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Training: The Foundation 
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Heritage.org

Oct 4, 2018 22 min read

Jim Greer, Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

In no other profession are the penalties for employing untrained personnel so appalling or so irrevocable as in the military.

—Douglas MacArthur, 1933

It is astounding what well-trained and dedicated Soldiers can accomplish in the face of death, fear, physical privation, and an enemy determined to kill them.

—Lieutenant General Ace Collins, 1978

Death, fear, physical privation, and an enemy determined to kill them: These are the challenges that those who defend our nation face when they go to war. Whether one is a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine; a brand new private or a grizzled old veteran; a fighter pilot, a submariner, a tanker, a military policeman, a transporter, or a medic, every serviceman and woman must be prepared to make contact with the enemy, survive, and accomplish the mission as a member of the team. That is what training the Armed Forces of the United States is all about: enabling those who serve to fight, win, and come home to their loved ones.

Warfare is always changing, always evolving.

• World War II saw the emergence of blitzkrieg and air operations over land and sea.
• Vietnam demonstrated the power of combinations of enemy regular and insurgent forces.
• The ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated how improvised explosive devices can be significant killers on the battlefield.
• In 2006, the Israeli Defense Forces were stymied by Hezbollah’s employment of a hybrid approach that combined sophisticated conventional weapons and tactics with terrorism and long-range missiles. 1
• Most recently, Russia has employed what is termed “New Generation Warfare” to conquer the Crimea, secure the eastern Ukraine, and threaten the Baltic nations. 2

Military training must therefore change as well. It must continually be forward-thinking, innovative, and aggressive, both in understanding how warfare is evolving and in adapting training to meet those challenges. Today, the Chinese military presents the threat of long-range missiles to deny the U.S. access to the western Pacific Ocean and to our allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Since the end of World War II, the ability of the U.S. to move freely as it pleases in the Pacific has been assured, but that freedom of action is increasingly at risk as the Chinese military invests in new technologies and capabilities. This growing challenge places a training requirement on all four services to learn how to defeat the threat of such anti-access/area denial tactics. 3

Training is one of the key functions of each of the services within the Department of Defense (DOD). Others include manning, equipping, organizing, and sustaining, but it is training that wraps all of those functions together to create and maintain effective organizations. Training is so important that each service has its own major subordinate command dedicated to training:

• The Training and Doctrine Command for the Army, 4
• The Naval Education and Training Command for the Navy, 5
• The Training and Education Command for the Marine Corps, 6 and
• The Air Education and Training Command for the Air Force. 7

Each of these commands respectively holds the service responsibility for designing, developing, resourcing, assessing the effectiveness of, and providing command oversight of its service’s program. Additionally, for the Joint Force, the Joint Staff J-7 has responsibility for joint oversight, policy, and strategy for training and exercises that bring individual service forces together into a coherent whole. 8

What Is Training?

The U.S. military defines training as “instruction and applied exercises for acquiring and retaining knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes (KSAAs) necessary to complete specific tasks.” 9 Generally speaking, military training is divided into two broad categories: individual and collective. Individual training is exactly that: training designed to develop individual skills. Collective training is designed to integrate trained individuals into a cohesive and effective team, whether that team is a tank crew of four or an aircraft carrier crew of 5,000.

Training can be as small as an hour-long class for a four-person team on how to bandage a wound and as large as a multi-week joint exercise including tens of thousands of personnel and units from all four services. It generally occurs in three domains: the institutional domain, which includes the various formal schools in each service; the operational domain, which includes training in units and on ships, whether at home station, deployed, or underway; and the self-development domain, conducted by individuals to address the gaps they see in their own learning.

Training Realism

Their exercises are unbloody battles, and their battles bloody exercises.

—Flavius Josephus, 75 C.E.

No other activity prepares a military force better for combat than combat itself. The environment in which combat is conducted—one of violence, death and destruction, fear and valor, complexity and uncertainty—is one of the most challenging in which any human being or human organization must operate. It is so challenging and unique that it cannot be completely replicated outside of combat itself. Thus, to be effective, military organizations must train under conditions that are as realistic as possible and come as close as possible to placing the individual, the team, the unit, and the crew in the environment and situations they will face in combat. Training realism is one of the key measures of training effectiveness.

Much of the design and innovation in training is aimed at generating realism. Training design generally has three components:

• The task itself—the thing an individual or the element is expected to accomplish. An example might be to conduct an attack, conduct resupply of a vessel, or employ electronic warfare to jam an enemy system.
• The conditions— the set of circumstances in which the task is expected to be performed. Examples might be day or night, moving or stationary, opposed by an enemy or unopposed, or with full capabilities or some capabilities degraded.
• The standards— the level of competence and effectiveness at which the task is expected to be accomplished. Standards might include the speed at which the task is to be performed, the accuracy of hitting a target, or the percentage of operational systems that are ready and available.

Identifying the tasks, conditions, and standards drives training realism. Ultimately, as Flavius Josephus described the training of the Roman army, the goal is for military forces entering combat to have “been there before” so that they know they can fight, win, and survive.

Training Effectiveness

It’s not practice that makes perfect; rather, it’s perfect practice that makes perfect. It is, after all, the seemingly small disciplines and commitment to high standards that makes us who we are and binds us together as a force, an Army, in peace and in war.

—General Martin Dempsey, 2009

As former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Marty Dempsey’s quote implies, the services do not train just for training’s sake. They train in order to reach specific measurable levels of performance in specific tasks. Training, then, is both nested and progressive. It is nested because training in specific individual tasks is aggregated to enable training in small elements tasks, which in turn are aggregated into training in progressively larger organization tasks.

Take, for example, a carrier battle group. A carrier battle group consists typically of the carrier; several cruisers, frigates, or destroyers; and perhaps a submarine. On each of those ships, individual crewmembers, petty officers, and officers must be trained on their individual tasks. Those individuals then form teams such as a fire control party or an engineering team. Teams are then combined to make departments, such as the gunnery and engineering departments, which then train together to create an overall crew for the ship that is effective in sailing, attack, defense, or replenishment. The various ships of the carrier battle group then train together to enable collective attack or defense by the group of ships. At the same time, individuals and organizations are trained progressively under increasingly challenging conditions to increasingly higher standards. All of this must then be assessed for competence and effectiveness.

