Operation Forward Pass

I was wandering about the net and foound a link to a site with a whole lot of info on entering the Marines….

And as a bonus, I found this article:  
"Surviving Marine Corps Basic Training" by Rod Powers.

Sgt Hook has been around the block a lot of times and also around the blogs. He’s one of the the early Milbloggers…

He recently posted a story on leadership, which begins as he entered AIT:

Twenty-four hours after walking across the parade field of Fort Dix, I found myself in a Greyhound bus, recovering from a hangover while on my way to Fort Eustis, Virginia where I was to begin my Advanced Individual Training. The Army sends all its Soldiers to AIT for training in their specific skill, or military occupation specialty. In my case I was to attend the Army’s CH47 heavy lift helicopter mechanic’s course, which is approximately four months in length.

Unlike basic training where we had three drill sergeants assigned to our platoon, only one was assigned to us at AIT and much of the duties and responsibilities previously performed by a drill sergeant, were now delegated to us, the students. There were four student squad leader positions who answered to the student platoon sergeant who was accountable to only the drill sergeant. Following a wall locker and room inspection on just my second day in the platoon, the drill sergeant fired his student platoon sergeant and named me in his stead. I was surprised and nervous as hell.

I hadn’t been issued any Patton Pills or read any “How To” books that would transform me from a private first class to a platoon sergeant, a leader. I did the next best thing and called one of the greatest leaders I knew, my dad my hero the Commander.

“Don’t worry son, you’ll do fine. Have faith in your old drill sergeant and trust your instincts,” he said.

“But dad…” I pushed.

Read the rest…

And…when you’re done with that story, then read about compassion and drill sargents.

The big myth of military life: "You have to dress, act and think the same. You do what you're told and are never able to think for yourself."

I have a one word response: Bullocks!

The reailty of military life: There are many basic concepts of operation, that have been figured out by many who have gone before us. The basics of warfighting boil down to killing the other guys and breaking their things so they can't kill you and the people you protect, or can they break your things…simple? Yes, it is. Therefore, all the seemingly mindless training you experieince in the initial stages of your entry into the service are about teaching you the wisdom of the ages for fighting wars and taking it from the realm of conscious decision making, to smoothly executed subconscious responses. Those things they want you ro absorb into you are not just for the fun of toruring you, but to save your life and the lives of those around you, when the bullets are flying at thousands of feet per second. The brain is an incredible creation, but conscious decision making is a relatively slow process, while reactions straight from the subconscious speed through the system rapidly.

I blogged before on the value of learning from someone else's mistakes here.
The foundation of these reactions, or group think, or a Borg like hive mind, if you prefer, are to make you survive. Many are counterintuitve to how you would solve a problem, but then you haven't been in that condition named combat, but those training you have had the experieince to help you bring these reactions into your system.

For your friends and future employers, "concerned" that you have become a non-thinking individual, with your springs all wound tight, ready to expolde emotionally and do bad things at any unplanned moment, I'll say this: Your training is to elict responses under certain conditions, and not just as you walk from your cubicle to the restroom and someone calls out to you. They are designed for the ultimate conflict, and I'd hope, unless you go to work for Blackwater Security, you'll not have much of a probability of being presented with the circumstances that will cause you to react. In the case of the Blackwater folks, they will welcome you into their company, if, and only if, those reactions are truly refined to being very subconscious capabilities.

Now, what your friends, family, employers and co-workers should know is you have the ability to subconsciously react to serious "out of the box" conditions, which they would call emergencies. You will most likely keep your calm, cool head on, and quickly react to make the most people safe when one of those moments come. Be it a fire, a flood, a tornado, a car accident, a kid who has fallen off the roof and is laying in the flower bed with a compound fracture to his femur, or a disgruntled employee, who shows up at the office with a weapon and evil intent, it is you who will come forward with your "monolithic, hive mind" mentaility and take charge, issue orders and jump in and do your part. They will be all at once, be grateful and amazed, at what you did, and you will most likely not even realize, until the emergency is past, what you did. At that point, you will be amazed.

Let me ask this question: Who wouldn't want you around, for just such times as those?

Next. Once they have successfully taken your entire group to the basic or warfighting skills, having firmly entrenched them in your young minds, then they will begin to seek and develop the inherent individual skill sets you have. From a purley logical standpoint, if the reality is all of the military members have to think and act the same, why is it the recruiter gives you a battery of tests, then sits down with you to tell you which skills you are best at, and then (hopefully) gives you the choices of the open fields you will be trained for, once your indoctrination is complete? You got it. We need people of all types of skills to make the military function. Upon completion of basic training, some people will become snipers, some welders, some logistics experts and some lucky few will get to head towards playing with live ordnance, specifically the kind the bad guys like to leave around with the plan to hurt passers by, or major industrial facilities, but I digress.

As you spend time in the ranks, you will see how what you can add to the unit is sought after and developed. Word of cuation: Just because you are good at something, it doesn't mean you will get to do it. They may be too many people already in the specialty, so relax and look for the next best thing. On the other hand, it may be more important that you stay where you are, so that unit is intact.

Relax and look for your niche. Ask about it once you have learned the initial ropes of the system.