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From The Field: Recruits Lacking Discipline By Jim O'Rourke Having just read Col. David Hackworth's article at SFTT.org about basic training at Fort Jackson and how soft the U.S. Army has become in recent years ("The March of the Porcelain Soldiers," SFTT.org, Apr. 3, 2002), I would like to share my own experiences. I was a green, no-nothing Combat Engineer 2nd lieutenant at Fort Leonard Wood in the early 1990s. We never saw "Pvt. Basic Training Joe" anywhere - he had no BX privileges, no time at the commissary or anywhere else on post except the Basic Training Barracks, the ranges and the post chapel. Fast forward to 1995: I have spent 13 months in Korea, living through constant personnel turnover as guys rotate out of their jobs. I am surviving only because I have a stud platoon sergeant who gives me just enough rope without hanging myself when we go to the DMZ and/or do Exevals with the Combat Brigade. I am honored to be leading kids who volunteered three times - once to join, then again to Airborne School and finally to Korea for a short tour so they can get to Bragg and keep jumping out of airplanes. And 40 percent of my platoon are KATUSAs who help me understand the Korean people. Later at Fort Bragg I am jumping out of airplanes: Pathfinder, air assault, training with the 7th Special Forces Group "down range." At one point I have to go to Fort Leonard Wood to coordinate the Air Insertion (DACO and DZSO) for a CAPEX with all the 0-5/command sergeant-major and above in the Engineer Community looking on - lucky me. So, one night after the air insertions, I tell the rigger, "Let's run to the BX and grab a burger and beer - we deserve it after a couple of long days without any injuries or incidents." We arrive at the BX and I cannot believe my eyes: "Basic Training Joe" (and "Josephine") are everywhere, like they own the place. We park our Hummer at the far end of the lot and walk towards the building, passing 15 or so trainees waiting for the bus. I walk by, maroon beret and bars obvious to everyone with 20/200 vision, and no one moves - unbelievable. At Fort Bragg, never in a thousand years - so I stop and find an E-4 (junior ROTC?) and light his ass and tell the whole group how sorry they are. I explain military courtesy and customs and I finish (by now everyone is at attention) the lesson. Then some E-6 intercepts me as I am walking away and says, "We don't treat the recruits so hard anymore." This is a drill sergeant. It is simply pathetic when I realize that he is airborne qualified." I am now out of the Army, thanks to a high-altitude entanglement during a Mass Tac night insertion on Sicily where I cracked a vertebrae. I work for a Fortune Top 30 firm and one of my suppliers is in South Carolina, so I fly in and out of Columbia once every six weeks to see them. On the last trip, my flight coincides with graduation day at Fort Jackson, where I see 50 to 60 Basic Trainees released on the world and 90 percent of them look like shit (rumpled Class A's, Hershey bar shine on the shoes, tarnished brass, some even in need of haircuts). The scariest thing to me is that is none of them looked hungry - no "eye of the tiger" among the group. The worst part was that three drill sergeants were down there to control the gang, and they looked like shit, too: No creases on their BDUs, muddy boots and one actually needed a shave. I found myself at the bar sitting near an old-timer E-8. I asked him why the kids today don't look sharp/hungry and he started making excuses, telling me that I have no right to question the "patriotism" of today's youth and that I should be proud that people are willing to serve the USA given the fact they are all volunteers. "Roger that," I tell him, "but what I fear is the mortality rate when the shit hits the fan."