Army Drops Hand Grenade and Land Nav. Competency From Basic Training
Kevin Felts 02.14.18
The United States Army announced they will be dropping hand grenade and land navigation competency as requirements for basic training graduation.
Reasons cited to drop the grenade competency: People are growing up never learning how to throw. That’s right. Too many people are going into the army who never learned how to throw as a child. The Army does not have the time to teach all the adults how to properly throw.
How far does the grenade have to be thrown? Only 20-30 meters. Which equals between 60-90 feet.
However, just because the two were dropped from basic training does not mean the skills will not be taught. They will just be taught at a later time.
From Military.com – Low Recruit Discipline Prompts Army to Redesign Basic Training.
“We are finding that there are a large number of trainees that come in that quite frankly just physically don’t have the capacity to throw a hand grenade 20 to 25 to 30 meters.
In 10 weeks, we are on a 48-hour period; you are just not going to be able to teach someone how to throw if they haven’t thrown growing up.”
The whole article is a very interesting read. The part about the new recruits lack discipline and have a sense of entitlement should be a concern.
Perhaps the main question here, how does a young man grow up never learning how to throw? Between baseball, football, egging a house, and wrapping a house in toilet paper, kids doing kid stuff, how does someone make it to adulthood without learning to throw?
How much of the land navigation decision was based on young people never walking in the wood? As young people they were never taught to pay attention to the sun, or to landmark such as hills. When they entered the military they did not have a very basic understanding of having an idea of where they are at.
Readers, what are your thoughts on the topic?
