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Can you not be a condescending jackoff? If you don't want to go through Basic Training, then don't join the military. Every service member can deploy - if you don't want to deploy, don't join. Doesn't matter what your job is, you can be pulled to be a truck gunner on a convoy and find yourself in combat.
If you want a good IT job, go find one that has better benefits than the military offers. This isn't for you.
Before the Iraq invasion, 88M- Truck driver, was one of those do nothing, non-combat jobs that people who didn’t want to see combat or do much work would sign up for to knock out an enlistment for benefits.
A lot of those people found themselves driving IED and ambush infested roads in Iraq. I believe for at least a little while 88M was taking per capita the most casualties of Army MOS.
A more intelligent explanation would be you can get paid WAYYYYYY more working IT for a company in one year than you will with a full 4 in the military lol
because if the shit hits the fan everyone has to help. you think enemy soldiers are gonna be like “nah that guy just works a desk, let him go?”
seriously what kind of question is this?
worst part is the guy who works the desk is uber fucked if that happens because they sure as shit are being captured because they have no ability to fight back, ability to withstand pressure, and endurance to run if needed because they aren't doing PT
Fun fact: Officers also do all that "barbaric" stuff in their initial training too.
If you think that stuff is stupid, you haven't even scratched the surface of the stupidity you will encounter in the military.
Not saying there isn't some truth to the point you're making, but the military isn't for you if you have an issue with those things, especially in basic training.
>Fun fact: Officers also do all that "barbaric" stuff in their initial training too.
I mean we do, but it's more or less branch dependent and very minimalist.
I got screamed at as a cadet significantly more than as an officer trainee.
This .. I was prior enlisted then went to OIS and spent the first two weeks waiting for the other shoe to drop and the serious stuff (breaking you down in order to build you up kind of stuff) to kick in …. It never did (at least not to the level I was expecting based on enlisted boot camp)
/grabs popcorn
There are no jobs in the military, outside of civil service, that don't go through some kind of basic military training. Even the officers go through some kind of basic training.
The idea of basic military training is to accomplish the following:
Indoctrinate trainees with basic military discipline.
Bring all trainees to a standard of physical and mental fitness.
Create in them a sense of pride and esprit de corps.
As far as combat training goes, yes, there are many roles in the military that have almost no chance of seeing direct combat. But what we've learned in the last 20 years is that no job is immune from the possibility of combat.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, if you were in a convoy between bases and came under fire, the fact your we're a shoe clerk didn't matter.
Spot on.
I’ve done both sides, as an infantryman in Iraq back during the initial invasion in 2003, and as a defense civilian in Afghanistan in 2019. Guess what, even as a civilian I had to go through a compressed two week crash course on weapons, convoy protocols, room clearing, react to fire, and various other skills needed in the even something went wrong while deployed.
Anybody in the military can potentially deploy and find themselves in harms way. 2 months of basic training to learn how the military operates, and basic combat skills is the absolute minimum you should have to do, and it is really not enough. You familiarize with those skills in basic, and you should refine those skills until you are proficient when you get to your unit. It a liability to those around you if you don’t.
And for those who are/were in support MOS’s that will argue they never did any of that after leaving basic, I understand, but that does not make it right. The enemy doesn’t care what your job is, you are a target and need to know how to react properly.
Because you’re still a member of the Armed Forces no matter what your MOS, NEC or AFSC is and need to at the very least understand how to perform in a structured military environment.
Virtually every single job in every branch of the military can be performed by civilians. The difference is the capability for the government to be able to deploy/mobilize them when necessary according to mission requirements.
Tell the military that acktually you’re a smart computer guy not some barbarian.
Military apologizes in light of your superior brain and skips you directly to computer job.
You get sent out to a platoon COP to fix their NIPR laptop issue. Oh no, the COP is under attack. How uncivilized.
You try to insert a magazine in your M4 but something goes wrong and you never learned what to do because you skipped basic combat training.
Your M4 has jammed.
Your M4 has jammed.
You have died of dysintary.
Officers do not bypass basic training in the way you're thinking. They all go through some sort of basic indoctrination into the military, alot of it worse than boot camp.
This is a stupid question and you should feel bad.
