USMC Tng. and Police Academy Tng.

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USMC training is designed to prepare young men for war.

Unless you are a Navy SEAL, slipping through the dark in a 4 man squad, war is a noisy, hostile, confusing arena. There are potentially dozens of automatic weapons firing at the same time, grenades going off, mortars rounds exploding.

If its in an urban environment, there are women screaming, and the wounded enemy is probably wailing in pain half a block away. Within your own squad/platoon/company, there are young men all around you, each one trying to stay alive. A few may have sustained injuries. A fractured femur will make many a man cry out.

Someone in the platoon is operating a radio, feeding information to HQ, and quite possibly asking for a close air strike. Squad leaders are listening to commands from the Platoon commander, and commanding their own men.

Marines are so good because they have honed the art of FIRE AND MANEUVER. A sniper stays put, rarely making egress, unless his position has been compromised. A combat infantry unit lays down massive amounts of lead AND moves in for the kill. There are flanking movements, bounding overwatch (where one man fires while the other one moves), blocking actions, escape from a kill zone, and establishing zones of fire. So here you have 20 to 50 men all shooting and being shot at, and doing it in an incredibly coordinated dance where every player knows his part. Do you think they can calmly whisper these commands to each other? A squad/ platoon action on a hostile enemy more closely resembles a football game, (where the man with the ball gets his brains blown out), rather than a chess match.

Intelligence never gives you a complete picture, and the enemy is trying to kill you just as hard as you are trying to kill him. Add to that the fact that you are fighting in HIS back yard. The enemy knows every rise in the road, every ditch and hiding hole. They are talking to each other on cell phones, and giving each other real time intelligence on what you and your men are doing. As a result, the battlefield is a fluid, dynamic and changing environment. Everyone is hyped on adrenaline.

Yelling in Boot Camp serves many purposes. Keep in mind that the drill instructors aren't the only ones doing the yelling. 18-year old kids that have been playing Nintendo all their lives are also required to yell (or SOUND OFF, as its called) in response to the drill instructors commands. Yelling is also done as the men sing cadence while they run. The process of shouting strengthens the vocal chords, expands the lungs, and initiates the young man into a new world, where he must make order out of chaos. The yelling and shouting that drill instructors do make the young man immune to distraction, and he is able to make sense of it in a short time.
 
Response to USMC basic and Police academy

"The other day I saw films on Marine Corp. Boot Camp. There were DIs running around screaming constantly looking like a bunch of idiots. You could not even tell what the were yelling. in my opinion this type of supervision accomplishes nothing. You want leadership, obediace to orders, and a foot soldier who can think on his feet, not some scarred rabbit. I was in the Army and don't remember anything comming close to the scream fest I heard in the USMC. These guys didn't learn a thing from what I saw. I guess they were trying to turn them into warriors or killers but I couldn't tell it ."

Ok here is my take on your statement. And me being a current Marine I think I can consider myself well educated in this field. First you may not understand what that DI is saying. YOU dont have to. the recruit that he is training does. and believe me he understands. you may not see a purpose behind this stress training. but while that DI is screaming that recruit is also accomplishing several tasks. it could be anything from putting on his boots, to cleaning an M-16. Basic training is meant to create basically trained marines or cops from the academy. and as training goes on believe it or not the DIs start to relax and let recruits start to learn on their own. so yes boot camp turns civilians into basically trained almost battle ready marines. now me being and MP SRT Marksman ive learned all my knowledge for my job over many months of add on training that is in a completely different environment. and as far as the army goes. well i can tell you that the marjority of todays soldiers in the army are a bunch of lazy idiots with no discipline or sense of initiative. now mind you im not speaking of every soldier. and to add on to that. many of the civilian cops ive met are some window lickin idiots. like most of the things in life you need to experience it before you can consider yourself and expert in that subject. now i have attended several different training institutions from FLETC, SC Criminal justice academy, to Marine MP Basic. They all have their pros and cons. But where a new cop or marine learns the most is when he steps foot on the street or battlefield and gets experience.
 
None of the training in the Marines makes sense to an outsider. You have to have gone through it to understand it. When you are under fire and you have to get back to your side of the berm and no help is on the way and its dark and bullets are flying you can keep your wits about you. Your first instinct is to find cover and return fire but thats suicide as soon you will be surounded by alot of pissed of Iraqi's, you do what you know you need to do, you understand stress and keep doing your job. In 1991 that very thing happened to me and i am glad the training was what it was. The 4 of us made it back ok. I took one in the lower leg and never really knew it. I though i hit something while on the run. it went in the front of my leg and out the back and never hit bone. It felt like i hit the trailer hitch on my truck when i was walking past it. We kept fire discipline the whole way back. fire and move fire and move, no orders given you just do what you have been trained to do. the whole thing maybe lasted 15 minutes but it was a wild ride to say the least! are street cops idiots? is the army made up of idiots? No they arent but they are not Marines either.
Semper FI
 
Well every one seems to have some great input and opinions. It seems like quite a hornet's nest has been stirred up. Everyone has put in many valid points. To all you folks who have served in other branches. I hope no one was offended, I have met many a great Soldier Sailor and Airman, but to all my old corps, salty marines, Semper FI.
 
Two reasons for the way the USMC does book camps the way they do. One is to screen out those who aren't going to make the grade in a stressful environment. Two, to function smoothly and calmly when all hell breaks loose. If you can't handle the stress in training, you can't handle it in combat.
 
To add some depth to this thread: is it still true that the USMC is still the only service to begin basic training in the dark, in the middle of the night, to further disorient recruits? This, I believe, is a 'good thing.'
 
