Yesterday's Weapons Forums

(Moved from the old YW site):

I never miss a movie about "basic training"
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It must be some masochistic tendency that compels me to watch movies or TV shows about basic training. For me, army BCT ("Basic Combat Training") was one of those watershed events in my life; one of those experiences that I wouldn't have missed for a million dollars, but would not pay a nickel to do over again. So now when I see movies along that line, I can identify with that material very strongly but it also gives me some sense of relief so see other, poor, miserable wretches doing it in my stead.

My entry into the army, and therefore automatically, into basic training was done in a complete haze of non-reality. I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood with veterans all around, but I can't actually say I ever heard of them talk about their initial training. Maybe they all just thought that "everyone knew the score" on that subject. Sure, I had seen the movie "The D.I." with Jack Webb that came out in 1957. But that was the Marine Corps, and the army wasn't like that. The army was like "Sergeant Bilko" where you just sat around the barracks and played cards. My father, who was an officer, preferred to talk about his flying days and not about the miserable two months he spent in Fresno, California in early 1943.

Well, my rude awakening came rather quickly after the signing of the papers. We were hauled up to Fort Ord, California in a Greyhound bus in the middle of the night after a full day of processing at the entrance and examination station in Los Angeles, a big barn-like building with ceilings 20 feet high and different color lines painted on the floor to follow to your next stop in the building.

When we got to Ord around 0200 hours, you'd think that there wouldn't be much that could be done at that time of night, so we should be able to get some sleep. No way. The processing started all over again, and we finally wobbled off to take a nap around 0400, to be awakened again at 0530.

When first arriving at BCT, actual training doesn't start right away. For one thing, they wait until they assemble a company's-worth of people (around 250 at the time). For another, there are several days of "things to do" like, get a haircut, fill out forms, take tests, get shots, fill out more forms, get issued your uniforms and footgear, fill out more forms, and pick up cigarette butts while you are waiting in between. The "roster guide" also shows you a few basic military things like making up your bunk, keeping your buttons buttoned (cadre would cut them off with a pocket knife if they saw any unbuttoned -- "I guess you don't need that button trainee since you weren’t using it!!!"), how to wash windows with tap water and old newspaper, and how to shine floors with melted-down Johnson's paste wax.

During the Vietnam war, the army had a huge training establishment set up to generate ever more warm, breathing bodies as replacements for the conflict. A major source of people to staff this establishment were the many returnees from that same conflict who still had time to do before discharge or separation. I later learned that the assignment of officers above the rank of 1LT to this training establishment was usually a terminal assignment for said officers. As a result, you wound up with a great number of whizzed-off people assigned to doing something without real motivation, and in some cases, with downright hostility.

I can tell you that those scenes in movies like "The Boys in Company C" or "Full Metal Jacket" where you have R. Lee Ermey types up close and screaming in your face was for real in my experience of basic training. I didn't personally see any punching , but it did happen, and I saw D.I.'s standing on low-crawling trainees' backs, etc.

Now in my BCT company in 1969, we had five platoons of around 50 men each. Each platoon had a Drill Instructor (D.I.) assigned to lead it in training. Of the five platoons, four were led by D.I.'s who had been infantrymen in Vietnam and they were just waiting to get out. They went through the motions, but if you ask me now, it seemed like their hearts weren't in it. The other platoon was led by a sergeant named Secrest. It was plain to see he wasn't waiting to get out of the army. He had the C.I.B. on his chest with TWO stars. C.I.B. stands for "Combat Infantryman Badge". You don't get this badge by counting blankets back in the supply warehouse. To get it, you must be assigned to an infantry unit and be engaged in actual combat for a specified period of time. There is the basic badge, plus you get a star for each additional war where you qualified for the award. Secrest had been in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam -- plus he had lost two brothers in combat. He took his combat training seriously. Can you guess what platoon I got assigned to? We were out running in the dark before the other platoons were out of their bunks, and we were still out running in the dark when the other platoons were in line for supper chow. Well, that was just the luck of the draw. Fortunately as things turned out, I didn't need that good combat training much in the 79th Maintenance Battalion in Vietnam.

For those of you who know a bit about the army, sergeant Secrest was a PSG E-7, which was just a notch higher in "hard-nose" than the usual SFC E-7. PSG = Platoon Sergeant.

When I watched "Full Metal Jacket" at the beginning where Lee Ermey is giving all that guff to the new trainees, I can honestly say I had already heard 75% of the abusive phrases he used. I have heard that Lee Ermey did that unscripted; he didn't need one, he had been a real Gunny D.I. in the USMC before his Hollywood days. I re-watched that movie recently with one of my now-adult daughters. She was staring at that tirade with eyes wide and mouth open. I was laughing all the while. I wasn't laughing much in 1969.

Then there are the people that you meet. Here is this situation where, as they say, people come from "all walks of life" and are suddenly thrown together. In addition to the large percentage of "normal" people, you have an interesting but smaller number of goof-balls, misfits, even criminals. This is the place where the army weeds most of these out of the system, but you are there while they are doing it. We had people get cheesed-off and walk away never to be seen again; some who walked away several times and were returned by the MP's each time; bullies, braggarts, and even a guy who swallowed a sewing needle to keep from going on to infantry training. That scene in "Full Metal Jacket" where the around-the-bend trainee puts an M-14 in his mouth and pulls the trigger is not so far-fetched; those acts of supreme desperation did happen.

We also had a large number of reservists and guardsmen in our company who were doing their active duty for training and would be going home soon, back to their normal lives. Not so for those of us who had joined up in the Regular Army, or had been drafted into the Army of the United States ("RA's and US's"). When you are 18 years old, and the day after you have signed the papers you realize just how long "36 months" is, it gives you cause for reflection. The mess hall kept separate sign-in sheets, one for reserve components and the other for active army trainees. It was always irritating to see the NG's and ER's go to the head of the chow line just because of the convenience of bookkeeping.

We had a number of trainees from Guam in our company. My DI used to give them a hard time, saying things to them like, "Come on, girls" and "quit holding hands". Usually, I couldn't understand anything the Guamanians said to one another. But, following one of these verbal attacks when the DI's back was turned, there was one word (or does it count as two words?) that I never failed to recognize.

As I think back, most of the trainees took basic training very seriously. For example, the post G-3 was responsible for the actual training and accordingly, we were given a test of what we were taught near the end of our training. I recall hearing the phrase repeated over and over again by the cadre, "If you don't get this right on the G-3 test, you will get recycled". What they meant was you would be put back in another company and repeat the training. Of course this was an abhorrent idea to any trainee; this thought of having to spend any extra time in basic training and be subjected to that much more hustle and harassment. When I think about it now, however, it makes me chuckle. What would they do, keep you in basic training indefinitely if you never got it right? After a couple of cycles of BCT, you would really have the knack of it, and you could just coast along as a "permanent trainee" for two or three years. That would have been better than getting blown away in the Nam.

I did get some training in BCT that I use to this very day. It doesn't bother me to get right down into a toilet bowl and scrub away, nor does washing dishes (by hand) bug me much. In fact, when we have gone places where cooking for crowds was being done, on several occasions I have found myself naturally gravitating to grease-encrusted sheet pans, rolling up my sleeves, and starting in on the messy things without flinching. When you have done the worst job in the mess hall, you will be fearless toward those pans forever more.

I could go on with more anecdotes about harassment, hardship and stupidity, but you get the idea. I suspect and hope that BCT in contemporary times is different in an improved way; but what kind of stuff will they have to make good movies from?