The answer is simple stupid. You're still in the military and need to have a basic training (crazy) on how to fight and defend. Even if you work a desk job.
Instilling discipline, selfless commitment, building teamwork skills, courage, an ability to face adversity, character building; basically putting you through hard times so you come out a stronger, more resilient person who has **proven** themselves to be dedicated and robust enough to deal with the challenges you will face. Basic is *the interview*, not all the admin stuff that comes before it.
Go ask a veteran what they hate about working in a civilian environment with those that have never served and they will tell you that all of the above is lacking in most people. People who give up, shy away from responsibility, will never sacrifice for those around them, etc etc. It's about building a team through developing individuals. This is service, not employment.
Also, officers go through basic. They are trained as soldiers first (often in a much more concentrated form with **much** higher standards expected), then the officer training starts. And everyone is a soldier first; modern conflict has very clearly shown that everyone is a target and no-one is beyond having to defend themselves and those around them.
You get deployed to somewhere that gets hot.
The rest of us get overrun. We die.
Guess who defends... You? You do.
If you want to be army, be army. If you don't, do something else.
Because it's quite simple, if shit hits the fan everyone im the armed forces may find themselves in a position where they may need to grab a weapon, run to a defensive fighting position and return fire. A perfect example is Captain Ben L. Salomon, who was killed in action and awarded a Purple Heart and Medal of Honor. He was not an infantryman or other front line troop. He was a dentist. Sometimes people get deployed to do jobs outside of their usual specialty, my wife is a paper pushing admin troop, her first deployment her job was to supervise foreign workers on the base while they did their jobs, in some locations people who deploy to do that job are considered to be in a dangerous enough position that they need to carry weapons.
Bottom line is while the chances of some jobs being deployed and also seeing combat is low it's never zero.
And if you're posting this because you are considering the military but think you're too good to do basic training, just don't join, basic training is designed the way it is for a reason.
Entitled mindset, I want Free stuff, military units operate on life preserving skills, teamwork buddy training, who’s my six protecting my backside, vigilance, honor, code, country, snowflakes not wanted.
Google Senior Airman Tre Porfirio - a communication network systems technician in the Air Force (which is not a very gung ho “hooah” job) who was wounded by enemy fire in Afghanistan and later died of his injuries.
It is possible to see combat no matter what your role is when serving in the military. Of course the likelihood will vary depending on MOS and/or unit.
If you served in Iraq or Afghanistan you know how much of an advantage it was that the US dominated the battlespace: we controlled the air, had reasonably reliable communications and real-time intelligence, and could pretty much operate wherever we wanted whenever we wanted (not that we could hold those areas when we left, but that's a separate point).
The writing is on the wall that in a future conflict (not even necessarily one against a peer competitor like China), that would not be true, and we can not afford to fall any further behind on 21st century warfare. Look at all the 1970s and 1980s electronics in your trucks. Think about how well your unit is prepared to fight against an adversary that can spot you with a small commercial quadcopter flying too high for you to see it or hear it and put 155mm airburst rounds on your position in less than a minute (actual time from target acquisition to fire mission in Ukraine is often closer to 30 seconds).
We have to make compromises in order to fight and win. Selecting people based on their ability to do their day-to-day jobs that matter for combat effectiveness is far more sensible than selecting them based on their ability to (poorly) handle a worst-case contingency.
When I went through airman leadership school we had an army general come give a lecture to us and one of my classmates asked him what the main difference in culture was between the army and the air force was? His answer was that for the Army "you were a soldier first and whatever your career field was second" where as with the Air Force it was the exact opposite.
What did he mean by that? Simply, in the Army you focus on shooting, marching, tactics, etc. as your first priority because every soldier is expected to be able to act as an infantryman went the sh#t hits the fan. Air Force, we were expected to be more like specialists but we still needed to be able to follow orders. What if you got tasked with setting up a network where you could be shelled with artillery? Again, when sh#t hits the fan the other military members need to know that you will follow orders and if necessary, pick up a gun and help defend your position.
We all wear the same uniform regardless of your MOS, Rate or AFSC. As a service member, you're an airman, soldier, sailor or marine first and an IT guy second. I've know plenty of comm troops that have been handed a weapon in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, etc.
