What not to do in a shoot house

[TC215]

Courtesy of the 10th Mountain Division.

p/CLmrobxn8Dq

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-10th-mountain-room-clear-unsafe/8

[blues]

Ouch.

[rcbusmc24]

Da fuk did I just watch.... No Go at this station....

[Duelist]

Wow. At least one of them figured out to not point the loaded bang stick at *one* of the on-side fleshy hoomans before they finished the exercise.

[revchuck38]

Da fuk did I just watch.... No Go at this station....

I'm on the Army Times' email feed and that video showed up today. The 10th Mountain's CSM's reaction was about the same as yours. He's vowed to find that unit and make sure they're retrained to standard. I'm really glad I'm not an NCO in that unit. I haven't been an NCO since '82, but that thought still makes me shudder.

[Clusterfrack]

Jeezus. I found myself holding my breath and waiting for one of them to get shot. I'm very glad no one was hurt.

[Totem Polar]

Singleton CQB, per other discussion, suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

[DpdG]

CSM's response:

https://twitter.com/climbtoglory7/status/1363998442884919296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5 Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1363998442884919296%7Ctwgr% 5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.military.com%2Fdaily-news%2F2021%2F02%2F23%2F10th-mountain-division-leader-responds-dangerous-army-shoot-house-video-i-will-fix-it.html

[Trooper224]

A brownie troop playing paintball could have done a better job. I was waiting for a punchline as I figured it had to be a joke.

[RevolverRob]

Jeezus. I found myself holding my breath and waiting for one of them to get shot. I'm very glad no one was hurt.

Reinforces why the rules are redundant.

Not an excuse for that behavior. But because the rules are redundant the gross violation of Rule 2 didn't result in someone getting shot.

[cheby]

What I find amusing is that kind of folks is usually not very fond of competition

[Mark D]

The CSM owns it, which is nice in this day and age,

In the video there's guys observing on the catwalk, so I'm surprised the team in the shoot house isn't receiving immediate feedback from above.

[M1Garand]

I have been out of the loop for 21 years but looks like the 10th MT has not improved any since 1997 when they shot me during a MOUT at JRTC while I was the OC for the lead fire team moving to the next BLDG. Video is to big to post, has lost sound and is poor quality being filmed with 1st gen NV.

[HCM]

Singleton CQB, per other discussion, suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

No. This is just CQB done wrong. A little bit of flagging / muzzling is inevitable but there is nothing inadvertent in this video.

Rather, this is a good example of why some of the criticisms in the other thread brief well but are not valid in actual application.

[HCM]

I have been out of the loop for 21 years but looks like the 10th MT has not improved any since 1997 when they shot me during a MOUT at JRTC while I was the OC for the lead fire team moving to the next BLDG. Video is to big to post, has lost sound and is poor quality being filmed with 1st gen NV.

Not unheard of. I had a co-worker who was shot in the calf doing MOUT training in the early 1990s.

[HCM]

What I find amusing is that kind of folks is usually not very fond of competition

Not a valid comparison. The conventional military is, for the most part a closed eco-system; solo competition vs team based movement is apples to oranges.

[M1Garand]

Not unheard of. I had a co-worker who was shot in the calf doing MOUT training in the early 1990s.

It happens. But using what I call the new guy response we have. Unit 1 executes the scenario, new guy says wow that went smooth, leader says not bad but we need to work on this, this and this. VS Unit 2 executes the scenario, new guy says what happened - what did we do, leader says good job that's 2 in a row we have not shot anyone. I think the unit in the video is closer to unit 2 than to unit 1

[CWM11B]

Singleton CQB, per other discussion, suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

Could younpojnt me to that one? My search fu is weak and I am curious. On this vid: I was tensed up like in a horror move when the music indicating the slasher is about to strike starts playing. I was just waiting for one of those kids to catch round. I'd say somebody (plural) might be getting relieved soon.

[RevolverRob]

Could younpojnt me to that one? My search fu is weak and I am curious. On this vid: I was tensed up like in a horror move when the music indicating the slasher is about to strike starts playing. I was just waiting for one of those kids to catch round. I'd say somebody (plural) might be getting relieved soon.