Because training involves both individual and collective learning, the military uses the standard approach of the educational profession to develop and conduct training. This is known as the ADDIE approach:

• A ssess. Organizations assess their training to identify gaps in proficiency or determine new training requirements.
• D esign. Training is designed to overcome gaps or to improve proficiency under a variety of conditions.
• D evelop. Once designed, training is developed, coordinated, and resourced to enable execution.
• I mplement. Developed training is implemented to train the requisite individuals and organizations.
• E valuate. Once conducted, training is evaluated for its effectiveness. Individuals and elements are retrained until proficiency goals are achieved.

Training assessments are a critical factor in achieving training effectiveness. On the front end of the ADDIE process, such assessments identify gaps in the achievement of standards, which in turn leads to the design, development, and execution of training to achieve those standards. At the back end of the process, training is evaluated to determine whether standards were met and, if they were not, what further training needs to be conducted to achieve those standards.

The Department of Defense uses the Defense Readiness Reporting System (DRRS) 10 to track readiness, to include training. Under DRRS, each service uses its own readiness reporting system to report training readiness on a monthly basis for all of the elements in its organization. This monthly assessment is used to guide training management to ensure that training is conducted to achieve readiness goals.

Training and Leader Development

Training and leader development are two military functions that go hand in hand. It is of little use to have personnel and units that are well trained if they are not also well led; conversely, the best leader can accomplish little with poorly trained troops. Of course, both training and leader development are forms of learning, and there is significant overlap between the two functions. Consequently, the services invest considerable effort in leader development.

Each service has a Professional Military Education (PME) program for commissioned officers, warrant officers, and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) or petty officers. There is also a Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) program to ensure that officers are qualified to integrate service components into joint headquarters and joint task forces. In each case, PME consists of a progressive series of schools that begin with pre-commissioning education in the military academies, Reserve Officers Training Corps, 11 Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Course, and various officer candidate schools. PME continues with basic, advanced, and specialty education. Each service has a staff college for mid-grade officers and a senior service college, or war college, for senior officers. JPME has a National Defense University system that officers and civilians from all services and partner departments and agencies attend. 12 Within each service, there are parallel PME systems for junior, mid-grade, and senior warrant officers and NCOs.

Leader development represents a significant investment by the Department of Defense. During a 20-year career, a leader is likely to spend between two and four full years in the various PME schools: between 10 and 20 percent of total time served. The investment is necessary because of the unique and complex features of the environment and conduct of warfare. Senior leaders always confront the tension between time in schools and time in operational units. During periods of intense deployment, such as the high points of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns in the mid-2000s, attendance at leader development schools is sometimes deferred. When this happens, however, leaders face a challenge: determining whether it is better to have an untrained person present in the unit or a vacancy in the unit while that person is being trained.

Historically, interwar periods—the years between major wars like the 1920s and 1930s between World War I and World War II—have been periods during which leader development flourished and innovation occurred. The military’s war colleges, the highest level of leader development, were instituted during interwar periods. Similarly, all of the services’ advanced schools, such as the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, the Marine Corps’ School of Advanced Warfare, and the Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies, were started during the Cold War. Clearly, such innovation needs to take place in the post-9/11 environment of seemingly continuous warfare, but how this will happen has not been determined.

Initial Entry Training

Virtually all members of the armed services enter the profession at the ground-floor level. Whether they are recent high school graduates, graduates of a university or one of the service academies, or transitioning from another job or career, they are thrust into an organization whose culture, shaped by the demands of warfare, is significantly different from anything they have previously experienced. At the same time, they are confronted with a myriad of new tasks that they must learn in order to be valued members of the team.

Each of the services has an Initial Entry Training Program, generally divided into two phases: a basic phase, often called “basic” or “boot camp,” to develop the foundational skills required of everyone in that specific service and inculcate them into the culture of that service and a more advanced phase to develop specific skills for their chosen or assigned specialty, whether as an intelligence analyst, a dental hygienist, a mechanic, or an air defender.

Initial Entry Training is a significant undertaking. Each year, the U.S. Navy trains approximately 40,000 recruits at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, 13 and the U.S. Air Force trains approximately 35,000 in Basic Military Training at Lackland Air Force Base. 14 The Marine Corps trains approximately 20,000 recruits a year at Parris Island 15 and another 17,000 at San Diego. 16 The U.S. Army trains more than 80,000 recruits each year at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, 17 and three other major training installations. All told, DOD is conducting Initial Entry Training for almost 200,000 young men and women each year.

The design and resourcing of Initial Entry Training always present a challenge. Obviously, senior leaders would like to train new recruits to the maximum extent possible before those soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines join their units or their ships, but more training means more time, and each individual has enlisted in the military only for a certain period of time, usually three or four years. As a result, there is a trade-off between time spent in initial training and time spent actually serving in support of a mission.

Another consideration is the investment of more senior, experienced people who serve as the training cadre. The services rightly send their very best to be the first leader under whom a new recruit will serve, but that means that the best leaders, who are limited in number, are not always with the fighting forces.

Command and Staff Training

A central component of training military organizations and units is the training of commanders and staffs. Each of the services has dedicated training programs and resources for such training, which normally employs simulations because it would be wasteful to use large numbers of troops and equipment simply for staff training. Much of this training is aimed at planning, coordination during execution, and decision-making.