As far as I know they are still making them show up at zero dark thirty and scaring the poo out of them. It amazed me how quickly that very large dark green DI was able to convince me that the only thing that I wanted to do at 0130 in the morning was find yellow foot steps as fast as my "nasty recruit body" could.

--"Where do you put the bayonet?" (U.S. Marine hero Chesty Puller, upon seeing a flamethrower for the first time)
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I about spit coke all over my keyboard on this one by the way.
 
Magdaddy

If you are referring to one of the Ranger School out camps, they were not designated that why in the 60's. There was and still is a Camp Darby at Benning, and I see they named the Harmony Church area Camp Rogers, that is where I worked. We had two teams at Benning: the "City Team" the group at Harmony Church and the "Country Team" the guys at Camp Darby, but we all interchanged.

In the 60's there were 3 training areas, Ft. Benning, GA; Deloniga, GA, and Eagland Air Force Base, Field 9 in Florida. That is probably the Camp Merrell you are talking about. Field 9 is also where they trained the SF guys that made that raid into North Viet Nam to free the POW's at the Hanoi Hilton. Not long ago, I saw an interview on TV with some of the guys that made the raid, I went through Ranger School with one of them being interviewed: Sgt. Major Jakavinko.

The Rangers School cadre were designated 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ranger Companies for these 3 areas. I was in the 3rd Ranger Co. I think they moved one of the training areas to include desert training, maybe Ft. Hood, Tx.

A lot of things have changed in my old Army units, they reactivated the 173d Airborne Brigade in 2000, I was there to hand the colors over to the delegation from Italy, this took place at Ft Campbell, Ky. It wasn't too much longer the "Herd" made a combat jump into Iraq.

I should attend a Ranger reunion one of these years.

And I further contend: the Marine Corps has the only basic training, all the other services throw a picnic. That is until you go Airborne or get into some other elite unit.

Rangers Lead the Way.
 
Spade, As a former Police officer, I have no use for the military mindset that brought us SWAT teams. Police investigate, then make arrests. "No knock" entry is reminiscent of the Gestapo. My father fought against the Nazis and I fought against other totalitarian regimes. I don't like to see their tactics used in this "free" country.

If the job is too dangerous for you without violating the Constitution, then find other work. It takes bravery to restrain yourself in the face of lawbreakers and courage to do so even with the restrictions of the Constitution.

As far as Boot camp, Police academies should be teaching the law and proper enforcement techniques. Weapons training is incidental to Law Enforcement. Cops are not soldiers, and should not have a military mindset.
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A-MEN, BROTHER!!! There it is, in a nutshell. The sooner the LE
community understands this, the better off we will all be.
Thank you, MacGille!

Semper Fi,
Walter
 
Its funny coming off the bus at o dark whatever. You could not run away if you wanted to. You would no clue as to what direction to run. all part of the training. My life changed in an instant. i thought those DI's were from another planet. One of the BIGEST honors in my life was when i got my Eagle Globe and Anchor and my DI called me a Marine and called me his brother. Unless you have been there you just cant know what that means.
Semper Fi
 
You could not run away if you wanted to
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+1 I was 2nd battalion and it wasn't until the day I graduated and my parents drove me off base that I realized that the front gate was no more than 100 yards from our barracks. They know exactly what they are doing at all times.
 
Thank you bentrod

And I further contend: the Marine Corps has the only basic training, all the other services throw a picnic. That is until you go Airborne or get into some other elite unit.
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Without trying to make this comment seem like the usual service pissing match, the above statement, assuming bentrod hasn't been in the Marines is just the plain simple truth.

Boot camp stories are timeless, especially when it comes from Gunnys or MSgts. Mustang officers don't speak about OCS with the same reverance as they do about when they went through boot camp. It's probably a safe bet to say that all former Marines on this board still remember the names of their DIs, and they can tell you which one was the heavy hat, the knowledge one, or the drill one, and the senior usually plays "daddy".

All I can say is that whether active or reserve, mean green grunt or rear supply guy, served during peace or war, saw combat or not, 4 yrs or 20, all of those who have been on the yellow footprints have something special in common. Everyone who hasn't, and this includes Marine officers, just cannot ever understand.

Semper Fi

To everyone, thanks for serving.
 
CGSteve, sorry

My first service was the Marines, I enlisted in the Army afterward. I did not go through Army basic, I went directly to jump school with the 82d at Ft. Bragg (the abn divisions had their own jump schools than) All services recognized Marine basic while the Marines would accept no other service's basic training. In fact while in Marine basic we had an Army, Korean war, combat vet go through with us. They smoked him like everyone else, maybe more, they called him "doggie" but when he graduated the DI's showed him a lot of respect.

I was able to observe the Army's basic, and I wasn't impressed. Army Jump school was more physical than Marine basic, but mentally easy for me, I thought the harassment funny, and the black hats smoked me hard, trying to make me quit because of my Marine tattoo.

Now Ranger School, that was something else, we started with 168 and graduated 38, many lost because of injuries. We had guys from the different branches of the service and a capt. from the Israeli Army in my class, the guys that were in the best shape when we started were from Marine Force Recon and the Israeli capt. , he was something else.

Marine basic prepared me well when I later enlisted in the Army. The Marines taught me to shoot well enough to make the 82d Airborne Div. rifle team. And later when in Korea with the 1st Cav., Div. I made Division Soldier of the Year.



"Rangers Lead the Way"

"Semper Fi"

and

"Airborne all the Way"
 
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