The idea that making military training harder is cruel is so backassward that it is difficult to comprehend the folly—and cruelty—of objecting to difficult training. The instinct to be nice is false compassion that will get American soldiers needlessly killed.
When I went through Army basic training in 1988,1 our drill sergeants told us that in war, the gloves would come off in training. And the BS classroom stuff would end. The stakes would be too high to be nice or to not focus on the basics of killing and surviving.
Mind you, it was tough enough. We were dropped for push-ups and sent on punishment runs for mistakes or even on a seemingly random whim. Yelling was routine. And yes, getting the barracks tossed was a thing. I remember being horrified to find out that Fort Jackson apparently did not do that—giving soldiers essay assignments to correct their performance.
WTAF?
Yet before the end of basic training, the platoon I was in would never let a single soldier in our platoon be dropped alone. We would all drop in solidarity and to show the drill sergeants we viewed getting dropped as an opportunity. We really believed what we were told to say:
Thank you drill sergeant, for training my mind and my body!
Despite the technology and gee whiz stuff that captures our imagination periodically, luring us with the siren song of bloodless, high-tech war that spares young men from dying alone in the mud on a foreign land to defend America, the need for trigger pulling soldiers will not end. And yes, we need soldiers and not warriors, despite the current mantra on the latter.
And to perhaps address an objection that sending soldiers abroad has no relationship to defending America, the record shows when enemies control the shores on the other side of the ocean, America is vulnerable.
But I digress not one whit.
Back to the clip (you are playing it while reading this, right?). War is no game. I say that not from direct experience—being a former reservist REMF in the Michigan Army National Guard—but almost entirely from long study that did not fixate on weapons capabilities.
The young Union recruit could shoot a rifle. But the officer directly in charge didn’t think it important to rigorously train the recruits. The unit commander understood what those men would face in battle.
When my then-wife and I were watching this movie, she was horrified that Broderick was being so mean to the recruit. I explained that it was false compassion to reject Broderick’s actions. Squirrels don’t shoot back. Enemies do. And reloading and shooting in the chaos of battle—while standing up!—as the enemy actually shot at you is no easy thing to do.
Training instills habits that give a soldier a chance of conquering the chaos when first exposed to battle. With experience—if you live long enough—the habit will generally win out.
Until it doesn’t. Combat fatigue conquers all, eventually.
Like most of my experience in the Army with but a scant DD-214 to prove that, I gained only the faintest shadow of battle experience and operating as trained. We trained a lot with our M-16s in basic training. Dealing with a jammed round was a major part of the training with SPORTS. Slap the magazine up to make sure it is seated, Pull the charging handle back. Observe the chamber for a stuck round, Release the charging handle, Tap the forward assist to make sure the new round is in place, and resume Shooting. My memory is that the S was for Squeeze the trigger when I was in. But same idea.
I never had a problem with my rifle. I was always just barely competent in passing on the range. Even with my glasses, I could never even see the most distant targets pop up.
On the day of our actual official test that would determine if I would graduate from basic training (that and the PT test)*, I planned to skip the far targets in order to have extra rounds for the medium-distance targets. Short-range were gimmes. That was my plan. It was good, right?
I never had a problem with my rifle, that is, until my weapon jammed in the to-me high stress environment of needing to pass that test.
But my training kicked in. I followed SPORTS. But no go. I still did not panic. I put my weapon on safe, ejected the magazine, pulled out a couple obviously off-kilter rounds in the magazine—and didn’t waste time reloading the magazine—and resumed firing. And when cease fire was called, I left a few rounds in the dirt for the next soldier (coughaswewereinstructedquietlytodocough) and completed the test.
Which I passed, being deemed a Marksman (the lowest passing level, lest you think me Alvin York, or some such thing).
The stress levels of Army basic training were enough to let me overcome a training problem. I cannot imagine the stress of being shot at while trying to overcome that issue. But a soldier will stand a better chance if well trained. So yeah, stress out our new troops and train them to high standards for their term of service.
The temptation for false compassion extends to the highest levels, as I wrote long ago (quoting my 1997 paper on Iraq’s 1980 invasion of Iran):
Our soldiers’ lives are indeed valuable, and our country’s insistence that we minimize risks to them is laudable (as well as being necessary due to the small size of the Army). Undue concern, however, is false compassion and, as was the case for Iraq in 1980, could result in even greater casualties in a prolonged war should we refuse - because of the prospect of battle deaths - to seize an opportunity for early victory.
Believing the rules of war require no civilian casualties rather than no unnecessary casualties to win leads you to embrace false compassion.
False compassion takes many forms in war. And it starts with the mistaken notion that new recruits should be treated delicately lest their feelings be hurt.
*Well, I’d have a chance to re-shoot, I believe. But beyond that was “recycling” through the next basic training company.
I updated the link to Substack when I re-published the post here.