FM 3-27.75 The Warrior Ethos and Soldier Combat Skills

[Eden]

Recently, while we were discussing how to avoid deployments and having our nails done, a group of us staff officers talked smoothly about the subject of this thread. The rest of them being afraid to go public, I was nominated to defend the "Warrior ethos".

I was involved with basic training just after 9/11 and during the first part of OEF. It stunned me the number of recruits we had who had never:

1. Been in a fight.
2. Touched a weapon.
3. Exerted themselves physically.
4. Experienced muscle soreness.
5. Played organized sports after the 6th grade.

Now, these were in the minority, but it was a sizeable minority. There were a lot of Klingon-speaking, Doom-playing, Rambo-wannabes who had watched the entire Star Wars cycle but had never been challenged physically, mentally, or spiritually. Moreover, they had been raised to think that effort was just as admirable as success, and winning isn't everything. Well, in war, as Al Davis said, "It is whether you win or lose."

Basic training did challenge these folks - in some ways - but there was a lot of restraint imposed. Drill sergeants were warned about placing undue stress on the 'soldiers' - you couldn't call them recruits; I remember one who tried to motivate his charges by offering to have sex with their craniums should they fail; he disappeared overnight. The obstacle course was nicknamed Disneyland, because it offered the illusion of peril while being so padded, prtoected, and otherwise watered-down that it was pretty much impossible to hurt yourself.

The amazing thing is that a lot of these kids felt cheated when they graduated. They'd seen and keyed themselves up for Full Metal Jacket and found Gomer Pyle instead. They wanted to feel as if they'd come through a crucible, not just had the officially-approved 'Crucible Experience'.

Anyway, that was probably the end of the pendulum swing, and we tried to make basic better by reintroducing hand-to-hand combat, spending more time in the field, making the O-course a little more threatening, etc. It wasn't much, but we were fighting a deeply entrenched 'safety' and 'respect' culture. I hope even more progress has been made since I departed.

So cut the Courtney Massengales of the world some slack. Sure, its a little corny, and we don't really want to produce ravening Huns, and true warriors make crappy soldiers, by and large. But I for one am glad to see the institutional army turning (even if only tentatively) toward reinstilling the idea that being a soldier means something more than learning a trade and big bonuses

[slapout9]

Eden, did you see any Mall Nijas?

[120mm]

So cut the Courtney Massengales of the world some slack. Sure, its a little corny, and we don't really want to produce ravening Huns, and true warriors make crappy soldiers, by and large. But I for one am glad to see the institutional army turning (even if only tentatively) toward reinstilling the idea that being a soldier means something more than learning a trade and big bonuses

I'm glad the Army is making the effort. I work at a CTC, and I can tell you that everyone I know is making leaps and bounds toward at least making an effort to change how we do things. But the non-combat arms types are waaaay behind the curve, when it gets down to rationalizing processes in what they do. When I talk to a combat arms-type, I get specifics and metrics. When I talk to a CSS type, I get Jedi-hand waves, generalizations and waffling.

Just to redirect, I don't think we, as an Army should put any effort at all into producing "ravening huns". What we should be focusing on, is getting rid of "sloppy" and producing "conscientious." And instilling a "Warrior Ethos" actually is going in the wrong direction!!!

BTW, Eden, that was a brilliant post. It's not often I get a belly-laugh like that from an actual informative-type post.

[Eden]

Eden, did you see any Mall Nijas?

No. I believe the Navy has dibs on Mall Ninjas

[marct]

Hi Eden,

The amazing thing is that a lot of these kids felt cheated when they graduated. They'd seen and keyed themselves up for Full Metal Jacket and found Gomer Pyle instead. They wanted to feel as if they'd come through a crucible, not just had the officially-approved 'Crucible Experience'.

Absolutely fantastic post! It puts me in mind of one of my favorite short stories. Honestly, I don't find it surprising that the kids felt cheated at the watered down, PC version of their training; I've seen and heard the same thing from students in many undergrad programs.

