He has a point in some areas. Combat jumps for example. They are largely unnecessary and to be honest, may be a relic of the past. Warfare has gotten advanced enough where putting troops on the ground via a C130 and parachute may be obsolete in most instances. Now, small insertions of Special forces may not be, but large scale 101st airborne ones may be. But they tend to do a lot higher altitude jumps of a different kind.

It is like the Marine Corp who just disbanded their armored division and gave all the tanks to the Army. If an army can put a javelin in the hands of enough soldiers, are tanks really that effective anymore?

Now this isn't to say all combat training it useless, but some may be. Some of those things we are doing may be relics of the past and no longer necessary. We seem to train like the next world war is going be just like World War 2, but I imagine the next world war will look a whole lot different.

Outfitting people in poor-fitting gear and then having them do unnatural exercises asks for permanent injury; this is stuff the military seems to do a lot and a constant stream of partially disabled people come out.

I don't expect that number to ever go to 0, but I'd hope it could be smaller.

> You really think the military should forgo combat training?

This is not what anyone said. I'm in strong favor of more realistic training.

Of course, even this may be unnecessary for many. E.g., read the uncle comment's anecdote about ROTC.

> there was a woman on a guaranteed nursing scholarship who was probably about 4'10", 80 pounds, and she tore both ACLs from all the marching with 90 pounds of gear.

>there was a woman on a guaranteed nursing scholarship who was probably about 4'10", 80 pounds, and she tore both ACLs from all the marching with 90 pounds of gear.

Whose idiocy was at fault here? I don't honestly think the military wanted people like this in the first place.

Lol. Yah, wrecking skilled officer candidates -- especially nurses-- by giving them exercises that enlisted infantry struggle at when you have a massive nursing shortage in the military is awesome.

Meanwhile at the next door ROTC program it's all ridiculously soft and drill.

This all speaks to poor organizational controls.

Ridiculously bad take. The military desperately wants good nurses. The military also wants people who will follow orders even when those orders may cause harm to one's self. The military doesn't have a particularly compelling need for all (or even the majority) of its nurses to carry large packs for long distances.

To be fair it was a question.

Does that need outweigh outweigh the difficulty of individually tailored ROTC programs for one person? I don't know

It seems to be the instructors' fault. They are supposed to know what they're doing and should not be assigning excercises that someone is physically incapable of performing.

If they raised concerns and were overruled, then it's that person's fault also.

It's only the instructors' fault to the extent that it's an unusual outcome. If it happens systematically, there's bigger issues.

Of course not combat training in general. A few specific and specifically injury-prone activities. Sorry for the poor wording.

FWIW, this isn't some crazy take. "Maybe the number and severity of injuries due to this activity is reducing readiness more than the resulting experience is increasing readiness" is a known trade-off.