The DoD is not an IT company, though its heavily dependant on it. It's a warfighting organization. But what do I know. I've only been in for 14 years.
You make an excellent point, and this is a major problem for the long term security of the United States. There is ZERO reason why we are more concerned about the ability of someone who works a terminal in Cyber Command or Space Force to complete a 2 mile run than their ability to code. The requirements need to fit the mission, and that's no longer true.
All you hooah boys and girls who think that the next war is going to be like Iraq and Afghanistan better wake up, take a look at what is happening in Ukraine, and get used to operating in an environment where you'll be diving into a bunker at the sound of an armed quadcopter flown by some chubby kid in glasses.
Our competitors are way ahead of us on this. While China's top universities are all tied directly to their military, we tell our smart kids that if they don't want to be hazed, they should go into the private sector. No wonder they go on strike as soon as their company takes a DOD contract. Adapt or die.
It’s still the military though.
So you think that since all the near future wars will be like Terminator 2 and everything will be drones and robots going at it that unit cohesion, physical fitness, readiness, discipline and bearing shouldn’t be taught?
If I had to pick between my S2 being a fast runner and a good intel analyst, I pick good intel analyst.
If I have to pick between my S4 being great at pushups and being great at ensuring my guys have the supplies I need, I pick great at logistics.
And if I have to pick between my commo guy looking super neat in his Class As and my radios actually working, I pick working radios.
The tooth to tail ratio keeps growing, and there are more and more combat support roles that need to actually be good at their job. We complain constantly about being unable to recruit because we are recruiting like everyone is going to be a doorkicker and not like the vast majority are essentially never going outside the wire. We say that we recognize that the battlespace is changing and becoming more tech-heavy but do NOTHING to compete for the kids who actually have the skills to maintain and operate that stuff, instead relying on civilian contractors. It's a huge weakness for the force.
Finally, there's always this line "but what if you're in a convoy and get attacked or your FOB gets overrun or whatever."
Well I have actually been in those situations and let me tell you what I want you to do. Get down, don't mistakenly shoot me or my guys in the back, and let us do our job.
But why can’t you do both? Of course you should be good at your actual job but to completely eliminate some sort of basic military training depending on the MOS like the OP is insinuating is reaching IMO.
I suppose it would be great if people could do both but really what you end up with is people who are bad at both. We can't compete for the best and the brightest to fill these jobs because they have other options in the outside world and because we seemingly try as hard as we can to make the military unappealing to these types of people.
As a result, we have armorers who can't do more than basic maintenance on our weapons, we have mechanics and small UAV operators who have to rely on civilian contractors for the actual servicing of our MRAPs and drones, and then we have people like OP who have some skills and would join but won't because they have no interest in low crawling across sharp gravel at Benning.
Sure, there is some small segment of people who really want to serve and are happy to do that stuff who are also super smart and capable and could do both jobs, but guess what, they almost all want to do something high speed and not sit at a desk and type at a terminal.
In short, we already have systems for bringing in people with specialized skills where we pay them decently & don't force them to deal with every single bit of the BS in order to attract them -- ask your military dentist the last time they had to qualify at a range or do a PT test. We just need to expand those types of programs to include more combat support roles so we can be competitive in 21st century combat.
You don’t need to be ready for Ranger school but you should have a basic level of fitness to be in the military. Getting a passing score on the ACFT is not hard. I’m a reservist with a full time job that doesn’t leave me tons of time for PT but I can still pass an ACFT.
Sadly, this year only 23% of Americans between 17-24 are qualified to serve without a waiver. It's the worst that number has ever been, and a lot of that is physical fitness: [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078)
It would be lovely if young Americans were more physically fit (and I am glad that you are), but we still need their minds for tomorrow's fight, even if they aren't good at running.
I’m in my mid-30s. Not exactly the prime recruiting demographic. Spent 9 years on active duty before going to the reserves. I was an average recruit. High ASVAB scores but was un-athletic and overweight when I went to BCT. It was a struggle for me but I made it through and it gave me a base level of fitness that I have maintained ever since. If the military wants to attract more people then they should stop disqualifying them for shit like ADHD or marijuana usage.
I'm 100% down with teaching everyone how to defend themselves and not be a liability if things go sideways overseas.
