Poll: "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine..."

[BonsaiK]

I'm not a massive fan of war movies but I've seen most of them, mainly due to my Dad being obsessed with them. I think I've seen every WWII and Vietnam era war movie ever made between 1950-1990. However I have no experience with real war, something for which I am eternally grateful.

I spent my whole childhood and teenage years being paranoid about the possibility of being drafted into a war one day. This is because whenever I used to watch a war movie, I thought that the actual battles were cool, but the "training" scenes scared the shit out of me. Something that always goes through my head every time I watch one of them where there is a "basic training" bit, is this: how realistic is that part of war movies? Do sargeants and drill instructors really yell at you and single you out like the guy in Full Metal Jacket? Do they really brainwash you and dehumanize you to the extent often shown?

Some of you folks have probably served in armed forces in various countries so you would probably know the answer to these questions. If you do please post below, and don't forget to include what country you served for so we can find out which countries are the really nutbar ones.

Favourite war movie with a "training scene" in it BTW is "The Boys From Company C". I don't know how realistic it is, but just the thought that it might be somewhat realistic is enough to make it a very chilling experience. Mind you, it's been so long since I've seen it that maybe I'm thinking of a completely different film. Whatever it was, it was good, anyway. On the other hand, "Apocalypse Now" oddly didn't impress me much at all despite everyone telling me that it is apparently THE definitive Vietnam war movie. I always liked the Vietnam ones more overall though, because they always seemed a bit deeper and grittier whereas the WWII ones were usually just flag-waving nonsense, plus there's usually more gore and scarier training scenes in the Viet ones. So if you're not in the armed forces you can still participate in this thread by talking about war movies and telling me which ones you think are awesome (or not).

 

[Legion]

I have a friend who did the PRMC test (Pre Royal Marine Course) which is basically a three day course designed to see if you would be suitable in the Marines. He told me that they would take the piss (make fun of) everyone's names, swear and yell at you and try and get you to quit.

Bearing in mind this is just a 3 day course which you can try and do before even starting basic training I'd say that it would only get worse once you have signed up.

I don't think the brain-washing part applies though, UK soldiers (along with UK people in general) are pretty cynical and patriotism isn't anything like it is in the US.

 

[matrix3509]

From the "real life" videos I've seen on the intarwebz, Drill Sergeants do yell at you a lot, but they yell at everyone to enforce discipline, and I seriously doubt there would be much discipline in a military unit with it. Eventually you grow out of it and you are disciplined by habit, therefore the Drill Sergeants have no need to yell at you anymore. However, I do not believe Drill Sergeants personally insult recruits nowadays. If I recall, there was a story a few years back (before 9/11) about how Drill Sergeants were going to be halting a large amount of their former abuse because recruiting numbers dived off a cliff after the first few weeks of basic training. I'm pretty sure nowadays, Drill Sergeants will only yell at you personally in you really screw something up, at which point he/she will punish your entire squad, therefore you have less to fear from the wrath of the Drill Sergeant than you do from your own squad. However this is just basic training, the specialized training is a different story altogether, as I have heard from some friends in the military that some other types of training is as close to hell on earth as they could have imagined.

But again, all I know is what I've seen in clips and videos that claim to be real. Don't know if they actually are or not.

 

[EvilPicnic]

Generally yes, from my limited experience. I did 2 weeks of work experience with the Army and they beasted us for the slightest mistake, and nothing was spoken when it could be YELLED. But no-one was really singled out - all punishments were as a squad, supposedly to develop team-working skills. Eventually I decided it wasn't the sort of environment I really wanted to live my life in. But it did make me awesome at press-ups.

 

[Captain Blackout]

At least somewhat realistic. The oriental martial arts games have had some interesting pieces that at least did a good job capturing the spirit of what was needed in training, and I'm going to guess that games from other military genres have their examples that pull it off as well. I will admit I almost clicked on the fourth option until I remembered my own martial arts, which was almost entirely non-Us military and mostly traditional asian in character.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Read The Lone Survivor

Its about a Navy SEAL that gets deployed to Afghanistan. The first 100 or so pages are all about his experience training and stuff. Its a really good read, and he goes into a lot of detail about the training.

 

[DazZ.]

I'm sure the poll results help greatly in answering your question.

However, I do not believe Drill Sergeants personally insult recruits nowadays. If I recall, there was a story a few years back (before 9/11) about how Drill Sergeants were going to be halting a large amount of their former abuse because recruiting numbers dived off a cliff after the first few weeks of basic training.

If they can't take being shouted at with personal remarks they won't be able to handle being shot at, and I don't think they should be in any armed forces.

 

[Jedoro]

When I went to basic training, I mostly found it annoying. The "hurry up and wait" mentality everyone seems to have just pissed me off, drill sergeants complained about us keeping them there all day when they wouldn't even treat us like human beings (yes, they complained to us), and I didn't like having every minute of my day controlled. People say that gets much better once you're actually in, but I don't enjoy knowing my leaders have the ability to do that again.

