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00:00This is the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy.
00:07The U.S. military does not integrate live fire training where we actually shoot at our personnel at close quarter like this.
00:16Hey, I'm Lamont Christian, United States Army, Command Sergeant Major, retired.
00:20And I had the honor and the privilege to serve as a drill sergeant and then later on leading drill sergeants as the commandant for the U.S. Army Drill Sergeant Academy.
00:28I'm back to look at some more boot camp scenes in movies and TV shows and judge how real they are.
00:35Get that gun out of the dirt!
00:38Sorry, Gunny.
00:39You drop your rifle in a firefight, you die. Tatum, drop that machine gun, fumble with a belt, your buddies die. You understand?
00:45The drills that they're doing over and over under the stress, you know, become second nature.
00:50Because under stress, those fine motor skills, you know, that you do with your fingers and you don't have that under stress.
00:56You have your gross motor skills where it's like just, ah, major movements.
01:00And that's what the sergeant is trying to make sure that they're able to do.
01:03And putting that stress on yelling at them to get them to be able to do it right.
01:07Guns up! Fire at will! Fire at will!
01:16You know, when we're doing training, live fires or simulation fires,
01:22we always make it as realistic as possible in the military.
01:26As you can see here, they're doing mortar fire training.
01:29And they have, you know, I guess these dummies that are set up to simulate friendly personnel.
01:35And yeah, it didn't turn out good.
01:38If you're in a pinch, you can shoot and move with this.
01:43Let me show you.
01:47That guy in particular, that gunny sergeant, he was actually a Medal of Honor recipient.
01:53John Bassalone was his name. He's actually from New York.
01:57And he was able to accomplish something that a machine gun crew would do.
02:04And so that's what this gunnery sergeant was demonstrating to his Marines.
02:09That this is what right looks like and this is how you can do it.
02:12And I would probably rate this an easy nine to a ten.
02:15A lot of these stories in Band of Brothers in the Pacific,
02:18they actually got from the people who participated in these battle campaigns.
02:23Get the **** down off of my obstacle! I will motivate you, Private Pyle!
02:29McCray, move it up!
02:32When I look at this, I kind of laugh a little bit just because, again, the realism is there.
02:38Lee Ermey, he was actually a drill instructor.
02:40Pyle became his pet project, so to speak.
02:43I never did it as a drill instructor or a drill sergeant or any of those capacities,
02:49but it did happen to me.
02:51When I went through basic training, my drill sergeant had selected me to be the platoon guy.
02:57And every opportunity that I might have had to sit down and take a break,
03:01it turned into, where's the platoon guy?
03:04And so I never got a chance to sit, and if the platoon messed up, it was my fault.
03:09What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?
03:12Didn't Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a child?
03:17Yeah, you know, as unfortunate as this scene is, for that period of time and even now,
03:23there's still some uncomfortableness when dealing with mental health and mental wellness.
03:29And so obviously here, you had Arlie Ermey's character.
03:34He wasn't necessarily equipped with understanding perhaps what should be done.
03:38But we've learned over time that there's certain ways that we can de-escalate situations.
03:44I mean, it's not a perfect scenario to say exactly what I would do in that moment,
03:50but going in, understanding what I know about mental, what I would call wellness,
03:56would find a way to bring my energy down so that when I approach the individual,
04:01their energy could come down.
04:04Easy, Leonard.
04:10Yeah, and unfortunately, this happens as well.
04:13You can see where all of that stress, and whether it's post-traumatic stress or just stress on this guy's life,
04:21it brought him to this point right here.
04:23And it's something that the military has been trying to really work hard to, I would even just say, eliminate.
04:30Even the organization that I'm a part of with the Boulder Crest Foundation,
04:34everybody knows about post-traumatic stress, but we focus on post-traumatic growth
04:39and trying to help people to recognize that it's okay to not be okay,
04:45and then do something about it and not be stuck in that place.
04:48I would say easy, a 9 for that time period during the Vietnam War.
04:52Only hurts the first time.
04:54What we got here, you'll quit it, boy.
04:57Boy, I know what's up.
04:59We look at this training right here, and it's called BUDS training or SEAL training,
05:03basic underwater demolition SEAL training.
