[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Marine basic training - more challenging than Army basic training? (Page 1 of 5)
Posted: 9/25/2020 11:03:58 PM EDT
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I kinda think it must be, but don't really know. Is it much more challenging? |
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Quoted: I was told by an Air Force dude that the Air Force basic was the hardest because they played, "head games"  |
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Basic wasn’t too bad in 2014. Basic/boot also means very little. It is initial indoctrination summer camp, not great training. You’d have to do an analysis of how 2 units spend their time and run them through training ops to see who is better trained or “tougher” |
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Quoted: Wow. That sounds terrible. I wonder when every other armed forces training program in the history of the universe will integrate that into their curriculum? Quoted: Quoted: I was told by an Air Force dude that the Air Force basic was the hardest because they played, "head games" LoL! |
| I joined the USMC shortly after 9/11/2001 and then joined the army in 2018 (large break in service, no retirement for me!). While I never went to army basic I can tell you that there is a world of difference between the two and I can’t see many of my Army infantry line company soldiers making it through USMC boot camp. |
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Quoted: We had some prior-enlisted guys in my platoon. They got treated like everyone else. They had a very hard time. Had 2 prior Army guys in my platoon in 81. They were like this is crazy compared to Army basic. They said we had tougher pt from the start and got harder from there. Way more time spent firing our rifles. Just generally more intense. |
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Basic is literally just that... basic. All it is meant to do is weed out the very lowest level of non-hackers. When I went through RTC San Diego, one of my shipmates was a guy I’ll call “Howard.” Howard made Gomer Pyle look like fucking Werner Von Braun. Howard had enlisted to be a Parachute Rigger. However, Howard was so bad at making his fucking rack that we started doing it for him just because collective punishment sucks. Howard passed basic and went I know not where in the Navy. People who didn’t make it through basic? Guy who got rolled back into our class for being a degenerate drunk. Turned his smurf suit inside out, jumped the fence and went partying in San Diego like that, returned very drunk. Gone after maybe three days in our company. Guy who cut his chest open with razors and wrote “I am dogman, the world is my oyster” on the barracks walls in his own blood, gone. Vietnamese guy who also couldn’t make his bed or even put on his shoes, gone. There are lots of people who like the idea of the military and sign up for it; but are not well suited to it. Basic weeds out maybe the bottom 10-20% of those. Having worked joint service and swapped a lot of stories, my general impression is USMC is the hardest of the basic trainings by design. US Army basic training is not designed to be as hard; but can occasionally be more difficult just by virtue of who they recruit. |
| I've only done one, but the average US Army soldier is a slob, with much more relaxed standards than the Marine Corps. I think it's pretty much common knowledge that USMC > Army > Navy > Coast Guard > Air Force is the hierarchy of challenging boot camp experiences. |
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Quoted: I joined the USMC shortly after 9/11/2001 and then joined the army in 2018 (large break in service, no retirement for me!). While I never went to army basic I can tell you that there is a world of difference between the two and I can’t see many of my Army infantry line company soldiers making it through USMC boot camp. I've never served so I can't really comment, but I'm curious. Would you think the same about a bus load of fresh recruits just coming in from MEPS ? |
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Quoted: I've only done one, but the average US Army soldier is a slob, with much more relaxed standards than the Marine Corps. I think it's pretty much common knowledge that USMC > Army > Navy > Coast Guard > Air Force is the hierarchy of challenging boot camp experiences. I used to work with a Coastie who frequently said that "Coast Guard boot camp is the 2nd hardest boot camp in the military." I never served, so I didn't challenge him on that. |
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Quoted: I've never served so I can't really comment, but I'm curious. Would you think the same about a bus load of fresh recruits just coming in from MEPS ? Quoted: Quoted: I joined the USMC shortly after 9/11/2001 and then joined the army in 2018 (large break in service, no retirement for me!). While I never went to army basic I can tell you that there is a world of difference between the two and I can’t see many of my Army infantry line company soldiers making it through USMC boot camp. I've never served so I can't really comment, but I'm curious. Would you think the same about a bus load of fresh recruits just coming in from MEPS ? I’ve had three years to watch my soldiers in action, this wasn’t a snap judgement like it would be with a bus load of poolees. That being said, contrary to popular belief, the USMC is very picky on who it takes and turns down many people. The Army in my experience (they took me after 9 years out!) is not. Someone else said it above, being smaller the USMC gets to pick and choose what they want, the Army is much larger and constantly is not meeting recruitment quotas. I dont believe that the USMC has missed a recruiting quota since the end of the Vietnam war. |
| No idea. Ours is longer and I think produces a pretty good product most of the time. At the end everybody would essentially do anything that the Marines in charge would of told them to do. It wasn’t fun, but I saw some of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in boot camp. I was always shocked at how the other services both didn’t trust their lower enlisted to do much and also how the lower guys talked back to their leaders. Our culture is very different in those regards. Our culture is built in boot camp. |
