The main difference: Our present-day Army is an all-
volunteer force, comprised mostly of millennials — people born after 1980. Despite its reputation for being unyielding and rigid, the Army’s training regimen has changed with each new generation. That was the case with baby boom- ers (born between 1943 and 1960), generation X (born be- tween 1961 and 1980), and the current generation. You might think recruits should change to fi t the Army
and not vice versa — and to a large extent, they do. Howev- er, Col. Malcolm B. Frost, USA, Pacifi c Training and Exer- cises Division chief, says if the Army does not “adapt, fl ex, and evolve in parallel with the demands of junior leaders from the millennial generation, the Army will incur serious and unintended consequences.”
Evolutionary war training To bring training in line with current realities, Congress recently approved the appointment of Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, USA, to oversee the modernization process under the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and the National War College in Wash- ington, D.C., Hertling has served in many capacities in his career, including commander, Operations Group, U.S. Army National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., and commanding general of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq. As deputy commanding general of initial military
training, Hertling will leverage that experience to re- shape basic combat training to a higher degree of effec- tiveness for today’s recruits. The changes currently are being rolled out at all fi ve of the Army’s basic training facilities: Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Jackson S.C.; Fort Knox, Ky.; Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; and Fort Sill, Okla. Members of the millennial generation “communi- cate — and recreate — differently, as the result of the technology that is omnipresent in our society,” explains Hertling. “They question orders like American soldiers have always done, but sociologists tell us they do that not because they are being confrontational, but because they are interested in improving the outcome. They form teams to solve problems in different ways, probably due to the way they use technology to communicate.” Indeed, Hertling says the current crop of trainees is the smartest he’s seen in 30 years. “They pick up con- cepts, understand culture, fi nd information, and apply it quickly — when given the chance and the mentoring — and ‘team’ better than any group I’ve ever seen,” he says. The downside, according to Hertling, is they’re
also arriving in the poorest physical shape ever. That’s not the fault of U.S. Army Recruiting Command, he
4 8 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R MO N T H 2 0 0 5
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maintains; it’s simply a refl ection of the de-emphasis on physical fi tness and nutrition, not only in civilian schools but also in modern society. The CDC reports 67 percent of adults over age 20 are overweight, with 34 percent of those considered obese. A cross-section of an average group of recruits arriving at an Army reception battalion confi rms those fi gures.
Step 1: Identifying requirements Having identifi ed a need for a change in the Army’s train- ing curriculum, the next question was how to proceed. TRADOC sent questionnaires to 220,000 offi cers and NCOs asking them what they needed in newly trained soldiers arriving in their units. Approximately 32,000 soldiers from the ranks of the active duty Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve responded, yielding some 10,000 pages of ideas. “The most important skills were the handling, fi r-
ing, and maintaining of the individual; the application of combat casualty care; the preparation of the mind and body for the physical and mental demands of deployment and combat; the maintenance of situational awareness; voice communication skills; and map reading/land navi- gation,” says Hertling. Many respondents weren’t aware that, by regulation,
soldiers reporting from initial entry training with mini- mum Army physical fi tness test scores and excess body fat have until the end of their fi rst year to achieve the re- quired standards. With many recruits reporting to train- ing centers in abysmal physical shape, even 10 weeks of basic training is often insuffi cient to shape up. One often-mentioned concern was the need for ad- ditional combatives: Many leaders thought newly minted soldiers could use more training in hand-to-hand com- bat, and more than 30 percent thought bayonet training should be replaced with pugil instruction. They also wanted to know more about the soldiers they receive from initial entry training, beyond the basic information they’d been receiving. The trainees’ workload also came under scrutiny. “We
have about 660 hours available for training in the [basic combat training] program of instruction, but we found we were trying to train more than 780 hours’ worth of tasks,” says Hertling. “Adding more things without refi n- ing or eliminating others will only contribute to contin- ued poor training and additional ‘task paralysis.’ ”
Step 2: Ground truth With this information in hand, Hertling set out on a tour of major training facilities to get some idea of their
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