05:07I'm Army, never been in the Navy, but I've worked beside some guys who had served as Navy SEALs
05:13where they're being hosed down and they're doing the flutter kicks.
05:17All of that is incorporated in some type of training,
05:22SEAL training, ranger school, anything that's what we would consider tier 1 operators,
05:29the tip of the spear, and your special operating forces in their training.
05:34It's a little bit more physical than it would be in your basic combat training.
05:38How you feeling?
05:40Booyah, dangerous.
05:42Feeling dangerous.
05:43I'm looking for warriors.
05:45Keep counting.
05:46That was pretty realistic right there.
05:48I mean, as you can see, it's like in the middle of the night.
05:50They're in there shaking, they're cold.
05:52And this is one of those tough weeks.
05:54You always hear about it on TV and in movies where they talk about how hell-weak,
06:00apart where they're testing their metal to see if they got what it takes.
06:03I mean, the attrition rate is somewhere between 75% and 80%.
06:06And then you look at the physical aspects of it,
06:10what you saw a lot of these guys that was really dealing with possible hypothermia and things like that.
06:18They have them right there on the edge of the shoreline.
06:30They used to call that surf torture, but I'm aware now that they call it surf immersion.
06:36And it's really another one of those opportunities that, as a Navy SEAL,
06:40you have to be prepared to be in the water, stay in the water, live in the water.
06:44And it's not necessarily to break them, but it's to find where their breaking point is.
06:49And if somebody finds themselves in that position where they quit,
06:52then they recognize that perhaps, just perhaps, they don't have what it takes to go into combat.
06:56I'd even rate this probably, again, not being a Navy SEAL,
06:59I would probably say this is between a 9 if not a 10.
07:03Welcome to the house of pain.
07:07Love my barracks night and day.
07:10Love my barracks night and day.
07:13As humorous as this movie is, we're talking about kids.
07:17These are junior ROTC, or cadets.
07:21Basically, it's familiarization with the military.
07:24They're not actually trainees.
07:26But this guy who's standing here, Major Payne, he is treating them as though they're recruits.
07:34He's bringing all of the things that he has gone through to bear with these kids.
07:39What if this was a life or death situation?
07:42This is not a life or death situation.
07:45It is now.
07:50In this movie, it goes way beyond what would be allowed for someone to do with cadets in high school like this.
08:01The only thing that the junior ROTC programs are really designed for is to give them a sense of community,
08:09again, service, and to familiarize them with the military way of life.
08:15You wouldn't have live fire and live grenades and things of that nature.
08:21Some of them do have rifle teams where they might go and compete with what we call airsoft rifles and things,
08:28but nothing to where they receive combat training because that's not the focus for junior ROTC programs.
08:35I would say this is probably about a 2.
08:37He'd be there one day, and then they would have to say, hey, you got to leave, at least in today's time.
08:47This is the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy,
08:51and it makes a distinctive sound when fired at you, so remember it.
08:55That's an iconic clip.
08:57A lot of people will often repeat that particular quote by Clint Eastwood in this movie.
09:04One of the things that the U.S. military does not do is integrate live fire training
09:11where we actually shoot at our personnel at close quarter like this just because of the safety factor.
09:18I'm not saying that it has not happened.
09:21It is definitely something that's not condoned.
09:26The man cheated.
09:27I say he improvised.
09:28There's only one way to settle this.
09:34Definitely something that could happen where they would fight in the pit during that time period.
09:39I think they were actually around the period of Grenada and the operation going into what's called Urgent Fury.
09:47My father actually was one of the participants in that.
09:50He was serving in the 82nd at the time.
09:53They're out at PT.
09:54They're doing their physical training, some warrior-based training, warrior ethos,
09:59and it's all about demonstrating that they're prepared to go to war.
10:04For a senior noncommissioned officer to fight an officer,
10:07it would probably create a problem with good order and discipline in that organization
10:12because the ranks would begin to kind of fall apart.
10:16You'd have those that would be following behind the officer
10:19and then those that might follow behind the gunnery sergeant highway.
10:23In context for the period that the battle that they were getting ready to go into in Grenada,
10:28I would say it's probably about a five.
