Experience Trumps Training or Training Trumps Experience…There is an old saying,,,”You have to Walk the Walk before You can Talk the Talk…This is almost like the old question which came first the chicken or the egg? I for one would not want anyone to go into combat without the best training available,,,but even the best training available will never equal the training of the actual experience of combat.
Viet Nam for instance, the biggest mistake was not sending companies of soldiers who had trained together and were buddies and instead rotating in and out of companies individual new guys,,,FNG’S. Boot camp at Ft. Lewis in 1967 was excellent training,,,scored expert on M14,,,lot of marching and physical training field exercises learning to work as a unit and discipline,,,was it good training for Viet Nam somewhat but not really.
On to Ft. Polk and Tigerland for infantry training,,,scored expert on M16, usage of machine guns,,hand grenades,,mock VC village some tunnel work and clearing hootches,,,escape and evasion etc. was it good training for Viet Nam somewhat but not really.
Paratroop training at Ft. Benning,,,,lots of running and physical training…learning to do a parachute landing fall or roll,,,the 34 foot tower jump out and slide down a steel cable to the end,,,the 250 foot tower hauled up 250 feet with your parachute fully deployed and then dropped and then the actual static line jumps at around 1100 feet all Hollywood except for one equipment jump,,,exit the door twisted around by prop wash,,,falling down and under the tail of the C-119 flying boxcar,,,your T-10 chute opening and jerking you up,,,checking canopy pulling slips and the peaceful glide down until about 100 feet up when the ground starts coming up fast and you land and roll and collect your chute…Lot of fun,,,never did any parachute jumping in Nam. KRAIGWY is right tho it does give you something extra hard to describe.
What we actually needed was a month of training in the mountains,,,carrying packs or rucksacks weighing 100 pounds drinking out of streams,,,carrying our own c rations or lrrps,,,on patrols,,search and destroy missions and ambushes and listening posts and observation posts with blank ammo fighting against our own people dressed as VC or NVA and using their equipment and tactics,,,there is a complete difference in the sound and cyclic rate of a M16 compared to an AK47. The more brutal the conditions the better.
Then we needed a month of training in the swamps doing the same thing for a month but now adding clearing villages to simulate the rice paddies and vills. The more brutal the better.
Fast forward to Jungle School outside of An Khe in Nam sitting in a group about platoon size and told for all of us to look at the guy to the right of us and then to the left of us and told out of the three of us only one would come home not wounded or killed,,,this is where the real training began for a couple of weeks.
Then to the field and actual combat,,,being treated like a pack animal,,,first light the ambushes and listening posts come back into the company perimeter,,a little time for something to eat and maybe clean your rifle,,,fill in the bunkers you dug last night,,,and walk single file with flank and point and rear security over the mountains through awful terrain as you never walk down trails or streambeds…The loads are brutal for everyone but especially for the mortar platoon and the M60 machine gun crew, you are forever shifting your rucksack as it digs into your shoulders and almost wish someone would pop a cap so you could drop your ruck but you pray it will not happen because if it does someone will probably die,,maybe you. If you are on Point there is nothing between you and Death but the end of your rifle barrel. If you are on the gun, M60 machine gun you know if it hits the fan the first call will be Gun up Front. If you are the RTO or Platoon NCO or Officer you know they like to shoot holes in your ability to call in a Fire Mission. If you are on Rear Security you learn to walk forwards looking backwards. You patrol almost all day long, the guys who cant make the hump you tell them that Charlie or the NVA will be along to help them carry their ruck and then you leave them alone in the jungle,,most find the inner strength they did not know they had to catch up,,the ones who dont and are willing to die you go back and carry their ruck or dust off them out. Guys cracked and went nuts. You then stop and set up a logger site or night defensive position with the full size shovels and picks and axes you carry digging a rectangular bunker filling sandbags and cutting down trees for overhead cover which you pile the sandbags on. Then the ambushes go out usually squad size sometimes platoon size and the three man listening posts go out and you finish with the Claymores and Trip Flares around the perimeter and you catch a little sleep before your shift on guard duty in the bunker…You do this for days for weeks, longest we were out was over a month, along with the firefights or combat you get in, before they chopper you in for a week of perimeter duty behind the wire of some firebase or LZ. You drink filthy water eat marginal food and are filthy and smell,,,but you never notice until you get into a rear area around guys who shower and shave and use deodorant and cologne. You have seen guys on both sides shot to hamburger by bullets and blown to pieces by booby traps.
I personally know of no training that adequately prepares you for combat,,,maybe the closest is Navy Seals,,,Marine Recon,,,Army Special Forces and Rangers,,,British SAS,,,French Foreign Legion or Russian Spetnaz.
So if I have a choice between someone with all kinds of training but no combat experience or a private or corporal or sergeant filthy and smelly from head to toe just coming in from weeks outside the wire on combat missions with months or years of experience in combat in a War Zone,,,give me the Combat Vet every time,,,because at the end of the day it does not matter so much who your unit is and it does not matter so much what rifle or high tech equipment you are using,,,and it does not matter so much how much training or even experience you have,,,at the end of each day what really matters is,,,if you still have a pulse or not.
