“What you have to understand is that bureaucracy is an organism, and the prime goal of every organism is self-protection. Bureaucracy exists to protect itself.” — Emily St. John Mandel
We were recently contacted by a student who had just completed Army basic training, so we took the opportunity to gather some intel on the present firearms module being taught.
It appears that little has changed!
1. Cold ranges are all that is in use.
2. Troopers carried “unloaded” rifles everywhere, thus resulting in absolutely abhorrent gun handling, with muzzles being pointed at everyone and everything except where they should be. Our student lost count of the number of times he had muzzles pointed at him.
3. Instruction was lackluster, at best, leaving marksmanship scores unnecessarily low. Our student commented that if they would simply adapt our 5-minute explanation of the relationship between sights and trigger, along with our dry practice trigger reset drill, he was sure the majority of his unit could have potentially qualified expert.
4. He never touched a pistol the entire time, nor were handguns even discussed.
Comments:
I’ve been impressed by the direction Secretary Hegseth has been taking our military. Massive improvements in physical fitness, morale, readiness, and elimination of “woke” policies have certainly been made in a very short time. However, recruit level firearms training still lags decades behind the private sector.
Yes, certain SOCOM units have proper rifle and pistol training programs. However, it may surprise many reading that they often bring in outside instructors for not only firearms training, but hand and blade training, as well as other specialty subjects.
Marines get a little better rifle training than the other branches, but not near what they should. Run-of-the-mill soldiers, sailors, and airmen are provided [I was going to say “lackluster”, but in reality it is] embarrassingly poor small arms training. And those at the Pentagon in charge of it are, IMO, on borderline of criminally negligent.
The lack of proper training not only makes our fighting force less effective, but it gets soldiers killed in times of war and peace through accidents, friendly fire incidents, and the inability to make hits on the enemy.
This administration has a little over two years left to attempt a revamp military small arms training. Should it occur, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. …but I’m not holding my breath.
In the meantime, anyone reading this who is entering the military or has a loved one who is, please (seriously, PLEASE!) send them to a reputable Instructor or school to learn how to run rifles and handguns BEFORE they enter basic training. If you contact me directly, we offer enlistees a discounted tuition fee. But, it doesn’t have to be Fortress – there are great Instructors all over the country, and we can help guide you to them, as well.
“Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?” — Frank Herbert