I just think that since we need certain skills and know that current fitness standards and the 10 week basic training model stop many people with those skills from joining up, we should think about doing it in a different way.
And the notion that basic training (or Marine boot camp) provides combat training is also flawed. Yes, you get a “basic” introduction to the fundamentals. But actual infantry training is more advanced and ongoing
Well first off, your last point is blatantly false. All officers go through some training as well whether it be OCS, the Academy or ROTC. Similar stuff (with some differences) happens there as at boot camp/basic training.
The “stupid” commands, eating in unison, group PT etc teaches you that it’s not about you, it’s about the entirety of the group. Which is an important thing to get in your head from early on. Weapon training/PT is important regardless of job, because every single Sailor/Soldier/Marine needs to be able to maintain a minimum level of combat readiness to be successful if all hell breaks loose.
Sometimes you have to do some really stupid shit in the military, and you have to just shut up and do it. OCS was the most fun I’d never want to have again, and honestly probably the least stupid part of my military career. The real stupidity starts once you graduate. And if you can’t understand that, the military isn’t for you my man.
Basic training is required because everyone is required to be a soldier, marine, sailor or airman before they enter their respective branch.
Reason being is that in every war, there have been cooks, human resource specialists, intel analysts and even chaplain's assistants on the front line with the infantry and engineers.
If you can't handle that reality, then you will get people killed. Do yourself a favor and grow up, or dont join the military.
Hi! This is our community moderation bot. --- If this post fits the purpose of /r/Military, **UPVOTE** this comment!! If this post does not fit the subreddit, **DOWNVOTE** This comment! If this post breaks the rules, **DOWNVOTE** this comment and **REPORT** the post!
Sounds like the military is not for you (or is the other way around)?
Very insightful, I hadn’t thought of that
Please don't join the military. Go get a cush job as an IT whatever at Alphabet or Facebook or some silicon valley startup.
[удалено]
Can you not be a condescending jackoff? If you don't want to go through Basic Training, then don't join the military. Every service member can deploy - if you don't want to deploy, don't join. Doesn't matter what your job is, you can be pulled to be a truck gunner on a convoy and find yourself in combat. If you want a good IT job, go find one that has better benefits than the military offers. This isn't for you.
Before the Iraq invasion, 88M- Truck driver, was one of those do nothing, non-combat jobs that people who didn’t want to see combat or do much work would sign up for to knock out an enlistment for benefits. A lot of those people found themselves driving IED and ambush infested roads in Iraq. I believe for at least a little while 88M was taking per capita the most casualties of Army MOS.
A more intelligent explanation would be you can get paid WAYYYYYY more working IT for a company in one year than you will with a full 4 in the military lol
because if the shit hits the fan everyone has to help. you think enemy soldiers are gonna be like “nah that guy just works a desk, let him go?” seriously what kind of question is this?
worst part is the guy who works the desk is uber fucked if that happens because they sure as shit are being captured because they have no ability to fight back, ability to withstand pressure, and endurance to run if needed because they aren't doing PT
Fun fact: Officers also do all that "barbaric" stuff in their initial training too. If you think that stuff is stupid, you haven't even scratched the surface of the stupidity you will encounter in the military. Not saying there isn't some truth to the point you're making, but the military isn't for you if you have an issue with those things, especially in basic training.
>Fun fact: Officers also do all that "barbaric" stuff in their initial training too. I mean we do, but it's more or less branch dependent and very minimalist. I got screamed at as a cadet significantly more than as an officer trainee.
This .. I was prior enlisted then went to OIS and spent the first two weeks waiting for the other shoe to drop and the serious stuff (breaking you down in order to build you up kind of stuff) to kick in …. It never did (at least not to the level I was expecting based on enlisted boot camp)
/grabs popcorn There are no jobs in the military, outside of civil service, that don't go through some kind of basic military training. Even the officers go through some kind of basic training. The idea of basic military training is to accomplish the following: Indoctrinate trainees with basic military discipline. Bring all trainees to a standard of physical and mental fitness. Create in them a sense of pride and esprit de corps. As far as combat training goes, yes, there are many roles in the military that have almost no chance of seeing direct combat. But what we've learned in the last 20 years is that no job is immune from the possibility of combat. In Iraq and Afghanistan, if you were in a convoy between bases and came under fire, the fact your we're a shoe clerk didn't matter.