10:33Again, only because when he was shooting at them with live ammo.
10:43We're in the wrong position.
10:45And the thing here is this is not boot camp or basic training, but it is training.
10:50Typically organizations, before they can be certified to go to battle,
10:55they have to go through what we call combat training centers.
10:59And these combat training centers are by design set up to put organizations
11:04through all of the battle what we would call medals, right, their mission essential task list,
11:11everything that they are supposed to accomplish in order to successfully conduct battlefield operations.
11:18Deploy your troops.
11:23Captain, you've just been killed along with 95 percent of your company.
11:28So unfortunately here, the result of Captain Sobel's lack of tactical awareness
11:37and his what I would call rush to failure, it just walked him right into an enemy ambush.
11:43While Sobel in this particular series might have been a great trainer,
11:48he didn't necessarily have the tactical combat experience because most of these men didn't.
11:53World War II, we had people that were school teachers and bus drivers and milk delivery men
12:02that were pulled in to serve our country and serve in infantry positions.
12:07I am of the school of thought that it doesn't necessarily require that a trainer
12:13has to have combat experience in order to be a great trainer.
12:17I would say it's definitely realistic, especially being done at Camp McCall.
12:21Again, this series, Band of Brothers, takes a lot of the history from the actual people
12:27who participated in this experience.
12:30Upon successful completion of your fifth and final jump, you'll be certified Army paratroopers.
12:36No! No!
12:40Basically, that's Army Airborne school.
12:44They're getting their fifth jump. It takes five jumps to complete the Airborne training.
12:49Airborne training is some advanced training that you go to after you've completed basic training,
12:56and then you go and you learn your job skill, whatever that might be.
13:00I actually enjoy the fact that these paratroopers are jumping as well because of my own connection.
13:07I served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne,
13:11and what I will tell you is that my experience is unique because I went through jump school
13:16when my father was an Airborne instructor, commonly referred to as a black hat.
13:20That's pretty realistic, too.
13:22Having served as a jump master and putting people out of an airplane,
13:26you get somebody who hesitates in that door like that.
13:29I would say a 10, but I'm going to give it a 9 just because I wasn't there.
13:35Whistle blows.
13:37Get up! Get up!
13:40Whistle blows.
13:42I'm up! I'm up!
13:44This opening scene right here, that's pretty realistic.
13:47Whistles during this time period was part of the uniform,
13:51and it was utilized to do exactly what this drill sergeant is doing is to wake them up.
13:56There's periods of time where certain training methods, basically they get dropped.
14:01The lights are always going to be one of those ways to wake them up.
14:13What they're doing right now, commonly referred to as grass drills or guerrilla drills.
14:19Like a lot of these exercises and drills that we did for years,
14:23they were good in creating stamina and endurance,
14:26but it was really heavily filled with exercises that would really create injuries.
14:35We in the military, specifically the Army, have changed over the years
14:40to create fitness training that reduces injuries.
14:44Now, the good thing, though, is you see they're wearing their winter fitness training uniform.
14:50And what I will tell you is this was definitely one of the exercises
14:54that we would do to get warmed up because it would be pretty cold.
14:58The gig line runs down the seam of your shirt, through the edge of your belt buckle,
15:02down the seam of your zipper.
15:04See it, learn it, do it.
15:08Lynn Whitfield's character as a drill sergeant is exactly right
15:13when she's talking about the gig line and the uniform.
15:16One of the things that basic combat training is supposed to do
15:21is help a civilian transform themselves into a soldier.
15:27And that's the same with the Marines, the Navy, the Air Force.
15:30And in this case, it was just the gig line.
15:32But everything else about that in the background, you can see the uniformity
15:36and the way that the war lockers were set up, the PT uniforms hanging off the side,
15:41the bay itself, the bunks, the way that they were made.
15:45All of that uniformity and being able to pay attention to detail
15:49is what will help a soldier do better as they progress in the military
15:53and begin to learn more complicated tasks.
15:56So I would have to say that everything in this clip in the boot camp
16:00or basic training environment, this is about a 7.
16:03It was realistic for that time period in our military.
16:06Most of you will not live to be in the Mobile Infantry.