• The Army Mission Command Training Program trains the commanders and staffs of large units at the brigade, division, and corps levels. 18
• The Marine Staff Training Program trains the senior commanders and staffs of Marine Air-Ground Task Forces. 19
• The Red Flag Series of exercises at Nellis Air Force Base is the U.S. Air Force program for training the commanders and staffs of Expeditionary Air Force elements. 20
• The U.S. Navy operates several different programs tied to its regional fleets. For example, Carrier Strike Group 15 is responsible for training the commanders and staffs of Pacific-based carrier battle groups, amphibious ready groups, and independent ships. 21

Another key factor is the training of joint headquarters and joint staffs. U.S. military forces never fight simply as Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine units. Even if a particular operation is predominantly in one domain, the execution is necessarily joint.

Since 9/11, for example, the U.S. has conducted military operations in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is entirely landlocked, and counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations are conducted exclusively against targets on the ground, against an enemy with no navy and no air force. Yet U.S. military operations in Afghanistan have been completely joint as the Air Force has provided precision attack from the air, the Navy has provided electronic warfare and training for Afghan National Security Forces, and Marine Corps forces have conducted counterinsurgency operations in specific sectors within the country. In addition, special operations forces from all four services have conducted sensitive missions throughout the war.

Previously, training of joint headquarters and staffs was conducted by U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) under a comprehensive program that was not unlike the Mission Command Training Program conducted by the Army. However, in 2011, USJFCOM was disestablished, and a very robust capability was lost. Since then, joint staff training has been conducted by the services, by regional Combatant Commands, or to a limited extent by the Joint Staff. Thus far, because the ongoing campaigns in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan have not faced multidimensional enemies, the change has not had adverse consequences. However, as the Department of Defense focuses training and readiness on more capable potential enemies such as North Korea, Russia, China, or Iran, the lack of a robust joint training capability will increasingly be an issue.

Training Simulations

Simulators and simulations have a long history of enabling training for military forces. Simulators include capabilities that replicate actual systems in order to maximize training opportunities, reduce cost, promote safety, or preserve equipment for wartime use. Early examples were flight simulators that reproduced the cockpit, wings, and tail of an airplane in order to train pilots in the control, maneuvering, and reaction to emergencies on the ground before they took an airplane up in the air. Other simulators in use today recreate the entire bridge of a navy destroyer so that officers and petty officers can learn to maneuver, fight, and safeguard the ship under tactical conditions. 22

Simulations enable the training of organizations by creating battlefields or operational environments. Early examples of simulations were tabletop war games in which maps recreated the terrain of a battlefield and markers were used to signify the various units of opposing sides. Participants would fight out battles for training in the art and science of warfare.

Today’s simulations are far more sophisticated and often far more integrated. The military uses four general classes of simulation: live, constructive, virtual, and gaming. Each of these classes of simulation has a specific purpose and training audience, and two or more classes of simulations can be integrated to make training of individuals and units even more effective. The goal of much simulation research and development is not just to create the most effective individual simulation, but to create a true integrated training environment that combines all four classes to maximize training effectiveness.

• Live simulations are the training simulations that most closely represent training as historically conducted with individuals and units using real equipment in training environments that most closely reflect actual combat. This means using actual land, sea, air, space, or cyber terrain; actual weapons using either live or dummy/inert ammunition; and actual vehicles and other equipment, often against an enemy force that is also live and simulated by some portion of the U.S. military.
• For example, Red Flag exercises are live training simulations in which Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft fight against an enemy portrayed by U.S. aircraft and crews that are trained specifically to represent various enemy capabilities. In a similar manner, Army and Marine Corps ground forces have Combat Training Centers (CTCs) at which large formations of thousands of troops and hundreds of armored and wheeled vehicles and weapons systems fight battles against a well-trained and well-equipped opposing force (OPFOR) and conduct large-scale live-fire training at distances and ranges that they would expect in actual combat.
• Constructive simulations are representations of military forces and operational environments, usually aimed at training for large-scale combat involving whole naval fleets, Army Corps, Marine Divisions, or Air Force Wings, to include joint constructive simulations that combine forces from one or more of the services. Originally, constructive simulations were conducted using tabletop war games with pieces representing military units, but today, most constructive simulations are computer-based. Given the size of forces and the fidelity with which military units, ships, and aircraft can be represented, constructive simulations are usually used to train leaders and staffs.
• Virtual simulations are computer-based representations of individuals, teams, units, weapons systems, and other capabilities, usually with great fidelity to the operational environment (terrain, weather, urban areas, etc.) to include not only enemies, but also local populations. Virtual simulations are best suited to training individuals, teams, or small units. For example, Conduct of Fire Trainers (COFTs) are used to train individual tank or fighting vehicle crews, and Close Combat Tactical Trainers (CCTTs) are used to train platoon and company-size groupings of tanks or armored fighting vehicles. Virtual simulations have the virtue of training aircrews, ship’s combat systems crews, and tank and fighting vehicles crews in many repetitions and situations—in other words, lots of practice—without the large costs for fuel, munitions, and maintenance and without the need for the large spaces that live training requires.
• Gaming is the newest class of training simulation. While war games have been used for centuries in the form of board games or tabletop games, the advent of computer gaming brought with it whole new opportunities. The military recognizes that digital games improve rapid decision-making, cognitive processes, and synchronization and integration of different systems and capabilities while providing almost countless variations of situations and complex problems with almost immediate feedback on performance. The military even uses games to educate new recruits about the military service they have chosen before they actually attend their Initial Entry Training.

Resourcing Training

When personnel are not actually engaged in combat, training dominates military activity in all four services on a daily basis. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are trained from the first day they enter the armed forces until the last day of their service. Commanders at every level consider training for future combat and military operations to be one of their primary responsibilities. Institutionally, each service expends significant time, money, and personnel on generating, conducting, and sustaining the most effective training possible for individuals, teams, units, and organizations at every echelon. Failure to conduct such training or conducting training that does not attend to the harsh realities of war will likely lead to failure in battle.

Of all the training resources we have, time is the most precious. Military organizations start the year with 365 days, but with 104 weekend days and a dozen or so holidays, the start point is soon around 250 days. Then training has to compete with other critical events such as maintaining equipment, moving units from one place to another, personnel-related tasks such as medical checkups, and preparation for deployment.