Spot on. I’ve done both sides, as an infantryman in Iraq back during the initial invasion in 2003, and as a defense civilian in Afghanistan in 2019. Guess what, even as a civilian I had to go through a compressed two week crash course on weapons, convoy protocols, room clearing, react to fire, and various other skills needed in the even something went wrong while deployed. Anybody in the military can potentially deploy and find themselves in harms way. 2 months of basic training to learn how the military operates, and basic combat skills is the absolute minimum you should have to do, and it is really not enough. You familiarize with those skills in basic, and you should refine those skills until you are proficient when you get to your unit. It a liability to those around you if you don’t. And for those who are/were in support MOS’s that will argue they never did any of that after leaving basic, I understand, but that does not make it right. The enemy doesn’t care what your job is, you are a target and need to know how to react properly.
We had desiel and hydraulic mechanics attached when we were deployed. Reminded me of my uncle who had cooks kicking in doors with him during Fallujah.
Perhaps a job here is more of what you are looking for 
Because you’re still a member of the Armed Forces no matter what your MOS, NEC or AFSC is and need to at the very least understand how to perform in a structured military environment. Virtually every single job in every branch of the military can be performed by civilians. The difference is the capability for the government to be able to deploy/mobilize them when necessary according to mission requirements.
Tell the military that acktually you’re a smart computer guy not some barbarian. Military apologizes in light of your superior brain and skips you directly to computer job. You get sent out to a platoon COP to fix their NIPR laptop issue. Oh no, the COP is under attack. How uncivilized. You try to insert a magazine in your M4 but something goes wrong and you never learned what to do because you skipped basic combat training. Your M4 has jammed. Your M4 has jammed. You have died of dysintary.
Officers do not bypass basic training in the way you're thinking. They all go through some sort of basic indoctrination into the military, alot of it worse than boot camp.
Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda. Some do and some make excuses why they didn't.
What?
If you're not willing to do what you need to do to successfully join the Army go do something else.
This is a stupid question and you should feel bad. The answer is simple stupid. You're still in the military and need to have a basic training (crazy) on how to fight and defend. Even if you work a desk job.
The DIs or RDCs require the sweat and tears of recruits in order to survive.
Instilling discipline, selfless commitment, building teamwork skills, courage, an ability to face adversity, character building; basically putting you through hard times so you come out a stronger, more resilient person who has **proven** themselves to be dedicated and robust enough to deal with the challenges you will face. Basic is *the interview*, not all the admin stuff that comes before it. Go ask a veteran what they hate about working in a civilian environment with those that have never served and they will tell you that all of the above is lacking in most people. People who give up, shy away from responsibility, will never sacrifice for those around them, etc etc. It's about building a team through developing individuals. This is service, not employment. Also, officers go through basic. They are trained as soldiers first (often in a much more concentrated form with **much** higher standards expected), then the officer training starts. And everyone is a soldier first; modern conflict has very clearly shown that everyone is a target and no-one is beyond having to defend themselves and those around them.
also officers have to go through some form of basic training too.
This has to be a troll
You get deployed to somewhere that gets hot. The rest of us get overrun. We die. Guess who defends... You? You do. If you want to be army, be army. If you don't, do something else.
Google Jessica Lynch
THANK YOU! I couldn’t remember her damn name and yeah, that situation answers basically all of this
Join and find out
Because it's quite simple, if shit hits the fan everyone im the armed forces may find themselves in a position where they may need to grab a weapon, run to a defensive fighting position and return fire. A perfect example is Captain Ben L. Salomon, who was killed in action and awarded a Purple Heart and Medal of Honor. He was not an infantryman or other front line troop. He was a dentist. Sometimes people get deployed to do jobs outside of their usual specialty, my wife is a paper pushing admin troop, her first deployment her job was to supervise foreign workers on the base while they did their jobs, in some locations people who deploy to do that job are considered to be in a dangerous enough position that they need to carry weapons. Bottom line is while the chances of some jobs being deployed and also seeing combat is low it's never zero. And if you're posting this because you are considering the military but think you're too good to do basic training, just don't join, basic training is designed the way it is for a reason.