I think this is the thread Totem is referring to.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?46927-Viability-of-Pieing&p=1186682#post1186682

[JRB]

I have been out of the loop for 21 years but looks like the 10th MT has not improved any since 1997 when they shot me during a MOUT at JRTC while I was the OC for the lead fire team moving to the next BLDG. Video is to big to post, has lost sound and is poor quality being filmed with 1st gen NV.

I have friends in the 10th Mountain's triple deuce (Not the unit in the video, but close from what I understand), but even disregarding that I feel compelled to make a very clear point.

Literally thousands of combat arms Soldiers rotate through that division and every other Combat arms division every year, with a typical bare minimum of live fire training every 90 days or so. With the simple size, scale, and lowest-common-denominator, Soldiers-gonna-Soldier fuckery involved it is basically inevitable that a few live fire accidents will occur. It's simply impossible to mitigate risk entirely for a live fire training event and still issue live ammo.

Honestly I wish like hell that people (especially field grade Commanders) realized there's always risk whenever we're genuinely training for war, and stop expecting a zero-defect training environment.
Mistakes made in training that caused no damage or injury should simply be the teachable moments they are. Yes, it's disappointing that the supervising NCO's didn't yell at that guy the first time he flagged his buddy, it's disappointing that they didn't endex immediately on the second violation as I would have done, but I bet like fucking hell that training has occurred since this video was found and it's a non-issue with that particular element now.

As an NCO I see this video as a massive training opportunity. I'm going to show it to all of my own joes without any context and ask them what went well and what went wrong. The Soldiers in that video clearly did alright with the rest of the process aside from the lots and lots and lots of muzzling their buddies. Nothing else bad happened. That's called a teachable moment and that's exactly why we plan the training, conduct the training, and review the training with an AAR.

So, consider what it accomplishes to grumble like you're grumbling now. I'm sorry you were injured in training but I'll bet your VA rating reflects it. I bet a lot of those same guys there with you that day (night?) remembered that incident and they took that experience with them in early OIF/OEF. If you have any magical ideas that can guarantee zero ND injuries across an armed forces totaling over 2,000,000 assigned AND still accomplish effective, realistic, meaningful combat training - you have my undivided attention.

[TC215]

Yes, it's disappointing that the supervising NCO's didn't yell at that guy the first time he flagged his buddy, it's disappointing that they didn't endex immediately on the second violation as I would have done, but I bet like fucking hell that training has occurred since this video was found and it's a non-issue with that particular element now.

As an NCO I see this video as a massive training opportunity. I'm going to show it to all of my own joes without any context and ask them what went well and what went wrong. The Soldiers in that video clearly did alright with the rest of the process aside from the lots and lots and lots of muzzling their buddies. Nothing else bad happened. That's called a teachable moment and that's exactly why we plan the training, conduct the training, and review the training with an AAR.

I was never in the military, so it won't hurt my feelings if you tell me I'm wrong, but I'm of the opinion that the muzzling issue should have been taken care of well before they got to live-fire.

It also looks like they had been through the course before, because they were driving straight to the targets (like they knew where they were) and doing a shitty job of actually clearing.

[Cory]

I've spent more time at Ft. Drum than I care to remember. The 10th guys always got caught up in little bullshit, when the black fleece is authorized and when it isn't, wearing a cover every moment in the feild... stuff like that. Kind of dicks.

What I never saw was flawed fundamentals or unsafe stuff. That level of shit would NEVER fly. Not with the 10th, or even us guard guys up there. This is pretty shocking. Whoever is running that school house is toast.

[M1Garand]

I have friends in the 10th Mountain's triple deuce (Not the unit in the video, but close from what I understand), but even disregarding that I feel compelled to make a very clear point.

Literally thousands of combat arms Soldiers rotate through that division and every other Combat arms division every year, with a typical bare minimum of live fire training every 90 days or so. With the simple size, scale, and lowest-common-denominator, Soldiers-gonna-Soldier fuckery involved it is basically inevitable that a few live fire accidents will occur. It's simply impossible to mitigate risk entirely for a live fire training event and still issue live ammo.