| I went through boot camp at MCRD in San Diego in 89. I remember the football jocks saying that the PT was a joke compared to their high school football programs. That was in the first month. None of them were saying that after we went to Pendleton and started humping. The humping Marines go through is no joke. I doubt it is either for Army recruits in the infantry. |
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Quoted: I was told by an Air Force dude that the Air Force basic was the hardest because they played, "head games" Quoted: Quoted: I kinda think it must be, but don't really know. Is it much more challenging? I was told by an Air Force dude that the Air Force basic was the hardest because they played, "head games" |
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Quoted: It's true. They'd tell us the golf course was right out the back door and then we'd find out we had to use the golf cart and tee off was like blocks away and we'd be like "Aaaaaaaah". And sometimes they'd tell us Prime Rib and it would turn out to be Beef Wellington and you just wanted to throw the china. Horrible! Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I kinda think it must be, but don't really know. Is it much more challenging? I was told by an Air Force dude that the Air Force basic was the hardest because they played, "head games" |
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I remember my step dad saying it will be 13 weeks of me playing "Simon Says" and the Drill Sergeant is Simon. Do not do shit until Simon says to. I tried not to laugh every time I thought of that, usually while at attention during inspection. Ft. Benning heat and humidity was the worst part of OSUT. |
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I can only speak to my Army basic circa 1995. I went to basic at Ft. Leonard Wood and I was severely disappointed. I thought I was joining "The Army" and they were going to break me down and make into something stronger, better. Unfortunately I was a 98G and they put us through basic with a bunch of other pogs, like truck drivers, firefighters, and females. When a two privates got busted because the female one went and gave the male one head in the weight room at the end of the barracks while the dude was on fire watch I knew I was in a chickenshit outfit. So it was pretty much like a Boy Scout camping trip (minus the sodomy of course) and I left no more a man or squared away than when I went in. |
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Quoted: We had some prior-enlisted guys in my platoon. They got treated like everyone else. They had a very hard time. We had one, too. He was your average recruit. I really didn't understand his decision to come in with eight years prior. I wonder how that worked out with up or out. |
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Quoted: I used to work with a Coastie who frequently said that "Coast Guard boot camp is the 2nd hardest boot camp in the military." I never served, so I didn't challenge him on that. Quoted: Quoted: I've only done one, but the average US Army soldier is a slob, with much more relaxed standards than the Marine Corps. I think it's pretty much common knowledge that USMC > Army > Navy > Coast Guard > Air Force is the hierarchy of challenging boot camp experiences. I used to work with a Coastie who frequently said that "Coast Guard boot camp is the 2nd hardest boot camp in the military." I never served, so I didn't challenge him on that. I've got a friend who has done Coast Guard boot camp and Army basic (actually did most of basic at Jackson, got seriously sick and sent home, had to fight to go back, only slot was Benning, so he can compare Jackson to Benning from personal experience, and even for non-infantry, Benning was tougher according to him), I'll ask him next time I think about it. I think he's still a 68W in the Guard. |
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Quoted: I used to work with a Coastie who frequently said that "Coast Guard boot camp is the 2nd hardest boot camp in the military." I never served, so I didn't challenge him on that. Quoted: Quoted: I've only done one, but the average US Army soldier is a slob, with much more relaxed standards than the Marine Corps. I think it's pretty much common knowledge that USMC > Army > Navy > Coast Guard > Air Force is the hierarchy of challenging boot camp experiences. I used to work with a Coastie who frequently said that "Coast Guard boot camp is the 2nd hardest boot camp in the military." I never served, so I didn't challenge him on that. I served with a former Coastie in the Army back in the 80’s.. He said that’s what they brainwashed them into thinking during Coastie Basic but the reality was much different; |
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I worked with a guy who did both. Army OSUT sometime around 1985 and USMC around 1990. He said USMC boot was physically tougher, but had to learn a lot more in Army BCT. He bitched about having to buy new boots after Marine boot because they spent so much time marching on the parade field vs. training. That didn’t surprise me because I remember seeing USMC tankers marching around Ft. Knox and the heels on their boots were almost non-existent. |
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When I was in boot camp we started with 103 recruits in our platoon. By the end of boot camp at graduation we had 40 original recruits with 3 pick ups. Some of our losses where legitimate medical injuries. The rest could not or did not meet the standards of the time. There was 4 guys from highschool that went into the Marines. 1 did not graduate. There was 9 guys that went Army ,13 guys that went Navy, 8 guys that went Air Force, and 2 guys that went Coast Guard. All of them graduated their recruit training. One of my friends that went into the Army was stunned that we lost so many people in boot camp. He said that he started with 120 people in his platoon and graduated 109 recruits. |