U.S. Army Leaders Are Calling For A Tougher And Longer Basic Training Program To Prepare Troops For Combat

FOX News: Army mulls tougher basic training for out-of-shape, undisciplined recruits

Citing a disturbing trend of new soldiers lacking both proper discipline and physical fitness, senior U.S. Army leaders are calling for a tougher and longer basic training program to prepare troops for combat over the next decade.

“We have every reason to get this right, and far fewer reasons not to,” Secretary of the Army Mark Esper said at the Association of the United States Army's Global Force Symposium in Alabama on Monday. “That’s why we are considering several initiatives — from a new physical fitness regime to reforming and extending basic training — in order to ensure our young men and women are prepared for the rigors of high-intensity combat.”

While Esper didn’t divulge any details of what an extended Basic Combat Training (BCT) might look like, the Army has already floated the idea of adding two weeks to its 10-week program. A redesigned BCT is expected to be implemented by early summer.

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WNU Editor: Americans .... like like much of the developed world .... are not as physically able as they use to be. It only makes sense that today's training programs reflect this change.

U.S. Army Shifts Its Training To Fighting Big Wars

U.S. Army Soldiers participate in tactical range training using M-9 Berretta handguns on Normandy Range Complex in Basra, Iraq, July 15, 2009. The Soldiers are assigned to Company B, 445th Civil Affairs Battalion. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt Chrissy Best

Norwalk Reflector: Army Begins Training for Next War, Which May Be Much Different, Bigger

For more than a decade, troops here have been schooled in counterinsurgency.

"Mission-specific" training, they call it: going house to house, busting down doors, rooting out terror cells, recognizing crude explosives.

Now, after a pair of mission-specific wars, an Army in transition aims to get back to the future.

The training needed to fight full-scale, more conventional battles has suffered, Army leaders contend. So Fort Riley is putting soldiers such as Staff Sgt.Gilbert Monroe back into big tanks and simulating wars on a scale grander than Iraq or Afghanistan.

"This is what I signed up for," Monroe said.

He began his military career 14 years ago in an M1A2 Abrams tank. But he spent tours in Iraq commanding more nimble armored vehicles, rolling on eight tires and lacking the heft to blast a target from 2 miles out.

WNU Editor: Events in Ukraine have made everyone realize that big wars do have a tendency to happen .... and it is best to be ready for one.

Is The Concept Of 'White Privilege' Being Taught In A U.S. Army Training Lesson?

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USA Today: Army says diversity training sent wrong signal

WASHINGTON — Army officials are investigating a diversity training briefing at Fort Gordon, Ga., in which a slide about "white privilege" was inappropriately shown to soldiers, according to an Army spokeswoman

The Equal Opportunity briefing took place Thursday for about 400 soldiers of the 67th Signal Battalion, Capt. Lindsay Roman, an Army spokeswoman, said Friday. The slide titled "The Luxury of Obliviousness" has bullet-point items about "white privilege."

One item reads, "Race privilege gives whites little reason to pay a lot of attention to African Americans or to how white privilege affects them. 'To be white in America means not having to think about it.' "

An image of the slide appeared later Thursday on a Facebook page and generated a torrent of negative comments about political correctness run amok.

The presentation was not authorized, nor was it part of the standard slides shown to soldiers, Roman said.

Update #1: ‘White privilege’ presentation during Army diversity training prompts investigation -- Washington Times
Update #2: Army Diversity Training Features Slide About ‘White Privilege’ -- Breitbart

WNU Editor: WTF ?!?!?!

Army Training For Hybrid Wars (Video)

U.S. Army Training Material Lists Christians As ‘Extremists’

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM: These groups were all lumped together in a slideshow for US Army Reserve recruits

Army Reserve Training Material Lists Catholics, Evangelical Christians And Some Jews In 'Religious Extremism' Category Along With The KKK, Hamas And Al Qaeda -- Daily Mail

* Pentagon based conclusions on Southern Poverty Law Center report
* Chaplains' group calls lecture material 'dishonorable' and 'wrongheaded'
* Presentation says extremism is increasing because some Americans fear '4 more years under a black president'

A slideshow presentation shown to US Army Reserve recruits classifies Christians, including both evangelicals and Roman Catholics, as religious extremists, placing them in the same category as skinheads, the Ku Klux Klan, Hamas and Al Qaeda.

The presentation also warned that members of the military are prohibited from taking leadership roles in any organization the Pentagon considers 'extremist,' and from distributing the organization's literature, whether on or off a military installation.

The opening slide warns that 'the rise in hate crimes and extremism outside the military may be an indication of internal issues all [armed] services will have to face.'

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Update #1: Training material listing Catholics as ‘extremists’ angers archdiocese -- Army Times
Update #2: U.S. Army warns of religious extremism… from Evangelicals & Catholics -- The Blaze
Update #3: Defense Department classifies Catholics, evangelicals as extremists -- Washington Times

My Comment: I guess I am an extremist.

Making A Soldier's Avatar Is The Next Step In Using Virtual Training To Keep Soldiers Fighting Fit

Soldiers conduct a simulated fire-control mission using Virtual Battle Space 2, designed to mimic a live fire-control exercise. Sgt. Mary Katzenberger/U.S. army

How Can Army Keep Soldiers Fighting Fit After Afghanistan? Avatars -- Christian Science Monitor

Military officials are using video games to evaluate troops, but making soldiers' avatars – their virtual selves – more closely mimic the soldiers' actual skills is the next frontier.

