How would you rate your military training?

[dwa]

I have not been in the military but I will say this. If you do not have what it takes to perform in an intense situation, all the training in the world will help you very little. On the other hand if you have what it takes to perform, a little training goes a long way. Some things you either have or you don't.

then dont talk!!

[technique]

Can you share the video... that'd be cool to watch it.

I didn't get to meet up with him yesterday...He can't figure out how to get to me via email. I'm determined to get it though.

[dwa]

the training is advance as you want it to be. if you never go into an intermediate or advanced course and then complain about never having advanced training what does that say about you. i mean for marksmanship you have SDM CQM talk by army marksmanship unit, SOTIC, if you can pole smoke your way into a slot if your not a longtabber. there's as many schools and training as you want but if you want the advanced stuff you actually have to go to the course.

[coder44mag]

I wasn't in the military, but I believe proper practice and experience is the key to being great at something. I continuously solve problems and do root cause analysis everyday for work. My computer science education simply got me to one level, and continuous learning and experience leads the way.

Here is a great article about mastering something in 10 years, not 21 days (Google Research Director and former NASA guy)

http://norvig.com/21-days.html

"Researchers (Bloom (1985), Bryan & Harter (1899), Hayes (1989), Simmon & Chase (1973)) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music."

[tpuig]

My Air Force marksmanship qual was with a .38 revolver... Been a while...

Are we talking about any military training?
******What about my marksmanship training in the Air Force? Frankly, it sucks.

[ConcernedCitizen]

I joined the Navy in 1977 because they guaranteed me electronics training. I was already familiar with firearms. We did familiarization training in boot camp with rifles. Aboard ship, they gave us either an M14 or a shotgun for training. They said if we hit the water we were qualified. Then I got to stand a nuclear security watch with a 1911 sidearm and the right to use deadly force. Many watch standers didn't even know how to check the weapon.

As for the elctronics training, the Navy taught us that current flows in the opposite direction that the rest of the world knows. They taught electron flow and the rest of the world uses hole flow. On a Navy schematic, the current flows in opposition to the arrows on semiconductor devices, which is the opposite of what the rest of the world thinks. There's the right way, the wrong way and the Navy way!

Still and all, I have built a lucrative career on the knowledge and experience I gained in the Navy. I'm glad I did it.

[kermit315]

If it makes you feel any better, they taught us hole flow in 2001 during AT A school.

[smle-man]

My training in the Army was usually excellent with a few instances of the instructor going through the motions. As I moved up the food chain the students were much less willing to put up with poor training. I was in one class of Officers and Warrants where the students got so rowdy with the instructor (another officer) that he fled the class area. He was putting out crappy info and we had enough knowledge under our belts that we couldn't be BS'd. When I went through basic and AIT as an EM many of the instructors had recently been in VN and gave us the book way and then the way they did it in the field. Later on I was exposed to the same training method: how the book says it should be done and what really works. My motto has always been "trust your training" because it has been good enough that if I respond as trained it will work.

[Noboundaries]

I landed A-7E Corsair II jets on aircraft carriers day and night in all kinds of weather. I remember everything from smooth, glassy, sunsplashed seas to nights so black you felt you could brush charcoal dust off your flightsuit. I remember one zero visibility takeoff and landing in a tanker-equipped airframe to refuel a bunch of F-14s that couldn't get back aboard. They all spent a night on the beach in the Aleutian Islands while me and three other A-7 tankers got back aboard on the first try and never saw the deck until we trapped. I remember one overcast, black night when I had a total electrical failure 300 miles from the carrier in blue water ops and had to land aboard a deck that was pitching 52 feet vertically and 24 feet horizontally.

The planes I flew while deployed usually had some type of minor system failure on almost every flight, significantly annoying system problems on about every fifth flight, and major system problems about every tenth flight. The small arms training sucked, but I could put a dumb bomb all day long within 0 to 20 feet of the intended target. The training I had to get me into a warm bunk at the end of the day just doesn't get any better anywhere in the world. That live or die training carries over to the civilian world in ways that non-military experienced civilians appreciate when something absolutely has to get done, and resent when they have to compete with me head to head.

[xsquid]

Small arms training in USN boot in the mid 70's consisted of 13 rounds of 22LR with the butt of the rifle when not against your shoulder alway was touching the deck - and being shown a .45. Fam fire onboard your command was usully much better, with M14s, 12guages and .45 off the helo deck or . In the SBU, 20mm cannon, M16s, Ma deuce, M60s, M79s and 60mm mortars. Job training is like what Concerned Citizen posted - you get trained the Navy way - but also prepared me for jobs right out of AD. Fire fighting and damage control was EXCELLENT!