Honestly I wish like hell that people (especially field grade Commanders) realized there's always risk whenever we're genuinely training for war, and stop expecting a zero-defect training environment.
Mistakes made in training that caused no damage or injury should simply be the teachable moments they are. Yes, it's disappointing that the supervising NCO's didn't yell at that guy the first time he flagged his buddy, it's disappointing that they didn't endex immediately on the second violation as I would have done, but I bet like fucking hell that training has occurred since this video was found and it's a non-issue with that particular element now.

As an NCO I see this video as a massive training opportunity. I'm going to show it to all of my own joes without any context and ask them what went well and what went wrong. The Soldiers in that video clearly did alright with the rest of the process aside from the lots and lots and lots of muzzling their buddies. Nothing else bad happened. That's called a teachable moment and that's exactly why we plan the training, conduct the training, and review the training with an AAR.

So, consider what it accomplishes to grumble like you're grumbling now. I'm sorry you were injured in training but I'll bet your VA rating reflects it. I bet a lot of those same guys there with you that day (night?) remembered that incident and they took that experience with them in early OIF/OEF. If you have any magical ideas that can guarantee zero ND injuries across an armed forces totaling over 2,000,000 assigned AND still accomplish effective, realistic, meaningful combat training - you have my undivided attention.

All righty then. I made a simple observation of how my past experience is similar to the video and apparently you took it personal and believe I criticized the entire 10th MT and the ARMY training system as a whole. Did you read my follow on post? I retired after 21 years and what bothers me about your reply is "NOTHING ELSE BAD HAPPENED" that in my option is a lazy weak excuse for an NCO to give.

[JRB]

I was never in the military, so it won't hurt my feelings if you tell me I'm wrong, but I'm of the opinion that the muzzling issue should have been taken care of well before they got to live-fire.

It also looks like they had been through the course before, because they were driving straight to the targets (like they knew where they were) and doing a shitty job of actually clearing.

Agreed. I can absolutely promise that the individual wearing the helmet cam had been instructed properly on this over and over again as far back as BCT/OSUT. Likely dozens if not hundreds of times, specifically, on muzzle awareness.

However, Soldiers are gonna Soldier - by which I mean we can instruct them as relentlessly as we want and the sheer size of these units and human nature (and, unfortunately, the lower quality of some of the folks in uniform) guarantees that we'll see fuckups exactly like this. Ultimately I put just as much blame on the supervisors/instructors and his squad mates for not calling an ENDEX.
Soldiers will fuck up in ways that would never be permitted in an LEO class or professional instruction of civilians. Smaller classes with higher entry requirements and 'I can kick you out forever right now' sorts of stakes will make that happen.
I wish that were not true, and I wish that all Soldiers and other SM's took guncraft as seriously as we all do on P-F but that is simply not the case.

I'd also bet a tidy sum that shoothouse hasn't seen different target positions in months if not years because some field grade fishdick blocks those sorts of changes with red tape/risk assessments etc. Big Army can be like that even with the meat eaters. Not an excuse, as it really should be better and different at that level, but it's a realistic explanation.



All righty then. I made a simple observation of how my past experience is similar to the video and apparently you took it personal and believe I criticized the entire 10th MT and the ARMY training system as a whole. Did you read my follow on post? I retired after 21 years and what bothers me about your reply is "NOTHING ELSE BAD HAPPENED" that in my option is a lazy weak excuse for an NCO to give.

No, you insinuated that nothing has changed in that organization since your accident, implying that an entire combat division has spent the past 20+ years training and fighting with this sort of conduct as the standard. I only took issue with that and that alone. That was never the standard, and it is not the standard today, and while a hell of a lot has changed in the Army since 1997 fundamental weapons safety has not.

I can't understand how you made it through a 21 year career without understanding that the size of these units and the en masse nature of much of this training makes it impossible to prevent 100% of all fuckups. Let me be clear about that - this was a massive fuckup, but a massive fuckup that resulted in no damage and no injury is a hell of a lot better than one that did. I prefer to get something out of these fuckups and frequently that's 'what not to do' training value. If you find that to be 'lazy' then, well, whatever dude. I promise the same and more massive fuckups are happening a lot more often but without the benefit of viral video. After a 21 year career I am sure that you know this too.

