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The article's intent is to address the picture that was painted, for how she was treated. The author is saying that she came in, repeatedly quit and put hersel

The article's intent is to address the picture that was painted, for how she was treated. The author is saying that she came in, repeatedly quit and put herself at odds with the team. Being a non conformist has no place in boot camp. According to the author, she was not mistreated or characterized there, rather, she was encouraged to try and to be one of the team.

bsder 10y ago
> Being a non conformist has no place in boot camp. That's not necessarily a good thing. The most effective soldiers are actually quite good at figuring out how to counter the system. In addition, soldiers are given quite clear orders about things like the Geneva Convention and they are supposed to disobey orders that contradict them.
- Hnrobert42 10y ago
  Said as a true non conformist.
  - gremlinsinc 10y ago
    Nothing wrong w/ that to conform is to become in essence just a cog in the machine, there's no value to conformity, it takes away one's humanity... as I work each day to conform to the coding standards of psr2, and that our dev team has -- lol but that's more for aesthetics and organiztion than just the sake of demanding conformity for the sake of control.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  This is how it works, a unit works because you know with as much certainty as one can have how some one would act and react to every situation. Soldiers have to be predictable and interchangeable otherwise the entire structure falls apart, this isn't some hollywood action movie. Yes (predictive) initiative is encouraged and rewarded but what Manning did according to the article and the behaviour shown during boot camp was not intuitive for the lack of a better word manning acted like a brat. Now this isn't a personal attack, not everyone can fit into the military, not everyone can be made to fit through boot camp, but honestly if the first thing you do is effectively stomp your feet on the ground and say nope (the bag thing during initial induction) doesn't really bode well. People like manning used to get a "blanket part", not the prison one where you actually get covered by a blanket and beaten half to death but things like shoe polish in your boots and other stuff was pretty common hazing for anyone who thought they were a special snowflake. Most militaries work on unit cohesion which means if 1 fails everyone fails, sometimes a single infraction is enough for the entire unit, squad or troop to get punished (e.g. mess duty, extra PT, weekend passes revoked etc.). Additionally when a unit is assigned tasks the task is assigned with mind that everyone is not only going to give 100% but effectively 110%, anyone who doesn't effectively makes everyone else work harder to pick up the slack for them because they don't want to get punished for someone else's mistakes. Yes it may suck, but there is no way around it, acting like a brat doesn't work in the military and don't expect your fellow soldiers not to show their "dissatisfaction" in various ways with your behaviour. I think the best question is why wasn't manning booted out in the first place.

bsder 10y ago

> Being a non conformist has no place in boot camp. That's not necessarily a good thing. The most effective soldiers are actually quite good at figuring out how to counter the system. In addition, soldiers are given quite clear orders about things like the Geneva Convention and they are supposed to disobey orders that contradict them.

Hnrobert42 10y ago
Said as a true non conformist.
- gremlinsinc 10y ago
  Nothing wrong w/ that to conform is to become in essence just a cog in the machine, there's no value to conformity, it takes away one's humanity... as I work each day to conform to the coding standards of psr2, and that our dev team has -- lol but that's more for aesthetics and organiztion than just the sake of demanding conformity for the sake of control.
dogma1138 10y ago
This is how it works, a unit works because you know with as much certainty as one can have how some one would act and react to every situation. Soldiers have to be predictable and interchangeable otherwise the entire structure falls apart, this isn't some hollywood action movie. Yes (predictive) initiative is encouraged and rewarded but what Manning did according to the article and the behaviour shown during boot camp was not intuitive for the lack of a better word manning acted like a brat. Now this isn't a personal attack, not everyone can fit into the military, not everyone can be made to fit through boot camp, but honestly if the first thing you do is effectively stomp your feet on the ground and say nope (the bag thing during initial induction) doesn't really bode well. People like manning used to get a "blanket part", not the prison one where you actually get covered by a blanket and beaten half to death but things like shoe polish in your boots and other stuff was pretty common hazing for anyone who thought they were a special snowflake. Most militaries work on unit cohesion which means if 1 fails everyone fails, sometimes a single infraction is enough for the entire unit, squad or troop to get punished (e.g. mess duty, extra PT, weekend passes revoked etc.). Additionally when a unit is assigned tasks the task is assigned with mind that everyone is not only going to give 100% but effectively 110%, anyone who doesn't effectively makes everyone else work harder to pick up the slack for them because they don't want to get punished for someone else's mistakes. Yes it may suck, but there is no way around it, acting like a brat doesn't work in the military and don't expect your fellow soldiers not to show their "dissatisfaction" in various ways with your behaviour. I think the best question is why wasn't manning booted out in the first place.