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In 1972 i attended basic training in the US Army. The first week I was sent to a race relations seminar. I was placed in a subgroup of perhaps 12 trainees. The moderator was a black SFC (E-7). The SFC and the black trainee of the group commenced to tell the white trainees what horrible people we were. I was on active duty for 4 years and every year we had one of these little barn dances. My Company Commander in Berlin said to me that everybody in company got along fine until the annual race relations seminar. Each year they were more contentious. Most of the white soldiers despised these things and I am resentful to this day.

In 1972 i attended basic training in the US Army.

Mine was in 1966. They made it clear that the only color was to be Army green but I don't recall any browbeating.

One area where race came up was in camouflage and concealment. They informed us that there is no color after dark and that dark skin would not keep any of us safer at night. To demonstrate, they showed a film of a white and a black soldier at night and showed that it is skin oil that will give you away if that oil reflects any light. I've since wondered if training has become too PC to pass on that valuable lesson.

I’m currently in the Regular Army, and we have our little EO kumbaya sessions every quarter. We do less combat oriented training (basic soldier skills) than that. I’m a POG, and I know it, but we spend and excessive amount of time training on nonsense like that.

In 1972 i attended basic training in the US Army. The first week I was sent to a race relations seminar. I was placed in a subgroup of perhaps 12 trainees. The moderator was a black SFC (E-7). The SFC and the black trainee of the group commenced to tell the white trainees what horrible people we were. I was on active duty for 4 years and every year we had one of these little barn dances. My Company Commander in Berlin said to me that everybody in company got along fine until the annual race relations seminar. Each year they were more contentious. Most of the white soldiers despised these things and I am resentful to this day.

I've had a few experiences like that myself back around 73. A black female PFC complained because she got a traffic ticket on post because she was black and the MP was white. The instructor asked the rest of the room (who was white) how many got traffic tickets in the last 6 months we've gotten and the whole room raised their hands, all from the same black MP. Another forced reeducation opportunity involved the post commander attending as the instructor. A black soldier complained that his direct supervisor was lazy and incompetent and he was doing his supervisors job, so the Commander recommended him for promotion after he told the class immediately that he was.
I had a white draftee in one of my units that said "off the cuff" one day, "you know, I never knew what racism was until I attended a race relations class". I replied "look around you, five years from now they will all be Staff Sergeant Majors, the PT test will be very important on the evaluation reports and the MOS test will be dropped completely.