Why The Army Is Changing How Drill Sergeants Are Trained | Boot Camp | Business Insider

do something, you decided to join the military and you can't go back to that, shut your mouth, shut your mouth, we're going to win everything throughout the cycle, still, stay humble, well, within a two year span, the US military. The US has completely changed its approach. to train new recruits, your son already had soldiers, if you had to use that language to get someone to do something that you are no longer relevant to in our military, which means that the way

drill

sergeants

are

trained

has also changed, that's, frankly, something we adopted during the Vietnam era was because we had a conscripted Force, but the reasons for this recent change may go beyond adapting to a modern volunteer

army

, people don't want to stay and With change comes criticism if there is a belief that the Army is awake and that we are becoming softer, it couldn't be further from the truth.

Insider visited the U.S. Army Drill Sergeant Academy at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, to see how

drill

sergeant training has changed to better prepare tomorrow's military in the foreign economy, the drill sergeant's first day . The training begins promptly at zero six hundred with the team building event called The Defender pickup, the first task is to run a certain distance and reach your first stock boards. How many people consider themselves good in the field? They care about their soldiers right now and we go over every Army value. This exercise is a new addition to the Drill Sergeants Academy.

It shows candidates how soldiers are now welcome in the Army and also highlights the core values ​​that drill

sergeants

must embody. let's talk about integrity To be honest, be honest, give me a little more, what's that moment like to be a drill sergeant after taking all your value charts? Drill sergeant candidates are shown a bunker configuration and given 30 seconds to memorize it, they are expected to remember exactly the configuration how high it is, if it is two sandbags High, three sandbags High, yes , then they have to be inspected by the top side of that platoon, to the extent that you have a small infraction, so go ahead, secure your boards and return to the IHG. hotel find out come back and make a correction the final step of the event requires the splatoons to stack their value tables they have done it correctly reveals the drill sergeant insignia and motto once they see it's kind of oh hey actually I'm in the school instruction star is here, this is real, you know what man after working with you guys for the last couple of damn minutes?

Hey, you all will be good leaders. You'll all make good drill sergeants, so I'm not even worried about that. that the defender's truck is modeled after an exercise called the first 100 yards on day one, training competition for new infantrymen that replaced the more controversial shark attack, we are breaking many habits of the civilian world and nothing beats a small shock to the system to establish that that drill sergeant is in charge, okay, yell at a trainee, yell at an individual period, they go into defense mode, they shut down, those barriers go up and once those barriers go up, it's quite difficult to really get to the root cause. of situations with a new training approach in mind, future drill sergeants learn the three different methods of training recruits in the command, they must always remain silent with their right foot in place, these methods give drill sergeants the ability to customize your training.

Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, everyone drives differently, everyone does something different, different ways to skin a cat, but the purpose of what we're doing here at the Academy is to have a standardized way of effectively training students to do something, although there is flexibility in how drill sergeants can train new recruits, there is not always flexibility in becoming a drill sergeant in the first place of the 2,200 drill sergeant candidates who come through the academy each year, on average, only 35 percent of them volunteer. The remaining 65 percent are D.A selected, meaning they were nominated by their superiors and assigned a tour as a drill sergeant.

What went through your mind when you knew that? I got a little excited because I thought, "Oh, huh, I have three kids." Your mind is like the hours when my children are little, so I felt like I was going to be taken away from them for a while. It wasn't my first choice. My husband was deployed. She was home alone with a child and working full capacity. time, so I thought he wasn't ideal and didn't want to do it at first. Yes, 100, it was 100 changed. Being here has given me a whole new perspective on being a drill sergeant and being in tradoc and training trainees while the Army has more than half of its future drill sergeants to choose from, it can't choose future soldiers and recruiting, especially among the Generation Z, has steadily declined, according to a 2021 Department of Defense survey, 16- to 24-year-olds are less inclined to join. the military is at the lowest level since 2007. and perceptions about military culture may also contribute to low recruiting, which are things that people say are happening in the military and you are all the ambassadors for making changes to that rhetoric during the next two or three years I have the opportunity to change the dynamic one of the most difficult parts of training for future drill sergeants is relearning the basics 100 150 as a basic rifle Marksmanship for many students their jobs in the military do not require the daily use of the rifle I'm a Delta 68 surgical technician, I'm a medic, so mini drill sergeant candidates have to relearn the basics of the rifle and how to teach them to recruits, and the hardest part about that is you have to get those bad habits of your mind, although well, that's how I do it.