The worse I've personally seen, was when a GO walked up to a clearing barrel outside a chow hall, rack the slide on his M9 without dropping the mag, and fire a round into the barrel. Then he pulled the weapon out of the barrel, damn near looked down the barrel quizzically, racked the slide again, and fired a second round in the barrel - then the nearby CSM loudly proclaimed that the General's weapon malfunctioned, and took it from him, and properly cleared it. If a GO can fuck that up there's something profoundly and deeply wrong in the culture of our military as a whole, but I don't have enough time or the wordsmithing skills to fully expound on my keyhole view of that whole problem here.

On the overall issue of training in the Army as a whole, and not just the 10th Mountain - we fully and emphatically agree. The Army is overwhelmingly more concerned with politically correct social issues and beating us to death with Powerpoints and lectures on those subjects than they are concerned about actual warfighting. Videos like this are just a small symptomatic taste of the overall disease infecting the mind and priorities of the whole fucking DoD, and I'm terrified of what will happen if we see a genuine push against a 'near-peer' in the next 10 years. I can't help but laugh about the 'near-peer' terminology because IMHO that's because China and Russia's capabilities are a lot better than they may seem and in far too many ways we're a gigantic, fat, lazy, slow paper tiger in many of those areas.

All I can do is try my best from where I'm at, and I genuinely can't fucking wait to hit my 20 and pop smoke myself.

[Hambo]

However, Soldiers are gonna Soldier - by which I mean we can instruct them as relentlessly as we want and the sheer size of these units and human nature (and, unfortunately, the lower quality of some of the folks in uniform) guarantees that we'll see fuckups exactly like this. Ultimately I put just as much blame on the supervisors/instructors and his squad mates for not calling an ENDEX.
Soldiers will fuck up in ways that would never be permitted in an LEO class or professional instruction of civilians. Smaller classes with higher entry requirements and 'I can kick you out forever right now' sorts of stakes will make that happen.
I wish that were not true, and I wish that all Soldiers and other SM's took guncraft as seriously as we all do on P-F but that is simply not the case.

On the overall issue of training in the Army as a whole, and not just the 10th Mountain - we fully and emphatically agree. The Army is overwhelmingly more concerned with politically correct social issues and beating us to death with Powerpoints and lectures on those subjects than they are concerned about actual warfighting. Videos like this are just a small symptomatic taste of the overall disease infecting the mind and priorities of the whole fucking DoD, and I'm terrified of what will happen if we see a genuine push against a 'near-peer' in the next 10 years. I can't help but laugh about the 'near-peer' terminology because IMHO that's because China and Russia's capabilities are a lot better than they may seem and in far too many ways we're a gigantic, fat, lazy, slow paper tiger in many of those areas.


When I watched the video I was expecting to see someone take a round to the back of the head. From what you've written, individual officers and NCOs have a problem with a standard that puts every soldier in danger during training, but Big Army doesn't. Until there is a change, "soldiers gonna soldier" is the excuse for everything. I'm sure individual careers will be terminated if someone dies on that individual's watch, but it won't change the larger picture. Is that a fair synopsis?

[JRB]

When I watched the video I was expecting to see someone take a round to the back of the head. From what you've written, individual officers and NCOs have a problem with a standard that puts every soldier in danger during training, but Big Army doesn't. Until there is a change, "soldiers gonna soldier" is the excuse for everything. I'm sure individual careers will be terminated if someone dies on that individual's watch, but it won't change the larger picture. Is that a fair synopsis?

Close. The issue is the sheer number of personnel that require this sort of training, and how expensive in both cash and time it will take to fully fix these problems. Senior officers are overwhelmingly not skilled at guncraft nor are their careers in any way improved by being skilled at it. As such, there's a strong tendency to 'go with the flow' of what their superiors want vs being the stick in the mud demanding a proper fix to real problems.
Put more simply, until these problems are a high priority problem for 3 and 4 star Generals, and those Generals genuinely shift gears into making state-of-the-art skill at war the priority instead of making the DoD a happy social experiment, it's not going to be a priority to anyone else.