16:10I am your Senior Drill Instructor, Career Sergeant Sam Suckernicker.
16:14Now we're talking in the future, and ironically, the military has a Space Force now.
16:20I used to use this way to explain to Drill Sergeant candidates
16:26when I was running the Drill Sergeant Academy
16:28that basic training or boot camp is pretty much going to stay the same
16:32from the past into the future.
16:36The training that we did for the Revolutionary War using muskets in 1776
16:43was the same training that we did in 1966 sending people to Vietnam
16:48with the M4 or the M16 rifle.
16:51It's the same training we'll do in 2036.
16:55How we train is what changes.
16:57We will still have to take an ordinary citizen
17:00and train them to be able to do the basic fundamentals of engaging targets,
17:06properly breathing, getting a good sight picture,
17:09and even if we're using lasers.
17:12Who here thinks they got what it takes to knock me down?
17:15Sir!
17:19Looking at this, even when I was a drill sergeant myself,
17:23I never would try to take on a trainee.
17:26It was one reason why.
17:27As time went on and I got more wiser, that is,
17:31I understood that some of the recruits coming in might actually have a skill set
17:35that might be better than mine.
17:37I mean, you look at it now, you have UFC fighters, boxers,
17:41and world-class wrestlers that might join the military.
17:45You don't want to be embarrassed if one of these people came through
17:47and they had a lot more skill than you.
17:49I would have to give it a 5.
17:51I don't know if we're going to be in this space, literally and figuratively,
17:55in this space in the future, but I would say again,
18:00what we train may change over time,
18:03but how we're able to do that is actually the thing that evolves.
18:09Let's go! Come on!
18:13Look down at your feet on my footprints.
18:16Yellow footprints.
18:18That's something that the Marines do very well.
18:20Every Marine has put their feet on the yellow footprints.
18:24And, you know, they have them lined up just like this.
18:28And so this is the beginning of the making of a Marine.
18:31Are you in a terror cell? Are you now or have you ever been a homosexual?
18:35No, sir!
18:38This movie was around 2005-ish,
18:42and it was during one of those periods of the flex in the military
18:46where it was don't ask, don't tell was a policy.
18:49No matter what someone's sexual orientation was,
18:52that as long as they didn't openly display it, then they were okay, right?
18:55Even the fact that he asked in the beginning if he had ever been a homosexual
18:59during that time period, you couldn't even ask that.
19:08Who do I report this to?
19:11Just who the f*** did you talk to?
19:13During that time period, the military really struggled with that
19:17don't ask, don't tell and how to deal with it, right?
19:20Because it was definitely a social issue,
19:23and it made its way into the military ranks,
19:25but it's very realistic that this could happen in an environment
19:28where a DI is left to his own devices to do what he wants,
19:33and it could result in just this same activity and same behavior.
19:37I know in 1999, Barry Winchell was a private at Fort Campbell, Kentucky,
19:44as an example, and he was dating a transgender woman,
19:48and he was beaten to death, right,
19:50because of who he was having a relationship with.
19:53And so they repealed and removed the don't ask, don't tell policy,
19:58and around 2011 when they did that,
20:01that's what kind of helped create that shift and that change
20:04in the way the military actually dealt with individuals
20:09and their sexual orientation.
20:10It's become more normalized.
20:12I would tell you for realism, this particular movie and that time period,
20:16I would say it's probably about an 8.
20:19We have to clear up the mystery of Wachowski's missing $62.
20:25Those barracks, that's actually how soldiers lived for years.
20:31They still have this flavor where it's an open bay,
20:34and you have up to 60 personnel that live and spend all of their time
20:40in boot camp and basic training side by side like this.
20:43If you look at the barracks today in the military,
20:46they look like college dormitories.
20:48But most of the barracks, once they leave that environment,
20:53was still that way in World War I and World War II.
20:57A lot of these barracks were still around way into the 2000s.
21:01How the hell did you put back money you knew you didn't take?
21:05Because I knew you did.
21:07I think inventing a crime that didn't exist
21:09to enforce your theories of discipline is Neanderthal in its conception.
