Mortality Registry, was created to provide comprehensive medical surveillance data for deaths occurring during enlisted basic military training.
METHODS:
Recruit deaths from 1977 through 2001 were identified and confirmed through redundant sources. Complete demographic, circumstantial, and medical information was sought for each case and recorded on an abstraction form. Mortality rates per 100,000 recruit-years were calculated by using recruit accession data from the Defense Manpower Data Center.
RESULTS:
There were 276 recruit deaths from 1977 through 2001 and age-specific recruit mortality rates were less than half of same-age U.S. civilian mortality rates. Only 28% (77 of 276) of recruit deaths were classified as traumatic (suicide, unintentional injury, and homicide), in comparison to three quarters in both the overall active duty military population and the U.S. civilian population (ages 15-34 years). The age-adjusted traumatic death rates were highest in the Army (four times higher than the Navy and Air Force, and 80% higher than the Marine Corps). The majority (60%) of traumatic deaths was due to suicide, followed by unintentional injuries (35%), and homicide (5%). The overall age-adjusted traumatic mortality rate was more than triple for men compared with women in all military services (rate ratio=3.9; p=0.01).
CONCLUSIONS:
There was a lower proportion of traumatic deaths in recruits compared to the overall active duty military population and same-age U.S. civilian population. This finding could be attributed to close supervision, emphasis on safety, and lack of access to alcohol and motor vehicles during recruit training.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15026098
Nontraumatic deaths during U.S. Armed Forces basic training, 1977-2001.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
A Recruit Mortality Registry, linked to the Department of Defense Medical Mortality Registry, was created to provide comprehensive medical surveillance data for deaths occurring during enlisted basic military training.
METHODS:
Recruit deaths from 1977 through 2001 were identified and confirmed through redundant sources. Complete demographic, circumstantial, and medical information was sought for each case and recorded on an abstraction form. Mortality rates per 100,000 recruit-years were calculated by using recruit accession data from the Defense Manpower Data Center.
RESULTS:
There were 276 recruit deaths from 1977 through 2001 and age-specific recruit mortality rates were less than half of same-age U.S. civilian mortality rates. The majority (72%) of recruit deaths were classified as nontraumatic and 70% of these deaths (139 of 199) were related to exercise. Of the exercise-related deaths, 59 (42%) were cardiac deaths, and heat stress was a primary or contributory cause in at least 46 (33%). Infectious agents accounted for only 49 (25%) of the nontraumatic deaths. Nontraumatic death rates increased with age (rate ratio is 2.5 for 25+ v <25 years; p<0.001). The age- and gender-adjusted nontraumatic death rates were 2.6 times higher for African American than non-African American recruits (p<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS:
Although recruit mortality rates are lower than the same-age U.S. civilian population, preventive measures focused on reducing heat stress during exercise might be effective in decreasing the high proportion of exercise-related death. The availability of 25 years of comprehensive recruit mortality data will permit the ongoing evaluation of cause-of-death trends, effectiveness of preventive measures, and identification of emerging threats during basic military training.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15026099
My hubby tells the story about being in the Air Force during cigarette breaks. He said those that didn’t smoke had to clean up other people’s butts so that’s when he started to smoke.
I remember Gathers very well. I was a Senior that year. I remember Bo Kimble with the lefty free throw...
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