That said, for sake of clarity - these sorts of mistakes are absolutely NOT the 'standard' as in, the standard to which we expect proficiency and training to be conducted.
They are, however, regrettably damn near inevitable due to the size and scale of this training for so many Soldiers, and proper modernization and 'fixing' of the training will massively reduce these mistakes but never fully eliminate them. As we see in this video, it only takes one mistake on viral video to get grand sweeping assumptions about a very large population and training program.
Yes, the Army needs a lot of modernization and improvements in training, but the size of the Army guarantees that cringe-inducing stupid mistakes will always be made on those far edges of the bell curve, no matter how much we improve those programs.

[M1Garand]

No, you insinuated that nothing has changed in that organization since your accident, implying that an entire combat division has spent the past 20+ years training and fighting with this sort of conduct as the standard. I only took issue with that and that alone. That was never the standard, and it is not the standard today, and while a hell of a lot has changed in the Army since 1997 fundamental weapons safety has not.

Apparently for the unit in the film nothing has changed. The Div CSM stated the video was a couple months prior to him becoming aware and that he would fix the issue. I am sure when he found out he questioned the unit and if they had fixed the problem and he would have relayed that information in his video. I don't have all the details but apparently the unit has the "Nothing else bad happened" mindset for training so they did not fix it at the time. How did they get past the crawl walk phase to even be issued ammo. That is a result of at least that unit accepting mediocre training. The fact the DIV CSM is apologizing shows that at a min the Platoon and Company Chain of Command failed. Yes it happens at all levels has for couple hundred years and will continue as long as humans are involved. As far as my accident, a target was activated-soldier and squad leader knew friendly's were to the front and fired anyway. That is what happen when a mindset of just good enough is instilled in troops.


I can't understand how you made it through a 21 year career without understanding that the size of these units and the en masse nature of much of this training makes it impossible to prevent 100% of all fuckups. Let me be clear about that - this was a massive fuckup, but a massive fuckup that resulted in no damage and no injury is a hell of a lot better than one that did. I prefer to get something out of these fuckups and frequently that's 'what not to do' training value. If you find that to be 'lazy' then, well, whatever dude. I promise the same and more massive fuckups are happening a lot more often but without the benefit of viral video. After a 21 year career I am sure that you know this too.

What I find lazy is the attitude of accepting failure. Yes not failures can be prevented but the one in the video damn sure could have been. There are unit's that continue to skim just above the standard line for years from a institutionalized just good enough attitude.


All I can do is try my best from where I'm at, and I genuinely can't fucking wait to hit my 20 and pop smoke myself.[/QUOTE]

Good luck on your career

[JRB]

No, you insinuated that nothing has changed in that organization since your accident, implying that an entire combat division has spent the past 20+ years training and fighting with this sort of conduct as the standard. I only took issue with that and that alone. That was never the standard, and it is not the standard today, and while a hell of a lot has changed in the Army since 1997 fundamental weapons safety has not.

Apparently for the unit in the film nothing has changed. The Div CSM stated the video was a couple months prior to him becoming aware and that he would fix the issue. I am sure when he found out he questioned the unit and if they had fixed the problem and he would have relayed that information in his video. I don't have all the details but apparently the unit has the "Nothing else bad happened" mindset for training so they did not fix it at the time. How did they get past the crawl walk phase to even be issued ammo. That is a result of at least that unit accepting mediocre training. The fact the DIV CSM is apologizing shows that at a min the Platoon and Company Chain of Command failed. Yes it happens at all levels has for couple hundred years and will continue as long as humans are involved. As far as my accident, a target was activated-soldier and squad leader knew friendly's were to the front and fired anyway. That is what happen when a mindset of just good enough is instilled in troops.


I can't understand how you made it through a 21 year career without understanding that the size of these units and the en masse nature of much of this training makes it impossible to prevent 100% of all fuckups. Let me be clear about that - this was a massive fuckup, but a massive fuckup that resulted in no damage and no injury is a hell of a lot better than one that did. I prefer to get something out of these fuckups and frequently that's 'what not to do' training value. If you find that to be 'lazy' then, well, whatever dude. I promise the same and more massive fuckups are happening a lot more often but without the benefit of viral video. After a 21 year career I am sure that you know this too.

What I find lazy is the attitude of accepting failure. Yes not failures can be prevented but the one in the video damn sure could have been. There are unit's that continue to skim just above the standard line for years from a institutionalized just good enough attitude.


