bobdina
11-04-2010, 10:15 AM
Army Basic Tries to Issue Brains with Rifles
October 28, 2010
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan
Soldiers stand next to their clothing issue on the first day of basic training.
Army basic combat training is now about more than simply learning how to march in lock step and take orders. A new program tries to develop Soldiers by building their confidence and their knowledge of how to take care of themselves and their buddies, according to Command Sgt. Maj. John Calpena. Calpena is the initial military training sergeant major, responsible for all basic and advanced individual training, as well as basic officer training and warrant officer school across the Army.
"Before what we were doing was a carry-over from the 1960s," he said, "which really was to develop a blind obedience. The type of training we were doing was creating a Soldier that was afraid of leadership. We were teaching them to be afraid of their weapons. And this obviously is not conducive to the type of warfare we are in today."
Basic rifle training now incorporates malfunctions so that the Soldier has to handle the problem on the spot, said Staff Sgt. Melissa Solomon, one of two Drill Sergeants of the Year who joined Calpena in a presentation Oct. 26 at the annual AUSA conference in Washington. The young Soldiers are also trained from the first day to carry the weapon as they would in combat, not in the traditional "raised hold" fashion, and they get comfortable firing it by training without wearing the standard combat gear. Once they're familiar with the weapon, says Solomon, they learn to handle it while wearing combat gear.
Click here to find out more!
Also, the Soldiers now zero their weapons by firing five rounds instead of three -- to better determine their aim -- and are required to score some target "kills" with multiple rounds, not just one, she said.
Calpena said the Army now develops Soldiers "without breaking them."
"Today when Soldiers leave the training base, instead of running out of there afraid of noncommissioned officers, they're confident and competent," he said, "so when get to their first unit they become a member of the team instead of having to fight their way through as the ‘new guy' that has to prove themselves … in many cases they can graduate from our training and be deployed within 90 days."
Basic training today, according to Calpena, aims to turn out young Soldiers who are problem solvers and who have reached a comfort level with weapons and abilities that took months in the field for previous basic training graduates.
Calpena insisted he was not dismissing the capabilities of past generations of Soldiers, but they joined or were inducted into the Army under very different circumstances.
"During Vietnam -- a very unpopular war -- we were drafting people who didn't want to be [in the Army]," he said. And in many cases the Army could not throw them out for bad behavior because that would then become a way of getting out. "The [training] methodology became a very Draconian, blind-obedience forced-performance methodology. And if you didn't want to conform after everything had been done to make you conform [there] were little prison compounds on our installations, even during the all-volunteer force. A commander could sign a piece of paper and put you on a 30-day confinement on bread and water on hard labor to force you to conform."
Going to an all-volunteer force after Vietnam eventually changed all that, he said, though some senior leaders worried that the new force might attract only the bottom of the barrel.
Good people signed up, he said, and "the cream did rise to the top." He said good men and women are still joining in spite of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the increasingly unpopular sentiment among the American public.
"Parents said it was a bad idea [to enlist], teachers said it was a bad idea … certainly the media said it was a bad idea," he said, "and yet one percent of the population today serves in the War on Terror, and they join knowing they're going into harm's way. What can't you do with that heart? I don't have to make them perform -- they want to perform."
Click here to find out more!
The new way of doing things in basic training has also changed what it means to be a successful drill sergeant. Previously, he said, "the master" drill sergeant was "the one who could regurgitate the script better than anybody else, stand more erect than anyone else. Well, today we've got to get these guys to master the skill so instead of just instructing, he's teaching. The other thing they have to do is really know their soldiers, so that they can see who's getting it faster and who is slower, then they can give expert attention to the slower [Soldier] and turn the faster one into a peer instructor."
The changes do not mean that the fearsome but iconic drill sergeant of the past has left the field entirely. The yelling, physically intimidating, in-your-space-and-face drill sergeant known to generations of Soldiers is still there, but partway through the training the iconic NCO becomes not only into the person many trainees emulate but also a mentor.
"The drill sergeant transitions into more of a coach/teacher as they go," he said. For many years a cadre of NCOs would conduct much of the training, and the drill sergeant would reinforce it, he said. Now, the Army does not have enough staff sergeants and sergeants first class to make up "the committee groups" to handle training, Calpena said, and so the drill sergeant now does everything. The training program is designed to get Soldiers to help teach each other, he said.
"You'll see a group of kids huddling around a piece of equipment, with all different levels of understanding … and they're teaching themselves, and the drill sergeants are around the corner watching this happen, all excited about how it's working."
http://www.military.com/news/article/army-basic-tries-to-issue-brains-with-rifles.html?col=1186032325324
October 28, 2010
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan
Soldiers stand next to their clothing issue on the first day of basic training.