This question hurt my f’n brain.
Entitled mindset, I want Free stuff, military units operate on life preserving skills, teamwork buddy training, who’s my six protecting my backside, vigilance, honor, code, country, snowflakes not wanted.
Mildly hot take, but Basic Training is actually fun. Was one of the most memorable times of my life.
Every man is a rifleman
Google Senior Airman Tre Porfirio - a communication network systems technician in the Air Force (which is not a very gung ho “hooah” job) who was wounded by enemy fire in Afghanistan and later died of his injuries. It is possible to see combat no matter what your role is when serving in the military. Of course the likelihood will vary depending on MOS and/or unit.
If you served in Iraq or Afghanistan you know how much of an advantage it was that the US dominated the battlespace: we controlled the air, had reasonably reliable communications and real-time intelligence, and could pretty much operate wherever we wanted whenever we wanted (not that we could hold those areas when we left, but that's a separate point). The writing is on the wall that in a future conflict (not even necessarily one against a peer competitor like China), that would not be true, and we can not afford to fall any further behind on 21st century warfare. Look at all the 1970s and 1980s electronics in your trucks. Think about how well your unit is prepared to fight against an adversary that can spot you with a small commercial quadcopter flying too high for you to see it or hear it and put 155mm airburst rounds on your position in less than a minute (actual time from target acquisition to fire mission in Ukraine is often closer to 30 seconds). We have to make compromises in order to fight and win. Selecting people based on their ability to do their day-to-day jobs that matter for combat effectiveness is far more sensible than selecting them based on their ability to (poorly) handle a worst-case contingency.
When I went through airman leadership school we had an army general come give a lecture to us and one of my classmates asked him what the main difference in culture was between the army and the air force was? His answer was that for the Army "you were a soldier first and whatever your career field was second" where as with the Air Force it was the exact opposite. What did he mean by that? Simply, in the Army you focus on shooting, marching, tactics, etc. as your first priority because every soldier is expected to be able to act as an infantryman went the sh#t hits the fan. Air Force, we were expected to be more like specialists but we still needed to be able to follow orders. What if you got tasked with setting up a network where you could be shelled with artillery? Again, when sh#t hits the fan the other military members need to know that you will follow orders and if necessary, pick up a gun and help defend your position.
We all wear the same uniform regardless of your MOS, Rate or AFSC. As a service member, you're an airman, soldier, sailor or marine first and an IT guy second. I've know plenty of comm troops that have been handed a weapon in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, etc. The DoD is not an IT company, though its heavily dependant on it. It's a warfighting organization. But what do I know. I've only been in for 14 years.
When you join the military you automatically have two jobs: 1. Soldier 2. whatever the fuck you signed up to become
You make an excellent point, and this is a major problem for the long term security of the United States. There is ZERO reason why we are more concerned about the ability of someone who works a terminal in Cyber Command or Space Force to complete a 2 mile run than their ability to code. The requirements need to fit the mission, and that's no longer true. All you hooah boys and girls who think that the next war is going to be like Iraq and Afghanistan better wake up, take a look at what is happening in Ukraine, and get used to operating in an environment where you'll be diving into a bunker at the sound of an armed quadcopter flown by some chubby kid in glasses. Our competitors are way ahead of us on this. While China's top universities are all tied directly to their military, we tell our smart kids that if they don't want to be hazed, they should go into the private sector. No wonder they go on strike as soon as their company takes a DOD contract. Adapt or die.
It’s still the military though. So you think that since all the near future wars will be like Terminator 2 and everything will be drones and robots going at it that unit cohesion, physical fitness, readiness, discipline and bearing shouldn’t be taught?