All I can do is try my best from where I'm at, and I genuinely can't fucking wait to hit my 20 and pop smoke myself.


We're talking past each other here because I agree with most of what you're saying, but you not understanding the point I'm trying to make. There's a difference between realistically accepting that mistakes will be made due to the size and scales involved, and actually being 'OK' with those mistakes.
I'm not OK with those mistakes, I'm not OK with with it happening, but I do not believe it's realistic or effective to decree-from-on-high that no mistakes will be made, ever, else ye be burned at the stake. Demanding a zero-defect environment is exactly what leads to these problems taking root because subordinates will only seek to hide their mistakes entirely for fear of being crucified, and a lot less learning occurs because of it. Fear of being caught making a mistake overrides any desire to improve from making them, and that reduces the real value in training.

With higher stakes like that, too, the E4 mafia and below just want it all over with, and will make every effort to just 'check the block' instead of trying to improve or get more out of their time on facilities like shoothouses. You have to allow that your subordinates will make mistakes, and you have to be more concerned with how they prevent it in the future instead of simply preventing all mistakes entirely.

Your apparent leadership style of demanding a perfect, zero-defect environment 100% of the time, that blames as fully as possible to the lowest level, and indignantly preens themselves with trash like 'THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE FOR DELTA COMPANY SOLDIERS' is a root fucking cause of low morale, suicide, lack of faith in leadership, low retention rates, and the exact 'check the block and get this over with before something gets us in trouble' training standards that you're so against.

[M1Garand]

[/I]


We're talking past each other here because I agree with most of what you're saying, but you not understanding the point I'm trying to make. There's a difference between realistically accepting that mistakes will be made due to the size and scales involved, and actually being 'OK' with those mistakes.
I'm not OK with those mistakes, I'm not OK with with it happening, but I do not believe it's realistic or effective to decree-from-on-high that no mistakes will be made, ever, else ye be burned at the stake. Demanding a zero-defect environment is exactly what leads to these problems taking root because subordinates will only seek to hide their mistakes entirely for fear of being crucified, and a lot less learning occurs because of it. Fear of being caught making a mistake overrides any desire to improve from making them, and that reduces the real value in training.

I am not sure how you got that from what I wrote. In your original reply you seemed to be defending failure as just part of training. I feel the goal should be to strive for zero failures realizing they will happen then take measures to fix them. I am not talking about mistakes I am talking about failures. The actions in the video were a failure not a mistake. A failure by the Chain of Command to allow it to happen and then not correct it prior to the DIV CSM getting involved.

With higher stakes like that, too, the E4 mafia and below just want it all over with, and will make every effort to just 'check the block' instead of trying to improve or get more out of their time on facilities like shoothouses. You have to allow that your subordinates will make mistakes, and you have to be more concerned with how they prevent it in the future instead of simply preventing all mistakes entirely.

Your apparent leadership style of demanding a perfect, zero-defect environment 100% of the time, that blames as fully as possible to the lowest level, and indignantly preens themselves with trash like 'THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE FOR DELTA COMPANY SOLDIERS' is a root fucking cause of low morale, suicide, lack of faith in leadership, low retention rates, and the exact 'check the block and get this over with before something gets us in trouble' training standards that you're so against.

How did you come up with this from what I wrote previously? There is a difference between STRIVING for and DEMANDING zero failures. The crawl - walk phases of training are were mistakes are identified and corrected they should be almost non existent on the run phase IE Life ammo. Based off the video this was never done. I just hope you never have to do a Next of Kin notification because sorry but it happens sometimes and we learn from it.

[JRB]

I'm assuming the below part is your reply, that just got formatted into the my quote section of the post. Apologies if this is in error.



I am not sure how you got that from what I wrote. In your original reply you seemed to be defending failure as just part of training. I feel the goal should be to strive for zero failures realizing they will happen then take measures to fix them. I am not talking about mistakes I am talking about failures. The actions in the video were a failure not a mistake. A failure by the Chain of Command to allow it to happen and then not correct it prior to the DIV CSM getting involved.