Therefore, in a really good year, a unit might have six months of actual training time. Then commanders must manage that time. How much is devoted to individual training? How much is devoted to collective or unit training? How much is small-unit or individual ship or squadron training, and how much time is spent on large-scale training? How much is live training, and how much time is spent in simulators? Management of the training calendar becomes one of the most important leader tasks.

Providing adequate personnel for training is also a critical resourcing effort. Great training requires great trainers. The basic training that each service provides is only as good as the drill sergeants and other non-commissioned officers who are taken out of combat-ready units and provided to the training base. Similarly, professional military education at all levels requires dedicated and well-educated faculty, both uniformed and civilian. Senior leaders must make strategic decisions about the management of personnel to provide the best support to training while still ensuring that units and ships are adequately manned to go to war if necessary while meeting the needs of ongoing conflicts.

Of course, the most visible resource necessary for training is money. Money pays for all of these capabilities. It pays for training areas, ranges, training ammunition, and fuel. It pays for flight hours for training aircrews, for transporting units to and from training areas, and for the training simulations. The services also must pay for development of future training capabilities such as virtual, constructive, and gaming simulations and for modernization of training forces as the conflict environment and the threats and enemy change. Money also pays the personnel costs associated with training.

Training budgets are very complex across the Department of Defense. Part of the cost of training is contained in a unit’s operations and maintenance budget. Other training costs are in infrastructure or base maintenance budgets. Others are found in modernization budgets as the services improve capabilities or field new systems. Some costs are related to pre-deployment training for units that are preparing to go into combat in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. Costs are also spread over several years, or “across the POM” (Program Objective Memorandum) as the five-year DOD budget planning cycle is termed. This means that some training costs are short-term, year-to-year, while others, such as the costs of building training infrastructure, are spread out over several years.

Resourcing training with enough money is a national endeavor, not just a military one. The Department of Defense, in conjunction with other federal departments and agencies, submits budgets to the Administration that include all of the various training requirements. The Administration submits that budget to Congress as part of its overall budget. Congress considers all of the training requirements and costs in crafting an appropriations bill, which eventually is subject to a vote, approved, and signed by the President. At the same time, the various states are developing and approving budgets that include their own defense-related training costs, such as for the Army and Air National Guards and state-level training areas and facilities. And every two years, when Americans vote, the readiness, modernization, and training of the military forces is a consideration.

In other words, military training is every American’s business.

Warfare continues to change as new operational methods like hybrid warfare are combined with new technologies such as cyber, drones, and 3-D printing. Military training also must continue to change so that the U.S. military is prepared to confront emerging threats and potential enemies that are growing in strength and ambitions. Training innovation and training resourcing are critical to achieving new and better ways to train the force.

Ultimately, the goal of military training is to ensure that when the nation goes to war or engages in conflicts or military operations short of war, the armed forces of the United States will be able to accomplish strategic, operational, and tactical objectives. The ultimate goal of training is to win battles and engagements and to do so with the lowest cost in terms of national resources and with the lowest loss of life among those who have volunteered to fight to defend the nation.

1. David E. Johnson, Hard Fighting: Israel in Lebanon and Gaza (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001), https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1085.html (accessed May 23, 2018).

2. Janis Berzinš, “The New Generation of Russian Warfare,” Aspen Review , Issue 03 (2014), https://www.aspen.review/article/2017/the-new-generation-of-russian-warfare/ (accessed May 3, 2018).

3. Dean Cheng, “The U.S. Needs an Integrated Approach to Counter China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial Strategy,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2927, July 9, 2014, https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-us-needs-integrated-approach-counter-chinas-anti-accessarea-denial-strategy .

4. U.S. Army, Training and Doctrine Command Web site, http://tradoc.army.mil/index.asp (accessed May 23, 2018).

5. U.S. Navy, Naval Education and Training Command Web site, https://www.netc.navy.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

6. U.S. Marine Corps, TECOM Training and Education Command Web site, http://www.tecom.marines.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

7. U.S. Air Force, Air Education and Training Command Web site, http://www.aetc.af.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

8. U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, J7 Joint Force Development Web site, http://www.jcs.mil/Directorates/J7-Joint-Force-Development/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

9. U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Joint Training Policy for the Armed Forces of the United States,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction No. 3500.01H, April 25, 2014, p. A-5, http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/training/cjcsi3500_01h.pdf?ver=2017-12-29-171241-630 (accessed May 23, 2018).

10. R. Derek Trunkey, “Implications of the Department of Defense Readiness Reporting System,” Congressional Budget Office Working Paper No. 2013-03, May 2013, https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/113th-congress-2013-2014/workingpaper/44127_DefenseReadiness_1.pdf (accessed May 23, 2018).

11. U.S. Department of Defense, “Today’s Military: ROTC Programs,” https://todaysmilitary.com/training/rotc (accessed May 23, 2018).

12. U.S. Department of Defense, National Defense University Web site, http://www.ndu.edu/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

13. U.S. Navy, Recruit Training Command Web site, http://www.bootcamp.navy.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

14. U.S. Air Force, Air Force Basic Military Training Web site, http://www.basictraining.af.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

15. U.S. Marine Corps, MCRD Parris Island Web site, http://www.mcrdpi.marines.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

16. U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Western Recruiting Region Web site, http://www.mcrdsd.marines.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

17. U.S. Army, “Gateway to the Army: Initial Entry Training,” https://www.gatewaytothearmy.org/fort-jackson/basic-training (accessed May 3, 2018).

18. U.S. Army, Combined Arms Center, Mission Command Training Program (MCTP) Web site, https://usacac.army.mil/organizations/cact/mctp (accessed May 23, 2018).

19. U.S. Marine Corps, MAGTF Staff Training Program Web site, http://www.tecom.marines.mil/Units/Directorates/MSTP.aspx (accessed May 23, 2018).

20. Fact Sheet, “414th Combat Training Squadron ‘Red Flag,’” U.S. Air Force, Nellis Air Force Base, July 6, 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20150918180334/http:/www.nellis.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=19160 (accessed May 23, 2018).

