6 ms·

> In peacetime The US was in two wars for nearly 2 decades, to say nothing of various other special operations, and accidents were a leading cause of deaths an

> In peacetime The US was in two wars for nearly 2 decades, to say nothing of various other special operations, and accidents were a leading cause of deaths and permanent disability for a large number of those years. Readiness is important, but IMO, the Army does a ton of unnecessary and unnecessarily dangerous training for capabilities that are almost never needed (jumping, in particular, but also certain types of combat training). Most importantly, this destroys people's physical health for no reason. Secondarily, this also costs the taxpayer enormous sums of money (each permanent disability retirement for a 30 year old is many millions of dollars). The other branches might be more reasonable. Not sure.

Juliate 4y ago
> Readiness is important, but IMO, the Army does a ton of unnecessary and unnecessarily dangerous training for capabilities that are almost never needed. Readiness is precisely about training for things that will almost never happen. Until they do.
- InefficientRed 4y ago
  That observation doesn't justify all risks. To reduce to absurdity, clearly we shouldn't train for war by running war games in which soldiers actually shoot and kill each other, even though there's a compelling argument that this would probably be a very good way to maximize readiness... IMO, the number of jumps the Army does each year is far in excess of what is necessary for readiness.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Do you have research or relevant expertise to back up that opinion? (It's fine if you don't; everyone is allowed to have opinions on any topic.)
    - InefficientRed 4y ago
      No. I'm not sure how I would get that research, or if it's even possible. The problem with preparing for war is that war is fairly uncommon, and even when it happens, certain activities are rare enough with such a huge number of alternate causalities for failure that you might not have enough data for a useful natural experiment. What I can say with some confidence is that there are perverse organizational incentives for some highly accident-prone training exercises. So, even if these exercises are required for readiness, that's not the (only) reason they're done in such high numbers.
      - thrwy_meta 4y ago
        >>>I'm not sure how I would get that research, or if it's even possible. Military Operations Research is a huge field. I like to use Google Scholar, which has many Masters Theses from military grad students, etc... Here's a few results to walk you "on target" if you want to continue to dig: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA545145.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA545145.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA618622.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA618622.pdf https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=airborne+readiness+jump+injury+prevention https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=airb...
david38 4y ago
Spoken like a true armchair quarterback. You really think the military should forgo combat training?
- InefficientRed 4y ago
  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.
- mlyle 4y ago
  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.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    >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.
    - InefficientRed 4y ago
      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.
gowld 4y ago
The most dangerous activity on a military base is... driving a car, same as everywhere else in the US.
nonameiguess 4y ago
I found this comment a bit unfairly grayed out when I first saw it and want to add some nuance to this, as a person who left the Army due to physical disability caused by training rather than combat. Training is the core of what we do, and extremely important no matter what. But, the nature of the training often doesn't match the real job. For instance, I remember at LDAC, a required ROTC summer course where you get evaluated and stack ranked prior to being given a job, 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. Forcing cadets that you know for certain are going into healthcare fields to train as infantry is no doubt harmful and unnecessary. At the time, women weren't even legally able to try becoming infantry, but still forced to do the training. Personally, I served in a combat job, but even then, a lot of what we did felt more like hazing and dick measuring contests than skills-related. For instance, in a Cav unit, we were all required to do spur rides until passing, which involved activities like carrying telephone poles up and down hilly trails for 12 miles at 3 in the morning after not sleeping for 48 hours. I have no doubt doing stuff like that contributed to the spinal degeneration I eventually lost two years of my life to after leaving the services. Nonetheless, being a large, physical capable person who played and excelled at sports my entire life, I enjoyed that type of thing at the time. In retrospect, though, it sure looks wasteful and stupid. The repeated forced sleep deprivation is especially egregious, as it seems like the top contributor to all the accidents, and as far as I understood, training in a sleep deprived state doesn't actually improve your ability to deal with sleep deprivation in theater. At best, it helps to weed out and select who can and can't naturally deal with it, but it isn't really trainable.
- InefficientRed 4y ago
  Thanks for chiming in; this is exactly the sort of stuff I'm referring to. I guess my comment did a poor job of making the point.
scelerat 4y ago
Whether a particular unit is itself necessary seems a question independent of whether its training is necessary. At this point, the US military has determined that having paratroop units available is a useful capability in war. Arguing whether that tool is still useful is completely valid, and I would hope goes for anything: strategies, tactics, personnel, armaments, vehicles, equipment, etc. However, once decided that a particular tool is necessary, it seems to me unquestionable that they should be kept in a ready, prepared, capable state. I suppose that too, can be debated, insofar as what constitutes "ready, prepared, capable," but if we've decided that our military needs people to jump out of planes, I would hope it goes without question that those people need to practice jumping out of planes. shorter: training and necessity of a unit seem to be orthogonal concepts
- sky-kedge0749 4y ago
  I agree with this and will add that the cost of the risk of having to pay to support a disabled veteran for life needs to be considered part of the whole deal. If you can't afford the servicemember, properly trained and properly insured, then don't "buy" them at all.
  - InefficientRed 4y ago
    >> Arguing whether that tool is still useful is completely valid... I suppose that too, can be debated, insofar as what constitutes "ready, prepared, capable" Okay. I argue such and debate such. Very clearly. In my original post. What is the point of this reply? > If you can't afford the servicemember, properly trained and properly insured, then don't "buy" them at all. Okay. Clearly yes. Now find me a servicemember who would rather have medical retirement over avoiding permanent disability. That's the main reason we should not be risking life and limb unnecessarily. You know, like I said. In my original post. What is the post of the reply? This knee-jerk need to defend the Army on full display in this thread is, if we're honest, is the primary difference between the military and most of the civilian government: not superior administrative competence, but mostly just better PR.
    - 4y ago

Juliate 4y ago

> Readiness is important, but IMO, the Army does a ton of unnecessary and unnecessarily dangerous training for capabilities that are almost never needed. Readiness is precisely about training for things that will almost never happen. Until they do.