Ultimately this is a big fuckup on video, not a training video showing current doctrine.
We know this video was filmed some time ago, and it was going viral that brought it to the CSM's attention. So my money is that an AAR has already happened, and someone's already been tarred and feathered for this. But instead of that being a done deal that some 1SG already squashed, there's a CSM out for blood over an already-solved problem.

As far as calling something a mistake or a failure is subjective. The purpose of training is to fuck up in a controlled environment where we can learn and get it right the next time. Yes, this was an fundamental fuckup during a very advanced task where correct action should be second nature. But humans fuck up, which is why we have RSO's no matter how much previous training we have. RSO's fucked up too by not stopping it on the spot but we're seeing this from the shooter's perspective not the RSO's so maybe they were all looking at the wrong places. It can happen in those shoothouses.
We know that PFC Flaggy got shitloads of instruction on all that, over and over again, before getting issued ammo that day. So is it his fuck up? Or is it a failure of everyone who's ever given PFC Flaggy a safety brief or PMI on his weapon, and everyone who RSO'd and went through that shoothouse that day?
I'm tired of blood hunts over shit like this. It solves nothing and erodes confidence in the leadership demanding it. Make the correction, emphatically, then have Joe demonstrate that he's learned before he gets live ammo again, and drive on. Escalate from there if joe fucks it up again.




How did you come up with this from what I wrote previously? There is a difference between STRIVING for and DEMANDING zero failures. The crawl - walk phases of training are were mistakes are identified and corrected they should be almost non existent on the run phase IE Life ammo. Based off the video this was never done. I just hope you never have to do a Next of Kin notification because sorry but it happens sometimes and we learn from it.

Blaming the whole 10th Mountain for one Joe's on-video fuckup is DEMANDING zero failures. Yes, there's a lot that can be improved in training, there's a lot that needs to be improved, but this absolutely was not a systematic failure of training across a whole Combat force, and that on-video fuckup merely existing doesn't assert it as an acceptable SOP, doctrine standard or a 'go' at any station.

Your last line is just 100% sour grapes. Accepting that training for war has inherent risk doesn't mean we're somehow okay with our own Soldiers dying in training, and that whole line reads like something I'd hear from some BC that doesn't know the names of anyone outside of his staff as he justifies why he won't sign a risk assessment for proposed training.

We don't sign up to fight and win our nations wars with the expectation that everything therein goes perfectly, and that life and war are fair and have no surprises or fuckups. Human nature, both good and bad, is NOT magically nullified by the presence of a uniform with a flag on it.
Even if it was, and we all followed the safest safety rules 100%, there's still drunk drivers running red lights and surprise cancers and suicide and all sorts of other ways Soldiers can and will die outside of enemy action. It sucks. Nobody likes it, we grieve, and we wish we could have nudged fate before it happened, but we can't go back in time. I was part of a next of kin notification for a suicide in my unit. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in uniform.

Human life is precious and one should not risk it lightly, which is why SM's and LEO's and such get the respect they do, because they're signing up for shit that is hard, unrewarding, and risky as hell by nature for the sake of a greater good. I try to drive this home with my own Soldiers - those little old ladies that sincerely thank you for your service aren't thanking you for putting up with 0400 wakeups and shitty powerpoint slides, they're thanking you for being that person carrying a rifle ready to deploy, engage, and destroy anyone that would fuck with America, taking that fight to wherever in the world it goes and accepting the risks of it all.

[M1Garand]

As far as calling something a mistake or a failure is subjective.

I have to disagree with that. A mistake is tripping on the way up the stairs but making it to the top, failure is not making it to the top.


Blaming the whole 10th Mountain for one Joe's on-video fuckup is DEMANDING zero failures.

From my original post (I have been out of the loop for 21 years but looks like the 10th MT has not improved any since 1997.) I dont see it but I guess you could call that blaming the whole 10th MT. And that was not a one Joe on-video fuck up that was a unit- system fuck up.

Your last line is just 100% sour grapes.

Yes it is and worse than I'm sorry you were injured in training but I'll bet your VA rating reflects it. so I apologize for that

I don't get how you consider any criticism as demanding zero failures. I guess that goes back to the first line.

I guess we should both be glad I have a blue ID card and our paths will probably never cross. So good luck to you and your troops may you make it home safely

M1Garand OUT

[cheby]

never mind