The Medical Officer’s actions are concerning but I’m not going to make a judgement t based on one article.
I don’t know about any other branches but the Army used to have ‘Option 40’ contracts. That’s a chance to go through RIP, now RASP and become a ranger.
However, in my day it was basic, AIT, airborne then RIP. RIP failures were almost always sent to the 82nd and some of the infantry failures were sent to LRRP units. Now I think they do ranger assessment before airborne so those dudes are sent all over the place.
The 18X program is similar but I know it’s changed.
Either way, ‘needs of the Army’ applies and more contracts are extended then there will be people selected.
I think new Sailors going to Buds don’t have a rate so if they fail, they’re likely undesignated unless they can’t strike a rate, right?
Outside of the Medical Officer, everything kinda seems par for the course but times are changing.
We now have football coaches getting in trouble for making kids do walk sits, push ups and calisthenics.
They should be recruiting SEALS out of Marine Recon groups. Those graduates already went through an attrition program and will have far better infantry skills going in, as well as being airborne qualified and water skills.
Now they are taking people that went though what, Navy basic…
Ranger Regiment has been doing that for years. It seems to be working out for them. They do go to AIT or OSUT beforehand as well that, until a few years ago, would be 4 weeks of infantry training (it’s 12 now) up to several weeks of MI AIT.
Basic is just that, basic. It’s hardly a barometer of warrior potential. Thousands do it every year from 8-13 weeks.
If the hardest thing in one’s career was initial entry training then I’d suggest that person had a very easy career.
The MC has their own piece of SOCOM now so no need to recruit from them.
Then again, if I was making the calls I’d overhaul the entire Navy/MC relationship.
I’d outsource as many support MOS to the Navy as possible. If you can rely on the Navy for medical care then they can rely on the Navy for logistics, admin, legal and most logistics.
The Navy can provide the pilots for the MAGTF though rotary aircraft gets tricky because I don’t think it will be easy to convince a bunch of Navy guys to do that.
Recon has been in limbo for a long time. There’s a bunch of capable dudes that haven’t been utilized.