InefficientRed 4y ago
That observation doesn't justify all risks. To reduce to absurdity, clearly we shouldn't train for war by running war games in which soldiers actually shoot and kill each other, even though there's a compelling argument that this would probably be a very good way to maximize readiness... IMO, the number of jumps the Army does each year is far in excess of what is necessary for readiness.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Do you have research or relevant expertise to back up that opinion? (It's fine if you don't; everyone is allowed to have opinions on any topic.)
  - InefficientRed 4y ago
    No. I'm not sure how I would get that research, or if it's even possible. The problem with preparing for war is that war is fairly uncommon, and even when it happens, certain activities are rare enough with such a huge number of alternate causalities for failure that you might not have enough data for a useful natural experiment. What I can say with some confidence is that there are perverse organizational incentives for some highly accident-prone training exercises. So, even if these exercises are required for readiness, that's not the (only) reason they're done in such high numbers.
    - thrwy_meta 4y ago
      >>>I'm not sure how I would get that research, or if it's even possible. Military Operations Research is a huge field. I like to use Google Scholar, which has many Masters Theses from military grad students, etc... Here's a few results to walk you "on target" if you want to continue to dig: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA545145.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA545145.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA618622.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA618622.pdf https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=airborne+readiness+jump+injury+prevention https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=airb...

david38 4y ago

Spoken like a true armchair quarterback. You really think the military should forgo combat training?

InefficientRed 4y ago
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.
mlyle 4y ago
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.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  >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.
  - InefficientRed 4y ago
    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.

gowld 4y ago

The most dangerous activity on a military base is... driving a car, same as everywhere else in the US.

nonameiguess 4y ago

I found this comment a bit unfairly grayed out when I first saw it and want to add some nuance to this, as a person who left the Army due to physical disability caused by training rather than combat. Training is the core of what we do, and extremely important no matter what. But, the nature of the training often doesn't match the real job. For instance, I remember at LDAC, a required ROTC summer course where you get evaluated and stack ranked prior to being given a job, 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. Forcing cadets that you know for certain are going into healthcare fields to train as infantry is no doubt harmful and unnecessary. At the time, women weren't even legally able to try becoming infantry, but still forced to do the training. Personally, I served in a combat job, but even then, a lot of what we did felt more like hazing and dick measuring contests than skills-related. For instance, in a Cav unit, we were all required to do spur rides until passing, which involved activities like carrying telephone poles up and down hilly trails for 12 miles at 3 in the morning after not sleeping for 48 hours. I have no doubt doing stuff like that contributed to the spinal degeneration I eventually lost two years of my life to after leaving the services. Nonetheless, being a large, physical capable person who played and excelled at sports my entire life, I enjoyed that type of thing at the time. In retrospect, though, it sure looks wasteful and stupid. The repeated forced sleep deprivation is especially egregious, as it seems like the top contributor to all the accidents, and as far as I understood, training in a sleep deprived state doesn't actually improve your ability to deal with sleep deprivation in theater. At best, it helps to weed out and select who can and can't naturally deal with it, but it isn't really trainable.

InefficientRed 4y ago
Thanks for chiming in; this is exactly the sort of stuff I'm referring to. I guess my comment did a poor job of making the point.

scelerat 4y ago

Whether a particular unit is itself necessary seems a question independent of whether its training is necessary. At this point, the US military has determined that having paratroop units available is a useful capability in war. Arguing whether that tool is still useful is completely valid, and I would hope goes for anything: strategies, tactics, personnel, armaments, vehicles, equipment, etc. However, once decided that a particular tool is necessary, it seems to me unquestionable that they should be kept in a ready, prepared, capable state. I suppose that too, can be debated, insofar as what constitutes "ready, prepared, capable," but if we've decided that our military needs people to jump out of planes, I would hope it goes without question that those people need to practice jumping out of planes. shorter: training and necessity of a unit seem to be orthogonal concepts

sky-kedge0749 4y ago
I agree with this and will add that the cost of the risk of having to pay to support a disabled veteran for life needs to be considered part of the whole deal. If you can't afford the servicemember, properly trained and properly insured, then don't "buy" them at all.
- InefficientRed 4y ago
  >> Arguing whether that tool is still useful is completely valid... I suppose that too, can be debated, insofar as what constitutes "ready, prepared, capable" Okay. I argue such and debate such. Very clearly. In my original post. What is the point of this reply? > If you can't afford the servicemember, properly trained and properly insured, then don't "buy" them at all. Okay. Clearly yes. Now find me a servicemember who would rather have medical retirement over avoiding permanent disability. That's the main reason we should not be risking life and limb unnecessarily. You know, like I said. In my original post. What is the post of the reply? This knee-jerk need to defend the Army on full display in this thread is, if we're honest, is the primary difference between the military and most of the civilian government: not superior administrative competence, but mostly just better PR.
  - 4y ago