This is because by doing so you may not be able to communicate as effectively with a student, so coming back here and having to learn those basic fundamentals of the way you're going to teach them is a little different than He was accustomed. At home it's a new qualification they are teaching down the road, they have to maintain a 23 or better, they don't just shoot to qualify, they have to know how to zero their own gun, they have to know how to analyze groups of shots from different people Hey, for some, you come in, come, humble yourself and go back to the basics because if you go back to the basics you can't go wrong, while the rifle marksmanship test may have been very easy for some, the Army insists that the Army

boot

camp

's

changing

tone hasn't made it easier for new recruits.

I expect you to perform at this particular standard, period, and then allow them to perform at that standard without having to do all the other shenanigans that you're going to have. a much better product doesn't mean we've relaxed any standards, it means there's the same amount of structure and discipline that we've always had in military training, we just do it professionally one two three two one two three in in seven candidates complete their physical preparation training evaluation candidate Arteaga I'll be the pi this morning in the fall and then in March on the left your main job is the op tempo of the actual PRT session, so your cadence counts uh things of that nature and you're saying either Whatever the exercise is, you are basically the one who must understand without prior notice, the lead sergeant will tell the students to change places and after

changing

roles, the other students will have to continue exactly where the previous student left off. walking surface, what that means, you may need to unlock your elbows to get the other counts right, but then you get to the last one, you say one, two, three, you need it, one, two, three, oh, that gave you a total of 77 points and me.

I gave you an 85. Any question is fine, so unless you hear from you with one week left at Drill Sergeant Academy, the only thing standing between the students and their graduation is a grueling culminating event, unlike other training exercises, the culminating event is the The first event is completely student-led, planned, resourced, and executed entirely on them. Each squad of drill sergeant students is in charge of one of the events and this is where we want them to feel like they know we want them to do it. Now get over the setbacks in the resource piece so that when they hit the road they understand that things are going to happen and I had to adapt.

You know, as we go, there are five events in the culminating training event. The first event is the battle march. Shooting is basically stress shooting, so they march a certain distance and then once they reach their target, which is a range, they immediately drop their rucks and get into their fighting positions and start attacking their targets after the Martian Battle shot. we have the sticks down lanes come on so they run down different lanes reacting to contact breaking contact things of that nature once they pass they will move on to their next task which is the third one which is a mass casualty event or massive cow, they will march from one point to another and between those points they will receive strong contact, come on, let's put the bird in there, the drill star leader candidates who are in charge of the particular Mass Cal event they are going to. walk up and say Hey, you know the IDF got to you, they blew off your right leg and now they're trying to assess, you know what everyone's going to do when there's a mass casualty event, how are we going to do it? keep calm and control the situation pull it like this after the mass casualty event we have the ability to win what is the obstacle course they go through so today each squad will go through each obstacle and they will basically do it by the time they have. "You're good, the goal here is, you know, to build that camaraderie, to build that competition so that at the end someone can show off at the last event of the culminating training event which is the Five Mile Road March and this is huge because this is the first".

Once they are actually called drill sergeants, we pin them, congratulate them, and also celebrate at a Little Rock ceremony, so it's only fitting that we do a Grog ceremony for all of you who represent the one to come, drill sergeant. instruction The Grog. The ceremony is a tradition that combines a strange mixture of liquids creating a unique punch or grog that the sergeants train, everyone roasts and drinks oh, it gave us wings. I have tapatío to add to the grog and it represents a must because light work is sometimes a bit spicy. It's cold The last week of training begins with the common dance A ceremonial exercise where the commander joins the graduating class for the last time Nine weeks after joining the academy It's graduation day for 83 new drill sergeants The drill sergeants they receive their

camp

aign coverage and officially begin their tour as a drill sergeant in the United States Army they see the uniform they see the hat they see their sons and daughters go out and put on that uniform and we have the misconception that that human element has been eliminated when It's actually the opposite, I'm ready to go, it's going to be the next two or three years of my life and I want to make the most of it.

My nephew recently joined the military and I can lead by example as if I were the Standard, it is an honor for me. The

army

needs you to be a very good leader. Instruction star. Please take care of our soldiers. Have my way.