For Col. Anthony Krogh, the approaching end of more than 10 years of war seems more like a call to action.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a toll, but they have also left the US Army battle-tested. As peacetime draws nearer, the Pentagon is grappling with a vital question: How can the military keep its soldiers engaged and fighting fit, both physically and mentally?

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My Comment: I guess the 'couch potatoes' will not be able to cut it in this new virtual training environment.

Here Come The Army's Version Of Virtual Training

The Army Is Channeling 'World Of Warcraft' With New Virtual Training Programs -- Business Insider

How do you modernize without money?

Army brass are test-driving a new message at the annual Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) conference in Fort Lauderdale: Modernization is about more than new equipment – which, by the way, we can't afford. There are plenty of other things we can do to keep our cutting edge.

Above all, the Army will emphasize innovative training methods that use a mix of both computer simulations, some even modeled on popular games like World of Warcraft, and real-world scenarios tied to specific areas where "regionally aligned" units are likely to deploy.

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Update: Army Goes World of Warcraft; Virtual Training To Soften Budget Cut Pain -- Aol Defense

My Comment: Taking video games to a higher form.

Bayonet Training To Be Discontinued For US Army Recruits

New Army recruits train on the bayonet course at Fort Knox in 2004. The Army has opted to discontinue bayonet assaults from its basic training curriculum. Newscom/File

One Less Skill For Soldiers To Master At Boot Camp: Bayonet Training -- Christian Science Monitor

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling opted to discontinue bayonet training for Army recruits. After all, the last US bayonet charge was in 1951. But in the weeks since that decision, Hertling has had some pushback.

When a US Army general made the decision recently to remove bayonet assaults from the array of skills soldiers must learn during basic training, it seemed like a no-brainer.

US troops hadn’t launched a bayonet charge since 1951 during the Korean War. And new soldiers preparing for an increasingly violent war in Afghanistan already need to learn far more skills than the 10 weeks of basic training allows, says Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, head of initial entry training and the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.

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My Comment: I guess they only cram so much information in 10 weeks of training .... and bayonet training is at the bottom of the list.

Concerns About U.S. Army Training Being Raised

U.S. Army paratroopers exit a C-130 aircraft over Al Asad Airbase, Iraq, Feb. 12, 2010, as part of the largest airborne exercise conducted by U.S. forces in Iraq since the beginning of the war. The soldiers are assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade, an Advise and Assist Brigade. A jumper’s parachute is opened by the yellow universal static line seen here along the fuselage of the aircraft. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Michael J. MacLeod

General Sounds Alarm On U.S. Army Training -- McClatchy News

WASHINGTON — The Army's ability to train its forces is "increasingly at risk" because of the nation's protracted commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the general in charge of training has told the Army's chief of staff.

In a Feb. 16 memo to Gen. George W. Casey, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, says that the Army has lost thousands of uniformed trainers because of troop demands in Iraq and Afghanistan, has had to put junior officers in charge of some key training functions and has delayed initial instruction for nearly 500 pilots because it doesn't have enough trainers.

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More News On Concerns That U.S. Training Is Failing

Army sees sharp rise in unfit soldiers -- USA Today
General: Demands of Iraq, Afghan wars hurting Army's ability to train its forces -- Sacremento Bee
Army's Training Ability 'At Risk' Because Of Iraq And Afghanistan Wars, General Dempsey Warns -- Huffington post
Morale: Dwell On It -- Strategy Page

My Comment: Fighting 2 wars for the past 7 years will impact any military's training program. In particular .... veterans will feel less inclined to continue because of the stress and worries that it gives to families. Still .... kudos to the military for at least still meeting its recruitment drives.

Bayonet Skills To Be Omitted From Basic Training For Modern Soldiers

Close Combat Training No more cries of "give them the cold steel!" U.S. Army

From Popular Science:

General wants to reshape U.S. Army's basic training to reflect the demands of modern warfare.

A general in command of U.S. Army training says that a new generation of video-gaming, computer-savvy but less physically fit soldiers will no longer learn how to disembowel an enemy with a bayonet. The passing of the old infantry standby may simply reflect a modern battlefield that has become both more tech-heavy and more tactically complex, according to AP and other news sources.

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My Comment: Defense Tech covers this story in more detail .... the links are here and here.

New U.S. Army Marksmanship Training At Fort Benning

Hat Tip: Rantburg

New US Base To Train Iraqis And Palestinians, Says Report

(Photo from Training On the Road)

From: AKI-Adnkronos

Amman, 10 Oct. (AKI) - The United States military has recently built a new military base in Jordan where Iraqi and Palestinian Authority security personnel will be trained, according to pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi.

The base is very large and besides training Iraqi soldiers in anti-insurgency warfare, it reportedly contains a simulated refugee camp to train Palestinian Authority forces, an unnamed Palestinian source told the daily.

Between 500 and 600 armed forces personnel are expected to take part in special anti-militant courses and could be deployed as soon as Israel agrees to handover security in the West Bank town of Jenin to the Palestinian Authority.

The training should take place in the desert west of the Jordanian capital, Amman, and the trainers are expected to include senior military officials from the Jordanian and US armies.