21:13Yeah, you know, even myself being a drill sergeant,
21:17I've never had anyone go against my training
21:20because I was real simple in the matter of I was hard, but I was fair,
21:26and I trained in a way that was close to being realistic.
21:30And so it was easy for me to be able to relate
21:34to the experience of somebody who was in a training environment
21:38because basically I didn't want to forget where I came from.
21:41It's also your duty to leave me with my loaded weapon.
21:45You're on shoot, goddamn you!
21:47Having not been there during that time,
21:49I've heard stories about some of these types of things.
21:52This is a prime example of somebody who is out of control,
21:57has much deeper issues.
21:59We don't know their background,
22:01and so the result of not having a system in place
22:05that would allow his character as the sergeant
22:08to be able to find ways to be in a better space,
22:12it just lends itself to us recognizing
22:15that we had to do better and be better
22:17in order to take care of our service members.
22:20I would have to say I would rate this probably about an 8,
22:24again because of the uniforms, the background,
22:27and everything in context as is happening in this movie clip.
22:31It's very likely and very realistic.
22:39Now you listen to me, Owens.
22:41You can't make it across that swamp.
22:43When the DI is telling Owens that he can go across the marsh,
22:47that actually took place in 1956.
22:52It was a Ribbon Creek incident at Parris Island,
22:55and a DI actually marched his platoon out there into the marsh,
23:00and because at night the way that the tides come in,
23:04it actually pushed into the creek
23:06and created a stream of water
23:08that the recruits couldn't make their way out of,
23:11and unfortunately about 6 of those recruits died.
23:14That comment that Jack Webb's character is talking about to Owens
23:19by saying you want to march out there into the marsh,
23:22it has context and weight to it
23:24because of that experience of the Ribbon Creek incident.
23:27This is a general discharge.
23:29Yes, sir.
23:30You're wrong, Owens. I don't sign it.
23:32I want to thank you for not saying anything
23:34about my trying to go over the hill, sir.
23:36But you can see here that the leadership recognized
23:39that they had somebody who was able but unwilling for some reason.
23:44They didn't know what it was,
23:46and this character that Jack Webb was playing as the DI,
23:50he had to try to gain an understanding of what that was
23:54to motivate as well as inspire that trainee,
23:58or that recruit in this case.
24:00And what I'll tell you is when that happens,
24:02it's like a switch goes off,
24:04and then they become probably the best soldier, the best recruit,
24:08the best Marine that's out there,
24:10because now they realize that they got purpose, right?
24:13And that's what was happening here.
24:15All right, Tigers, give me a growl.
24:17Roar!
24:19Quads, right. Columns, right.
24:21Hoo!
24:25When we look at all the different branches,
24:27the Marines have this unique way of doing exactly what they say.
24:31They make Marines.
24:33And that's what Jack Webb's character here in the DI is capturing,
24:36and there's a lot of pride in there.
24:38And that happens still even till today.
24:40And this movie, out of all the movies,
24:42captures the very essence of what a drill sergeant,
24:45a drill instructor is supposed to be about,
24:48that character of creating, not just, as they say,
24:51weeding out the weak, getting rid of them,
24:53but finding a way to have that person who desires to be there
24:58to get them to the other side
25:00so that they can be a proud Marine, as in this case.
25:04In this time period, when this movie was made and what it's representing,
25:08I would say that it is indicative of being rated at about a 9 easily.
25:15When I was in training to train future drill sergeants,
25:20I actually would watch this movie.
25:22I have a favorite comedic, a favorite serious,
25:26and probably a favorite dramatic clip from today,
25:31from boot camp and basic training scenes.
25:34Of course, my favorite comedic one would be,
25:37I would probably have to say, Major Payne.
25:39My favorite dramatic one, I would have to say, is Heartbreak Ridge.
25:45And even though it wasn't boot camp, it was still kind of a training environment.
25:49And then my serious one, I would probably have to say, again, the DI.
25:54Looking at these clips, again, reminds me of how this movie in particular
26:00tried to capture the very essence of what it takes to create what we call a warrior,
26:05somebody that we're going to ask to go into harm's way and serve our country
26:10and defend our nation in a way that they perhaps might not come back home.
26:15[♪upbeat music playing♪