21. U.S. Navy, Commander, Carrier Strike Group Fifteen Web site, http://www.ccsg15.navy.mil/ (accessed May 23, 2018).

22. Sam LaGrone, “Navy Makes Training Simulation Based on Fatal USS Fitzgerald Collision,” U.S. Naval Institute News, February 21, 2018, https://news.usni.org/2018/02/21/navy-makes-training-simulation-based-fatal-uss-fitzgerald-collision (May 23, 2018).

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The Joys of Basic Training, 1951

Becoming a soldier in a time of war.

By Manuel H. Rodriguez | August 22, 2012

When Bill Clinton was preparing to take over as president of the United States, he got a lesson from Ronald Reagan on how to salute. Back then, it was unusual to have a president without military experience. Today, it’s unremarkable. Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney has served in uniform. While I would never vote for a candidate merely because he served–other factors weigh much more heavily–I believe that both presidential nominees today lack a measure of personal experience that would benefit any commander-in-chief. You learn a lot in the military.

My military service began, in a sense, when I registered with the Selective Service System upon reaching my 18th birthday. On September 17, 1948, local draft board 121 issued me a draft card. (My last name on it was misspelled–as “Rodriquez”–as it was to be on each of the five Selective Service cards that followed.)

In June 1950, I was on a trip to Yosemite with my brother Raul, who had also registered for the draft, when I heard the news that North Korea had attacked South Korea and that President Truman was going to order the U.S. military to South Korea. We realized immediately that our lives were about to change.

On May 25, 1951, after an induction ceremony in the Mode O’Day building at Washington Boulevard and Hill Street in Los Angeles, I was no longer a civilian but a Private in the U.S. Army. My orders were to report to Union Station and take a train to Salinas. There, buses met us for transport to nearby Fort Ord, where we would undergo 14 weeks of basic training. I was assigned to training company C of the 20th Infantry Division.

The first two days at Fort Ord were devoted to getting recruits their clothes, very short hair cuts, shots, and other necessities. The Quartermaster issued us readymade uniforms and footwear with while-you-wait efficiency. My ID tags–dog tags–gave my name, my rank, and my serial number, U.S. 5609 5744. I have never forgotten it. The initials U.S. identified me as a draftee. Regular army personnel used R.A. (Whenever one of us appeared to be working too conscientiously, he risked having others label him R.A.)

We lived in white two-story wood barracks furnished with cots. At the foot of each cot was a green wooden footlocker for personal effects. Each article had its place: rolled up socks facing in the proper direction, underwear, handkerchiefs folded the Army way, comb, and razor. Behind each cot was a rack on which to hang our clothes, left sleeve showing, and a shelf above it for our helmets. Throughout the room were several substantial wood posts to which were nailed two-pound coffee cans painted red and half-filled with water. These were the “butt cans,” offered for the convenience of smokers.

Near the entrance of each floor was a rack in which we locked our rifles. Each of us was issued an M1 Garand, a rifle that General George Patton called “the greatest battle implement ever devised.” It was an air-cooled, gas-operated, clip-fed, semi-automatic shoulder weapon. Each clip held eight 30-caliber rounds. Everyone memorized his rifle’s serial number. We also learned to disassemble and reassemble the rifle blindfolded, by touch alone.

Cleaning our weapons and polishing our boots occupied a lot of our free time, giving us a chance to shoot the bull. Most of us were Californians, but at least two were from Arkansas and another from Massachusetts. Because the bungalows that housed the company were populated in alphabetical order, I had the company of three others who shared my last name. Jose Rodriguez was a mild-mannered fellow with an Alfred E. Newman grin. Luis Rodriguez was a streetwise guy who preferred the tough look. Ramon Rodriguez looked like a confused adolescent. At the barbershop, where Ramon was forced to see the curls of his pompadour tumble to the floor, he broke into tears.

There was also an outcast among us: Schloss, who was never known by any other name. Poor Schloss, a Jewish immigrant from Europe, had a squat body, short legs, a large head, and an enormous mouth, and he spoke English with a heavy accent. His manner was passive, even obsequious, and it invited bullying. Jose and Luis did what they could to make his life difficult. They made fun of his accent. They short-sheeted him so he could not get into bed. They threw his bedding, mattress and all, out the second story window. The behavior of his torturers was shameful, but Schloss might have put a stop to it with a raging defense of his dignity. Instead, he’d smile and grovel, ensuring further persecution.

Saturday mornings brought an inspection of the barracks. We’d prepare the night before with a “G.I. Party,” a thorough cleaning and scrubbing of the living area. Legend had it that the inspecting officer would wear white gloves in order to detect dust and flip a coin onto each bed to see if it bounced. To this day I make my bed Army-style.

Bugle calls regulated our days. Reveille sounded at 6 a.m., when a corporal switched on the lights and we fell in for 30 minutes of calisthenics in front of the barracks. Fort Ord was near the ocean, and on winter mornings the damp cold was invigorating. After exercising we’d shower and shave and wait for Mess Call to summon us to breakfast. Bedtime was at 10 p.m., when Taps played and the lights went out.

Much time was devoted to close order drill. “Forward, march!” the drill sergeant would shout. “Left flank, march! Halt! Parade rest! At ease!” Lectures took place in wood bungalows, where instructors used blackboards and slides to teach us about weapons, the use of gas masks, map reading, and venereal diseases.

I loved the discipline of the Army. I can only imagine the conditions that we men could have created absent strict rules. On Sunday afternoons and evenings, when we began to return from weekend leaves and discipline disappeared, the barracks, especially the toilet areas, became indescribably filthy.

During inspection we stood at attention in ranks and at Port Arms, holding our rifles diagonally across the chest with the rifle muzzle pointed to the left. The inspecting officer walked down each rank, stopping in front of the man he wanted to check. No one looked the officer in the eye–to do so would be a breach of military etiquette. On occasion the officer would take your rifle, peer up the barrel for signs of carbon that had not been cleaned, and open the breech to check if it had been cleaned and oiled.