Army basic combat training is now about more than simply learning how to march in lock step and take orders. A new program tries to develop Soldiers by building their confidence and their knowledge of how to take care of themselves and their buddies, according to Command Sgt. Maj. John Calpena. Calpena is the initial military training sergeant major, responsible for all basic and advanced individual training, as well as basic officer training and warrant officer school across the Army.
"Before what we were doing was a carry-over from the 1960s," he said, "which really was to develop a blind obedience. The type of training we were doing was creating a Soldier that was afraid of leadership. We were teaching them to be afraid of their weapons. And this obviously is not conducive to the type of warfare we are in today."
Basic rifle training now incorporates malfunctions so that the Soldier has to handle the problem on the spot, said Staff Sgt. Melissa Solomon, one of two Drill Sergeants of the Year who joined Calpena in a presentation Oct. 26 at the annual AUSA conference in Washington. The young Soldiers are also trained from the first day to carry the weapon as they would in combat, not in the traditional "raised hold" fashion, and they get comfortable firing it by training without wearing the standard combat gear. Once they're familiar with the weapon, says Solomon, they learn to handle it while wearing combat gear.
Click here to find out more!
Also, the Soldiers now zero their weapons by firing five rounds instead of three -- to better determine their aim -- and are required to score some target "kills" with multiple rounds, not just one, she said.
Calpena said the Army now develops Soldiers "without breaking them."
"Today when Soldiers leave the training base, instead of running out of there afraid of noncommissioned officers, they're confident and competent," he said, "so when get to their first unit they become a member of the team instead of having to fight their way through as the ‘new guy' that has to prove themselves … in many cases they can graduate from our training and be deployed within 90 days."
Basic training today, according to Calpena, aims to turn out young Soldiers who are problem solvers and who have reached a comfort level with weapons and abilities that took months in the field for previous basic training graduates.
Calpena insisted he was not dismissing the capabilities of past generations of Soldiers, but they joined or were inducted into the Army under very different circumstances.
"During Vietnam -- a very unpopular war -- we were drafting people who didn't want to be [in the Army]," he said. And in many cases the Army could not throw them out for bad behavior because that would then become a way of getting out. "The [training] methodology became a very Draconian, blind-obedience forced-performance methodology. And if you didn't want to conform after everything had been done to make you conform [there] were little prison compounds on our installations, even during the all-volunteer force. A commander could sign a piece of paper and put you on a 30-day confinement on bread and water on hard labor to force you to conform."
Going to an all-volunteer force after Vietnam eventually changed all that, he said, though some senior leaders worried that the new force might attract only the bottom of the barrel.
Good people signed up, he said, and "the cream did rise to the top." He said good men and women are still joining in spite of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the increasingly unpopular sentiment among the American public.
"Parents said it was a bad idea [to enlist], teachers said it was a bad idea … certainly the media said it was a bad idea," he said, "and yet one percent of the population today serves in the War on Terror, and they join knowing they're going into harm's way. What can't you do with that heart? I don't have to make them perform -- they want to perform."
Click here to find out more!
The new way of doing things in basic training has also changed what it means to be a successful drill sergeant. Previously, he said, "the master" drill sergeant was "the one who could regurgitate the script better than anybody else, stand more erect than anyone else. Well, today we've got to get these guys to master the skill so instead of just instructing, he's teaching. The other thing they have to do is really know their soldiers, so that they can see who's getting it faster and who is slower, then they can give expert attention to the slower [Soldier] and turn the faster one into a peer instructor."
The changes do not mean that the fearsome but iconic drill sergeant of the past has left the field entirely. The yelling, physically intimidating, in-your-space-and-face drill sergeant known to generations of Soldiers is still there, but partway through the training the iconic NCO becomes not only into the person many trainees emulate but also a mentor.
"The drill sergeant transitions into more of a coach/teacher as they go," he said. For many years a cadre of NCOs would conduct much of the training, and the drill sergeant would reinforce it, he said. Now, the Army does not have enough staff sergeants and sergeants first class to make up "the committee groups" to handle training, Calpena said, and so the drill sergeant now does everything. The training program is designed to get Soldiers to help teach each other, he said.
"You'll see a group of kids huddling around a piece of equipment, with all different levels of understanding … and they're teaching themselves, and the drill sergeants are around the corner watching this happen, all excited about how it's working."
http://www.military.com/news/article/army-basic-tries-to-issue-brains-with-rifles.html?col=1186032325324