[Steve Blair]

We see this in AFROTC frequently as well. The kids come here expecting (or hoping) to be challenged and instead get canned versions of how the AF won every war since flight began. We lose people to the Army because the Army goes out in the woods and shoots at each other with paintballs. To them, that's military activity. I suspect if we had Navy ROTC closer to us, we'd lose even more to them (the amount of activities they have for cadets is unreal...you can't dangle a possible ride in a tanker in front of a kid who has a chance to do a summer exchange cruise with the Japanese navy or go to the USMC Mountain Warfare School). Yet getting anyone to add anything even remotely challenging (to include simple things like a map exercise) is worse than extracting a tooth from a polar bear with a pair of tweezers.

[Tom Odom]

What you guys are talking about are rights of passage and we have tried to stamp out any hint that such things take place. Unfortunately we have ignored two trendss:

a. They are inevitable in the bonding process

b. They do weed out the wannabes

[marct]

Hi Tom,

What you guys are talking about are rights of passage and we have tried to stamp out any hint that such things take place. Unfortunately we have ignored two trends:

a. They are inevitable in the bonding process

b. They do weed out the wannabes

Well, I wasn't going to mention that term but, yes, that's it exactly. BTW, a couple of other points about rights of passage:

1. They are "elitist" in the sense that they serve as a method of showing that people are not equal.
2. They are universal in human cultures and, when they have been suppressed or disappeared, they will spontaneously arise to fulfill specific new needs (large parts of my dissertation was about this).
3. Properly constructed rights of passage reconfigure brain neurology, setting a pattern for current and future learning and perception.
4. They, or something like them, appear to be hard-wired into our neural systems; something the PC social science crowd with its generic hatred of biology just cannot accept.

Marc

[Tom Odom]

Hi Tom,



Well, I wasn't going to mention that term but, yes, that's it exactly. BTW, a couple of other points about rights of passage:

1. They are "elitist" in the sense that they serve as a method of showing that people are not equal.
2. They are universal in human cultures and, when they have been suppressed or disappeared, they will spontaneously arise to fulfill specific new needs (large parts of my dissertation was about this).
3. Properly constructed rights of passage reconfigure brain neurology, setting a pattern for current and future learning and perception.
4. They, or something like them, appear to be hard-wired into our neural systems; something the PC social science crowd with its generic hatred of biology just cannot accept.

Marc

Anthro minor at work--plus earlier life as a cadet at Texas A&M

[selil]

My only military claim to fame is that I've been through both Army basic training, and Marine Corps boot camp. Older, slower, fatter, and balder I will always know that I've succeeded at those two worthy challenges.

Whether triumphing or simply enduring at a challenge it shapes a persons character for a life time. To water down or remove the challenge from those experiences at which many people have failed is to denigrate the history and traditions of military service.

Perhaps it is a politically incorrect right of passage, and perhaps it is a barrier to success not all will pass. More important than either of those criticisms is that it is a taste of truly earned success for the participant. No nannyism, no political correctness, simplistic in it's form the challenge is endured and earned.

To take on the mantle of warrior or soldier is to adopt a profession that will exist in highly restrictive rules of engagement, moral and technical challenges, and physical and psychologically abusive environments. It is a disservice to young men and women to pass them through a system unprepared and without the knowledge they too can endure that which would crush the unprepared.

We can not allow a slovenly few to ruin an institution where the silent majority would still succeed. Petty stories of unprepared youth showing up for the tribulations of basic training does not absolve us from our duty to pass or fail them on a set of standards. The job of the training commands is to prepare them and if that is difficult, if the youth do not have the skills, if there is no background for the skills to be attained, if their physical fitness is a challenge to training, we should look at the training commands and inquire why they exist with those barriers to entry.

It is the job of the training commands to create the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the recruits not to criticize the level of knowledge or physical prowess the recruits have upon entry. If it is difficult or changes the scope or length of training required don't let false expectations of "time to train" water down the expected learning outcomes.