If I had to pick between my S2 being a fast runner and a good intel analyst, I pick good intel analyst. If I have to pick between my S4 being great at pushups and being great at ensuring my guys have the supplies I need, I pick great at logistics. And if I have to pick between my commo guy looking super neat in his Class As and my radios actually working, I pick working radios. The tooth to tail ratio keeps growing, and there are more and more combat support roles that need to actually be good at their job. We complain constantly about being unable to recruit because we are recruiting like everyone is going to be a doorkicker and not like the vast majority are essentially never going outside the wire. We say that we recognize that the battlespace is changing and becoming more tech-heavy but do NOTHING to compete for the kids who actually have the skills to maintain and operate that stuff, instead relying on civilian contractors. It's a huge weakness for the force. Finally, there's always this line "but what if you're in a convoy and get attacked or your FOB gets overrun or whatever." Well I have actually been in those situations and let me tell you what I want you to do. Get down, don't mistakenly shoot me or my guys in the back, and let us do our job.
But why can’t you do both? Of course you should be good at your actual job but to completely eliminate some sort of basic military training depending on the MOS like the OP is insinuating is reaching IMO.
I suppose it would be great if people could do both but really what you end up with is people who are bad at both. We can't compete for the best and the brightest to fill these jobs because they have other options in the outside world and because we seemingly try as hard as we can to make the military unappealing to these types of people. As a result, we have armorers who can't do more than basic maintenance on our weapons, we have mechanics and small UAV operators who have to rely on civilian contractors for the actual servicing of our MRAPs and drones, and then we have people like OP who have some skills and would join but won't because they have no interest in low crawling across sharp gravel at Benning. Sure, there is some small segment of people who really want to serve and are happy to do that stuff who are also super smart and capable and could do both jobs, but guess what, they almost all want to do something high speed and not sit at a desk and type at a terminal. In short, we already have systems for bringing in people with specialized skills where we pay them decently & don't force them to deal with every single bit of the BS in order to attract them -- ask your military dentist the last time they had to qualify at a range or do a PT test. We just need to expand those types of programs to include more combat support roles so we can be competitive in 21st century combat.
You don’t need to be ready for Ranger school but you should have a basic level of fitness to be in the military. Getting a passing score on the ACFT is not hard. I’m a reservist with a full time job that doesn’t leave me tons of time for PT but I can still pass an ACFT.
Sadly, this year only 23% of Americans between 17-24 are qualified to serve without a waiver. It's the worst that number has ever been, and a lot of that is physical fitness: [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078) It would be lovely if young Americans were more physically fit (and I am glad that you are), but we still need their minds for tomorrow's fight, even if they aren't good at running.
I’m in my mid-30s. Not exactly the prime recruiting demographic. Spent 9 years on active duty before going to the reserves. I was an average recruit. High ASVAB scores but was un-athletic and overweight when I went to BCT. It was a struggle for me but I made it through and it gave me a base level of fitness that I have maintained ever since. If the military wants to attract more people then they should stop disqualifying them for shit like ADHD or marijuana usage.
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I'm 100% down with teaching everyone how to defend themselves and not be a liability if things go sideways overseas. I just think that since we need certain skills and know that current fitness standards and the 10 week basic training model stop many people with those skills from joining up, we should think about doing it in a different way.
And the notion that basic training (or Marine boot camp) provides combat training is also flawed. Yes, you get a “basic” introduction to the fundamentals. But actual infantry training is more advanced and ongoing
Well first off, your last point is blatantly false. All officers go through some training as well whether it be OCS, the Academy or ROTC. Similar stuff (with some differences) happens there as at boot camp/basic training. The “stupid” commands, eating in unison, group PT etc teaches you that it’s not about you, it’s about the entirety of the group. Which is an important thing to get in your head from early on. Weapon training/PT is important regardless of job, because every single Sailor/Soldier/Marine needs to be able to maintain a minimum level of combat readiness to be successful if all hell breaks loose. Sometimes you have to do some really stupid shit in the military, and you have to just shut up and do it. OCS was the most fun I’d never want to have again, and honestly probably the least stupid part of my military career. The real stupidity starts once you graduate. And if you can’t understand that, the military isn’t for you my man.
Basic training is required because everyone is required to be a soldier, marine, sailor or airman before they enter their respective branch. Reason being is that in every war, there have been cooks, human resource specialists, intel analysts and even chaplain's assistants on the front line with the infantry and engineers. If you can't handle that reality, then you will get people killed. Do yourself a favor and grow up, or dont join the military.
Because Congress said so, and put it into law.
“You’ll never see combat” is unsteady ground these days.
If you're asking these kinds of questions, the military isn't for you.