Target practice took place across the highway toward the ocean on the firing range, where we fired at white targets up to 500 yards away. The range master, from a perch in the tower, told us what firing position to assume, prone or on one knee, and, in a moment I enjoyed for its high drama, announced, “Ready on the right, ready on the left, ready on the firing line! Commence firing!” Fellow recruits stationed in the pits would raise and lower the targets, placing large black tags over any bullet holes. Failure to hit anything earned a red flag and some pointers from the observing instructors.

We also fired other weapons: the light and heavy machine guns, the bazooka, the mortar, the 45-caliber pistol, the carbine, and the BAR, the Barrington Automatic Rifle. The BAR was much heavier than the M1, and we fired it from the hip as we walked a range with popup targets in human shapes. There was no mistaking that we were learning how to kill and how to avoid being killed. We practiced tossing grenades and placed bayonets on our rifles to attack figures stuffed with straw. We were reminded to pack our gas masks before going out in the field, but one day I forgot it. That was the day we encountered tear gas, and I learned a lesson about the importance of obeying orders to the letter. Tear gas smarts.

On Saturdays after morning inspection we received weekend passes. Because I had a 1941 Ford parked at a garage in Seaside, I set up a jitney service and gave three of my fellow trainees rides to Los Angeles, charging each $10.00 for the round trip. We left Seaside around noon and reached Los Angeles at around 10 p.m., only to be back on the road the next day by 2 p.m. to reach Ord by midnight. It was an absurd way to spend a weekend. Except that those who stayed in the barracks soon found that they were easy prey for a sergeant looking for recruits to pull KP, kitchen police duty, peeling hundreds of potatoes, and scrubbing outsized pots and pans for hours at a time.

Toward the end of our 14 weeks we underwent exercises that simulated combat conditions. We advanced toward a group of buildings held by an enemy that fired at us, and we encountered explosions and smoke and clanking tanks lumbering noisily toward us. Even though we knew we were in no real danger, it was terrifying.

As we experienced simulated combat, the possibility of real combat drew ever closer. Jokes about becoming cannon fodder ceased, and no one mentioned Korea anymore. One tall, blond, thin boy from Arkansas who had lied about his age to get into the Army had second thoughts and revealed the truth. He was released to go home. Ralph Marciano, a saxophonist from Massachusetts, played more melancholy music. During one of our last activities, a 20-mile march lugging full packs and rifles, the kidding and horseplay that had accompanied our previous marches and group activities were no more. We all had the same thought; nobody voiced it.

To mark the end of our training, our company participated in a full dress parade on the base Parade Grounds. Several bands played, and we marched with other companies to the cadence of martial music. We wore our Class A uniforms with hundreds of spectators looking on and flags flying. I was proud that day to be a soldier in the Army of the United States. I was proud to be an American. I still am.

I believe that any commander-in-chief would profit from having undergone the rigors of military basic training. He would also benefit from having felt the weight of possible deployment to a combat zone (not to mention actual combat).

The next day, Saturday, was our last day at Fort Ord. We fell in after breakfast in front of Company Headquarters, standing at attention in ranks facing the Company Commander. Our orders had been cut, and in a few minutes each of us would receive his set. That piece of paper would determine which of us would live and which would die.

When my name was called I went up for mine. I scanned the papers rapidly, looking for the word “Korea.” The terse and formal language belied the significance of the orders:

Classification and Assignment Team U S Army, Alaska Fort Lawton, Washington Assignment and Orientation Data Fort Richardson-APO 949

I remembered that toward the end of basic training, when Army job placement personnel interviewed us, I had told my interviewer about my work as a postal clerk at the Terminal Annex in Los Angeles. Alaska Command, it turned out, needed postal clerks.

Had I been sent to war, I would have done my duty, followed orders, and hoped for the best, just as American troops in warzones are doing today. Tens of thousands of young Americans went to Korea, and, officially, 36,568 died there. Many of my fellow trainees were among them, but I don’t know who got sent and who didn’t. That day, after receiving my orders, I left the grounds immediately and headed to my car.

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Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Army — The Importance of Being on Time in The Military [500-word]

The Importance of Being on Time in The Military [500-word]

• Categories: Army Discipline

About this sample

Words: 499 |

Updated: 19 June, 2024

Words: 499 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

• Being on time shows reliability.
• Being on time shows discipline.
• Being on time shows accountability
• Being on time avoids disciplinary action

Works Cited

• Army Regulation 600-20, Army Command Policy. (2016). Department of the Army. https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN17424_R600_20_Admin_FINAL.pdf
• Baldwin, J. (2018). Why Punctuality Matters in the Military. RallyPoint.
• Bell, C. M., Taylor, D. L., & Kozlowski, S. W. J. (2018). Enhancing Army Basic Combat Training: Identifying and Mitigating Attrition Risk Factors (No. RR-2244-A). RAND Corporation.
• Davenport, T. (2018). Being Late for Work: Reasons and Solutions. Chron.
• Duffy, C. J., & DiTommaso, E. (2018). Military Training and the Importance of Time Management. JOPERD: The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 89(9), 8-9.
• Military.com. (2018). Military Time Conversion. https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/military-time-conversion.html
• Seppala, E. (2017). The Importance of Punctuality. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-it/201706/the-importance-punctuality
• United States Army. (2020). Soldier’s Manual of Common Tasks Warrior Skills Level 1. Department of the Army.
• United States Army Europe. (2019). Soldier’s Guide to Professional Ethics. Department of the Army.
• U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. (2019). The Army Leader Transitions Handbook. Department of the Army.

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By Mark Wallace

• May 3, 2013

If you happened to visit the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England, in April, you may have spotted neat ranks of red- and blue-coated soldiers converging on the front lines of a grassy battlefield — a miniature battlefield, that is, peppered with soldiers just over two inches tall. Their commanding officers were gathered to celebrate the centenary of the book that gave birth to their hobby and, in so doing, spawned a family tree that has since branched out to include tabletop role-playing pursuits and big-budget video-game extravaganzas.