A military anywhere in the world has past soldiers, current soldiers, and future soldiers and is evaluated upon the measures of the individuals as they interact within society and in society's best interests. The soldiers of today should have training that is more exacting, more intense, and requiring more knowledge not less. Progress is about advancement and we owe it to the future members of the military to inject the values of previous generations of soldiers into the soldiers of the future.

[Germ]

I'm glad the Army is making the effort. I work at a CTC, and I can tell you that everyone I know is making leaps and bounds toward at least making an effort to change how we do things. But the non-combat arms types are waaaay behind the curve, when it gets down to rationalizing processes in what they do. When I talk to a combat arms-type, I get specifics and metrics. When I talk to a CSS type, I get Jedi-hand waves, generalizations and waffling.
.

I'm with the many above in applauding Eden's post. I heard General Shinseki speak several years ago. He commented that he loved being Chief of Staff but would rather be Commandant of the Marine Corps. He further explained that he envied the Commandant, who did not have to contend with several corps, each with its own subculture and rice bowl. He found it exceedingly difficult to steer the institution known as the Army, where his counterpart in the Corps had no such trouble.

The crux of the problem lies in part in 120mm's observation above, but also in the very fact that soldiers look over a corps fence at each other in the first place. That identity piece, the wholeness of the army as a single culture, that is one heck of a difficult thing to wrestle.

Given the many influences towards different points of view in the army's diverse corps and MOSs, how does the Army best maintain and strengthen what it has of a single culture?

[Norfolk]

Unless, just as the USMC does, every Army in the English-speaking world compells all recruits and officer cadets to endure and pass Infantry training immediately after basic training (and holding them to solid standards all the while), then a "Warrior Ethos" drive will only last for a few or several years before it peters out and fades away - and leaving little real significant change in its wake. In the early 1990's, after PC considerations compelled the Canadian Army to ditch standards in the Infantry such as the 2x10 (two ten-mile approach marches on back-to-back days, each performed with full kit within two hours) and achieving a Marksman's rating, "Warrior Training", alleging derived from the Marine example, was instituted, and on Unit training time.

Basically, it tried to bring all the non-Infantry and especially non-CA types up to roughly the same standards as what were officially now set for the Infantry, such as an 8 mile march with full kit within 2 hours, 26 minutes, and adding to that a 2-mile "forced" march within 22 minutes with boots, helmet, webbing and rifle, followed by a 100 m casualty carry. Other former standards, such as Marksman for the Infantry, had been replaced by substantially lower common standards for all, and with most infantry light weapons - rifle (carbine for some Armour), LMG, GPMG in the Light Role, 60 mm mortar in the hand-held role, LAW, Carl G, Claymore, Elsie landmine (now banned of course), etc., and some basic fieldcraft tests. The standards were so mediocre that "Warrior Training" was given up, and the old 10 week Recruit course followed by Basic Trade Training (the Infantry Course, for example, was 17 weeks extra) was given up. Now, the Recruit course is 13 weeks, and everyone has to attend the 10-week Soldier course immediately afterwards, where some basic infantry skills are actually taught to all arms, for a total of 23 weeks of initial entry training. Not great, but better than "Warrior Training". Infantry attend an additrional 10 weeks of basic infantry training, for a total of 33 weeks intial entry training (a little overdone when we used to get it done in 27 weeks to rather higher standards years ago).

"Warrior Ethos", as others have explained rather better, is at least a recognition that there is a significant problem amongst non-CA types with regards to their fighting abilities. But as the Marines' example best demonstrates, unless you go whole hog and put all recruits and officer candidates through full-fledged infantry training prior to sending them on to their basic trade/MOS speciality training, that common core of both identity and basic fighting skills will be wanting. An identity and an ethos of everyone being a Rifleman - however much that varies in reality), has served the USMC well. Armies might do well to follow the Marine example, and having passed a solid Infantry syllabus gives a soldier a sense of common identity with others who have passed the same ordeal, and a sense of self-confidence to go with it, that forms the basis of a true and enduring Soldier Ethos.