Pretty much, it's not as bad as FMJ, but I left because I was forced to respect guys I thought were douchebags, had the possibility of having every minute of my life controlled, and couldn't shoot back at all.

 

[Fire Daemon]

R. Lee Ermey, the man who played Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, was actually a Gunnery Sergeant in real life, served in the Vietnam war ad libbed the majority of his performance from personal experience so yeah, I would imagine that it is pretty similar. I have never served in the military so I wouldn't know from personal experience.

I believe that role of Hartman was originally going to be filled by someone else but Ermey sent Kubrick an audition tape in which he insults the man for 15 minutes without pause or repeating himself and Kubrick gave him the role.

The more you know etc.

 

[BonsaiK]

I knew about how Hartman got the role but I didn't know he did that in real life. No wonder he's so good at it, damn he steals that movie.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

Judging from stories my brother told me, it's more annoying than anything. The drill sergeants don't have quite so much, ahem, "freedom" as they used to have. If I recall, they can't friggin' touch you. However, they will yell at you, and many of them do indeed have those colorfully offensive put-downs to recruits.

 

[Meggiepants]

My father has this buddy who fought in Vietnam that likes to talk about the Iraq stuff whenever certain news stories come up. He got to talking about a particular incident, that video that came out a while back, with the soldier who shot Iraqis in the head even though they were face down. This was a while ago, but you might remember the controversy. In any case, he said he didn't see what the big fuss was about. All soldiers learn to shoot everyone lying on the ground in the head as you pass through an active zone. He said if you don't, you're likely to get shot yourself. I understand this makes sense, but there was just something about the way he talked about it. Like it was just a thing you did, like getting dressed in the morning. His nonchalant tone about the whole thing was unnerving, to say the least.

 

[Garaw]

I can only speak for the U.S. army, but the drill sergeant's toolbox has been limited in the modern military due to the concern of society in general. I saw a trainee get hit or manhandled occasionally, but those were extreme situations.

In the first couple of weeks, everybody got hounded and screamed at, to see how we all handled it. When the drill sergeants sorted out who was a fuckup from who wouldn't make problems for them, things settled into a routine where they made life miserable for the former and worked on training the latter. Trainees do indeed get singled out, and as far as my experience goes this 'time-out card' rumor is a bunch of crap. We never had those.

I assume that the Marines are a lot rougher s far as training, and the more technical branches like the Air Force and Navy are probably more lenient. The discipline you get exposed to in active service depends on your unit.

The most nutbar army I've ever witnessed personally is the South Koreans. Their discipline is waaay harsher than that of the U.S.

 

[matrix3509]

If they can't take being shouted at with personal remarks they won't be able to handle being shot at, and I don't think they should be in any armed forces.

While that is most likely true, I've heard the the (U.S.) military will do just about anything to get their recruiting numbers up. However, when I heard about them doing this, it was before 9/11 happened, and if I remember correctly, recruiting number during that period were absolute shit. After 9/11, recruiting numbers went right back up through the roof.

 

[Riobux]

I haven't been in the army, but it is based on some actual truth. The part where Joker says "I'm John Wayne, is this me?" is a comment about how the army depersonalises people and loses most of their personal identity. The part about when the Drill Sergeant yelling at Gomer Pyle when he has the gun aimed at him is absolutely false though just because I doubt anyone is stupid enough to insult someone when they've got a gun pointed at you.

Although it also depends on what war movie you watch.

 

[A.I. Sigma]

"I have never served in the armed forces of any country, so I wouldn't know,however I like clicking things so I will click here."

I laughed aloud at that. 8D

I'd love to serve in the armed forces, personally, so this thread looks like it will be a good read.

 

[DigitalSushi]

I'm sure the poll results help greatly in answering your question.

However, I do not believe Drill Sergeants personally insult recruits nowadays. If I recall, there was a story a few years back (before 9/11) about how Drill Sergeants were going to be halting a large amount of their former abuse because recruiting numbers dived off a cliff after the first few weeks of basic training.

If they can't take being shouted at with personal remarks they won't be able to handle being shot at, and I don't think they should be in any armed forces.

I never understood that, about how the training is too tough, its meant to toughen you up!.

The opposing forces in a war aren't armed with feather duster and harsh language, their armed to the teeth with bullets and hatred.

 

[johnman]

I only have my experiacne from the army cadets to go on, which is much softer for obvious reasons. There are some similarities, the pass or fail as a squad/section is often true, and the most unpleasent and intense parts are when you are starting out, as everything is drilled into you repeatedly and you are made to toughen up. Once you get to a decent level though it levels off a fair bit as you become aware of what is expeted of you.
The problem in cadets is that we get alot of people who A, played call of duty and think that guns = awesome but are not interested in any other aspect of militarty life and take everything personally but forget they are no longer screaming down a mic, and B we get loads of hyperactive kids or much more special needs who cant really take the strain or behave.