The book that started it all, “Little Wars,” was written by H. G. Wells, who is better remembered for his science fiction than for his game design. “Little Wars” was published in 1913, after Wells — inspired by a child’s discarded toy soldiers and breech-loading cannon — created a set of rules that the “recumbent strategist” could use to wage war across parlor floors or neatly manicured lawns and gardens. Wells and his gamer buddies refined those rules over a number of battles (as contemporary game designers do), looking to discover the best way to resolve hand-to-hand combat, for instance, or what to do if a detachment of bombardiers hid for too long behind the low hill formed by a strategically placed encyclopedia.

Wells entertained a number of notable literary and political figures with his diversion. According to Padre Paul Wright of the British Royal Army Chaplains’ Department, who is perhaps the world’s leading authority on “Little Wars,” G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc were among Wells’s guests while he was developing the game. “I think it is reasonable to suggest that Chesterton had some war gaming inspiration from Wells when writing ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill,’ ” Wright told me in an e-mail, referring to a novel in which toy soldiers play a decisive part. Winston Churchill and Wells maintained a correspondence too, though many of their letters have been lost. Wright wonders whether the two men ever faced off: “We are left with the fascinating prospect of an historical, toy soldier what-if between the two great toy soldier enthusiasts of the period.”

While miniature war-gaming has never been able to claim a place in the mainstream, it has influenced almost everything we think of as gaming today. By the middle of the 20th century, war-gaming had not only added new sets of rules for armies of many periods, but it had inspired a new kind of richly complex board game, like Axis & Allies and Blitzkrieg.Entirely novel face-to-face entertainments emerged from the same lineage. The game designer Gary Gygax, in a foreword to a 2004 edition of the book, credits “Little Wars” with influencing his own set of rules for medieval-period miniature wars, Chainmail — which in turn became the basis of a slightly less obscure role-­playing game: Dungeons & Dragons.

D.&D., of course, has deeply informed the entertainment revolution that was ignited by the rise and widespread distribution of computing power. But while it’s possible to bring a measure of on-the-fly creativity to bear during a round of multiplayer Call of Duty, video games have stripped away much of what makes face-to-face gaming so compelling. (And I say that as an avid electronic and tabletop gamer both.) The sense of collaboration and shared storytelling has been replaced by high-def graphics and product placements from weapons manufacturers. It’s no longer a matter of carefully aiming your matchstick cannon at a cavalry detachment in a gripping struggle for control of the carpet. Now you’re expected to frag enough noobs to earn the SCAR-H assault rifle that will let you maintain your position on the Black Ops leader boards.

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• How to structure an essay: Templates and tips

How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates

Published on September 18, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

The basic structure of an essay always consists of an introduction , a body , and a conclusion . But for many students, the most difficult part of structuring an essay is deciding how to organize information within the body.

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Table of contents

The basics of essay structure, chronological structure, compare-and-contrast structure, problems-methods-solutions structure, signposting to clarify your structure, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about essay structure.

There are two main things to keep in mind when working on your essay structure: making sure to include the right information in each part, and deciding how you’ll organize the information within the body.

Parts of an essay

The three parts that make up all essays are described in the table below.

Order of information

You’ll also have to consider how to present information within the body. There are a few general principles that can guide you here.

The first is that your argument should move from the simplest claim to the most complex . The body of a good argumentative essay often begins with simple and widely accepted claims, and then moves towards more complex and contentious ones.

For example, you might begin by describing a generally accepted philosophical concept, and then apply it to a new topic. The grounding in the general concept will allow the reader to understand your unique application of it.

The second principle is that background information should appear towards the beginning of your essay . General background is presented in the introduction. If you have additional background to present, this information will usually come at the start of the body.

The third principle is that everything in your essay should be relevant to the thesis . Ask yourself whether each piece of information advances your argument or provides necessary background. And make sure that the text clearly expresses each piece of information’s relevance.

The sections below present several organizational templates for essays: the chronological approach, the compare-and-contrast approach, and the problems-methods-solutions approach.

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The chronological approach (sometimes called the cause-and-effect approach) is probably the simplest way to structure an essay. It just means discussing events in the order in which they occurred, discussing how they are related (i.e. the cause and effect involved) as you go.

A chronological approach can be useful when your essay is about a series of events. Don’t rule out other approaches, though—even when the chronological approach is the obvious one, you might be able to bring out more with a different structure.

Explore the tabs below to see a general template and a specific example outline from an essay on the invention of the printing press.

• Thesis statement
• Discussion of event/period
• Consequences
• Importance of topic
• Strong closing statement
• Claim that the printing press marks the end of the Middle Ages
• Background on the low levels of literacy before the printing press
• Thesis statement: The invention of the printing press increased circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation
• High levels of illiteracy in medieval Europe
• Literacy and thus knowledge and education were mainly the domain of religious and political elites
• Consequence: this discouraged political and religious change
• Invention of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg
• Implications of the new technology for book production
• Consequence: Rapid spread of the technology and the printing of the Gutenberg Bible
• Trend for translating the Bible into vernacular languages during the years following the printing press’s invention
• Luther’s own translation of the Bible during the Reformation
• Consequence: The large-scale effects the Reformation would have on religion and politics
• Summarize the history described
• Stress the significance of the printing press to the events of this period

Essays with two or more main subjects are often structured around comparing and contrasting . For example, a literary analysis essay might compare two different texts, and an argumentative essay might compare the strengths of different arguments.

There are two main ways of structuring a compare-and-contrast essay: the alternating method, and the block method.

Alternating

In the alternating method, each paragraph compares your subjects in terms of a specific point of comparison. These points of comparison are therefore what defines each paragraph.

The tabs below show a general template for this structure, and a specific example for an essay comparing and contrasting distance learning with traditional classroom learning.