Eden: The U.S. Army has done the Canadian Army a good turn or two by allowing one of our Generals to hold one of the two DCG slots at III Corps; any chance you could take DCO slot in a Canadian Brigade or at least a Battalion Command?

[JHR]

Properly done, the USMC is not just right of passage but also resocialization, at least for most. Count the bumper stickers and window decals for further proof.

JHR

[marct]

Hi JHR,

Properly done, the USMC is not just right of passage but also resocialization, at least for most. Count the bumper stickers and window decals for further proof.

Tom and I were using Anthropology short hand - "rights of passage" are "resocialization", in the Anthro model, as well as a complete psychological reconfiguration . It's actually a very well thought out and tested model that, unfortunately, has entered into general use without all of the details .

Marc

[Eden]

Quote Originally posted by Norfolk

Eden: The U.S. Army has done the Canadian Army a good turn or two by allowing one of our Generals to hold one of the two DCG slots at III Corps; any chance you could take DCO slot in a Canadian Brigade or at least a Battalion Command?

Sorry, I turned in my uniform about six months ago. Though I am a Canadian-American! My mother was Canadian and one paternal grandfather also. We dress the kids up in national costume (wooly cap with ear flaps, plaid felt shirts, snow pants with braces) every Victoria Day, but they have largely rejected their ethnic heritage.

One anal retentive note. Um...I'm not a professional anthropologist, but aren't they 'rites' of passage?

Norfolk: I had the privelege of working with some Canadian officers during the 2006 battles around Kandahar, which for short bursts were high intensity by any measure. How has the Canadian Army evaluated its 'warriorhood' in light of that performance?

[Norfolk]

Hi Eden,

Well, I too am out of uniform, and have been for a very long time now. But from what I gather, the main lessons learned were to bring back MBTs and tracked APCs, supported by organic Artillery, operating as a Combined-Arms Battle Group. LAVs out, heavy armour back in; but UAVs and helicopter lift were identified also as being desperately needed - they're going to lease UAVs, from the Germans apparently, and they're hoping to piggy-back their helo requirements on the backs of the MEU that's arriving, as their own won't arrive for a couple more years.

In short, it all seems to be about heavier equipment and a return to full-fledged Combined-Arms ops. Second Panjwai, where the LAVs got stuck when a Rifle Company of 1RCR was lured into and ambushed in a village, was the tipping point, when it became clear that the SBCT-style configuration wasn't going to cut it in a stand-up toe-to-toe more or less conventional pitched battle. I don't think that there has been a dramatic change in the training syllabus; I think that preceded OP MEDUSA by a couple years. But Battle Innoculation was reintroduced for Afghanistan in just the past few years; can't say whether it preceded or resulted from the events of Second Panjwai.

[Rifleman]

On a separate but related note: even the cops are "warriors" now; you see, I just got back from a Dave Grossman seminar and it was "warrior" this and "warrior" that.

I did come away from the seminar with a few good things; yet, I didn't buy it all and I wasn't deeply moved the way some cops seem to be after hearing him speak.

Overall impression about Grossman: favorable, although he tries to be a little too melodramatic in his presentation style.

[CR6]

Overall impression about Grossman: favorable, although he tries to be a little too melodramatic in his presentation style.

I got a lot out of reading "On Combat" in terms of mental preparation for being in combat zone, however I can see how Grossman might come across as overly dramatic. His writing style is sincere and enthusiastic. It may not translate as such in person.

[Ken White]

He does do a good job of writing but I can believe the over dramatic; applying warrior to a working cop isn't all that smart, IMO.

[Tom Odom]

He does do a good job of writing but I can believe the over dramatic; applying warrior to a working cop isn't all that smart, IMO.

Ken,

I just had visions of a classic Viking with a blue tunic and a battle axe...

I would agree it would definitely send mixed signals

best

Tom