• Synthesis of arguments
• Topical relevance of distance learning in lockdown
• Increasing prevalence of distance learning over the last decade
• Thesis statement: While distance learning has certain advantages, it introduces multiple new accessibility issues that must be addressed for it to be as effective as classroom learning
• Classroom learning: Ease of identifying difficulties and privately discussing them
• Distance learning: Difficulty of noticing and unobtrusively helping
• Classroom learning: Difficulties accessing the classroom (disability, distance travelled from home)
• Distance learning: Difficulties with online work (lack of tech literacy, unreliable connection, distractions)
• Classroom learning: Tends to encourage personal engagement among students and with teacher, more relaxed social environment
• Distance learning: Greater ability to reach out to teacher privately
• Sum up, emphasize that distance learning introduces more difficulties than it solves
• Stress the importance of addressing issues with distance learning as it becomes increasingly common
• Distance learning may prove to be the future, but it still has a long way to go

In the block method, each subject is covered all in one go, potentially across multiple paragraphs. For example, you might write two paragraphs about your first subject and then two about your second subject, making comparisons back to the first.

The tabs again show a general template, followed by another essay on distance learning, this time with the body structured in blocks.

• Point 1 (compare)
• Point 2 (compare)
• Point 3 (compare)
• Point 4 (compare)
• Advantages: Flexibility, accessibility
• Disadvantages: Discomfort, challenges for those with poor internet or tech literacy
• Advantages: Potential for teacher to discuss issues with a student in a separate private call
• Disadvantages: Difficulty of identifying struggling students and aiding them unobtrusively, lack of personal interaction among students
• Advantages: More accessible to those with low tech literacy, equality of all sharing one learning environment
• Disadvantages: Students must live close enough to attend, commutes may vary, classrooms not always accessible for disabled students
• Advantages: Ease of picking up on signs a student is struggling, more personal interaction among students
• Disadvantages: May be harder for students to approach teacher privately in person to raise issues

An essay that concerns a specific problem (practical or theoretical) may be structured according to the problems-methods-solutions approach.

This is just what it sounds like: You define the problem, characterize a method or theory that may solve it, and finally analyze the problem, using this method or theory to arrive at a solution. If the problem is theoretical, the solution might be the analysis you present in the essay itself; otherwise, you might just present a proposed solution.

The tabs below show a template for this structure and an example outline for an essay about the problem of fake news.

• Introduce the problem
• Provide background
• Describe your approach to solving it
• Define the problem precisely
• Describe why it’s important
• Indicate previous approaches to the problem
• Present your new approach, and why it’s better
• Apply the new method or theory to the problem
• Indicate the solution you arrive at by doing so
• Assess (potential or actual) effectiveness of solution
• Describe the implications
• Problem: The growth of “fake news” online
• Prevalence of polarized/conspiracy-focused news sources online
• Thesis statement: Rather than attempting to stamp out online fake news through social media moderation, an effective approach to combating it must work with educational institutions to improve media literacy
• Definition: Deliberate disinformation designed to spread virally online
• Popularization of the term, growth of the phenomenon
• Previous approaches: Labeling and moderation on social media platforms
• Critique: This approach feeds conspiracies; the real solution is to improve media literacy so users can better identify fake news
• Greater emphasis should be placed on media literacy education in schools
• This allows people to assess news sources independently, rather than just being told which ones to trust
• This is a long-term solution but could be highly effective
• It would require significant organization and investment, but would equip people to judge news sources more effectively
• Rather than trying to contain the spread of fake news, we must teach the next generation not to fall for it

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Signposting means guiding the reader through your essay with language that describes or hints at the structure of what follows.  It can help you clarify your structure for yourself as well as helping your reader follow your ideas.

The essay overview

In longer essays whose body is split into multiple named sections, the introduction often ends with an overview of the rest of the essay. This gives a brief description of the main idea or argument of each section.

The overview allows the reader to immediately understand what will be covered in the essay and in what order. Though it describes what  comes later in the text, it is generally written in the present tense . The following example is from a literary analysis essay on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

Transitions

Transition words and phrases are used throughout all good essays to link together different ideas. They help guide the reader through your text, and an essay that uses them effectively will be much easier to follow.

Various different relationships can be expressed by transition words, as shown in this example.

Because Hitler failed to respond to the British ultimatum, France and the UK declared war on Germany. Although it was an outcome the Allies had hoped to avoid, they were prepared to back up their ultimatum in order to combat the existential threat posed by the Third Reich.

Transition sentences may be included to transition between different paragraphs or sections of an essay. A good transition sentence moves the reader on to the next topic while indicating how it relates to the previous one.

… Distance learning, then, seems to improve accessibility in some ways while representing a step backwards in others.

However , considering the issue of personal interaction among students presents a different picture.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

An essay isn’t just a loose collection of facts and ideas. Instead, it should be centered on an overarching argument (summarized in your thesis statement ) that every part of the essay relates to.

The way you structure your essay is crucial to presenting your argument coherently. A well-structured essay helps your reader follow the logic of your ideas and understand your overall point.

Comparisons in essays are generally structured in one of two ways:

• The alternating method, where you compare your subjects side by side according to one specific aspect at a time.
• The block method, where you cover each subject separately in its entirety.

It’s also possible to combine both methods, for example by writing a full paragraph on each of your topics and then a final paragraph contrasting the two according to a specific metric.

You should try to follow your outline as you write your essay . However, if your ideas change or it becomes clear that your structure could be better, it’s okay to depart from your essay outline . Just make sure you know why you’re doing so.

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Example Of Essay On World War II American Experience

Free research paper about hiring and training police.

The policing in the United States has changed over time, and the profession has evolved over time. The structure, characteristic and training of American police agencies and their daily operations have transformed with advanced technology. Looking back in the 1800s, there was a powerful relationship between politicians and the police during those times. However, times have changed, and policing has now moved to new dimensions beyond politics and reforms. The aim of this paper is to look at the complete procedure of hiring and training police officers.

Good Womens Army Corps - WAC Research Paper Example

Women’s Army Corps- WAC

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Environmental protection

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Why do you want to be a cna essay.

275 words = 1 page double-spaced

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