With the change to an all volunteer military, the number and roles of women in the military have increased dramatically.
The United States Marine Corps are renowned historically for their dedicated service and intense recruit training. The Marine Corps have a no discrimination rule in their recruitment programs. Women Marines have served the military as Marine Reserves since the 1920’s. Women Marine Reserves carried out shore duties that helped keep trained men free for various combat duties.
Today, there are a huge percentage of women doing various occupational jobs in different departments of the Marine Corps. Ninety three percent of occupational jobs and Sixty Two Percent of all billets have women Marine Corps serving in them.
Women rarely engage in combat roles in the US Marine Corps as is the case in most of the other services. Historically, in industrialized countries, women have been excluded from armed combat roles and significant administrative positions in the military.
However, six percent of the US Marine Corps is made up of women marines. They serve proudly in various roles and capacities in the modern Marine Corps. Currently, there are about eight thousand five hundred active service women marines engaged in different jobs at Marine Military bases.
Unlike way back, today, female marines are not mistreated or given derogatory names while in service. They are simply referred to as marines by their male colleagues.
The Marine Corps service is yet to separate or integrate their first phases of training given to new recruits. In other military forces, basic combat training is routinely segregated according to different individual capabilities, skills and physical conditions. Not so in the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps Basic Training is highly regarded due to its inclusiveness, discipline, intensiveness and physical endurance.
The Marine Corps have always been trend setters in the military. The first ever service to have a woman serving as a General was the US Marine Corps. The Marines have therefore become trend setters in many different ways in the military.
The first woman to lose her life in active duty was a crew member of a c-130 marine aircraft in Afghanistan.
Women and men Marines under go the same training at the Recruit Center at Parris Island, South California. They serve with distinction and honour just like their men counterparts.
This traditional and modern trend has ensured that the Marine Corps remain truly the few, the proud.
Useful links
www.marines.mil/
http://www.usmilitary.com/
http://ann.sagepub.com/content/
Civilian “Boot Camps” are springing up all over the place. The participants are given a serious work out nut they get to go home and shower at the end of the day. This is unlike boot camp. While one is resting, the real military recruit is several hours into his/her day — with several more hours to go.
Currently, over 40 percent of those who enlist in the military do not make it through the first four years. A significant portion of these do not even make it through boot camp. For many, this is because of unrealistic expectations. The military (and especially Boot Camp) is not what they thought it would be.
Regardless of what your recruiter told you, being a member of the United States Armed Forces is not just like having a civilian job. In the military, there will always be someone telling you what to do, when to do it and how to do it — and you’ve got to do it.
Sometimes they’ll tell you to do something that you don’t want to do, or tell you in a way that makes you angry. Failing to do it is not an option. The willful disobeying of a lawful order won’t just get you “fired,” as it would in a civilian occupation, it can get you sent to jail.
In the military, you’ll work the hours you are told to work, you’ll work “overtime” with no additional pay, you’ll do the tasks you’re assigned to do (even if they don’t relate exactly with your “job”), you’ll live where you’re told to live, and you’ll deploy where and when you’re told to deploy.
If you’re not absolutely willing to make these sacrifices, then do you and the government a big favor and don’t join up. However, if you are willing to put the needs of your country and your service ahead of your own, you’ll find several rewards in a military career (or even a short term of service). You’ll also be one of the 60 percent who make it to the end of their service commitment and either reenlist, or walk away contented with an Honorable Discharge.
Military boot camp is like nothing you’ve ever experienced. It’s the job of the Training Instructors (T.I.’s) and Drill Instructors (D.I.’s) to either adjust your attitude to a military way of thinking (self-discipline, sacrifice, loyalty, obedience), or to drum you out before the military spends too much money on your training. They do this by applying significant degrees of physical and mental stress, while at the same time teaching you the fundamentals of military rules; and the policies, etiquette, and customs of your particular military service.
The training programs are scientifically and psychologically designed to tear apart the “civilian” and build from scratch a proud, physically fit, and dedicated member of the United States Armed Forces. You’ll find that boot camp simply gets just a little bit easier each and every day.
Useful Links
http://www.teenscamp.net/Teen/Boot-Camps-For-Teens/index.htm
www.military.com/military-fitness/army-basic-training/getting-prepared-for-bootcamp
http://www.in.gov/idoc/dys/2344.html
If you are a young U.S. citizen and have always wanted to pursue a career in the military, the government funded Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (J-ROTC) is a program worth pursuing. This high school program is sponsored under the Federal program of the United States Armed Forces and can be undertaken in select military institutions anywhere in the U.S. The program was established after the First World War under the National Defense Act of 1916. It was later expanded in 1964 under the Reserve Officers’ Training Vitalization Act.
Community Success
Many of those who undertake this program often contribute to the success of many young people and different communities in America. Many of the young people who have gone through the training program have received valuable skills such as good patriotic citizenship, vital leadership skills and involvement in community related development projects.
The youths who have often desired to improve on grades and acquire with impressive graduation ratings have taken up this program to help them achieve that. They have also acquired a high level commitment to community services events and activities, with a meaningful contribution to the society than those who have not taken up this program.
The Best For A Parent
Parents who want the best for their kids in terms of good performance at school and at in community activities have also taken cue in enrolling their youngsters for J-ROTC programs. The advantage to the parent is that they do not incur any expenses as this is be catered for by the federal government. The other advantage is that their kids remain preoccupied with the training that will mould them into productive members of the community.
Instilling Responsibility To The Nation
Tens of thousands of American school kids attend to such programs, and this is an acknowledgment of the usefulness of the program in developing leadership, good character and instilling in them, vital civic responsibilities and service to the nation. The training is offered by dedicated staff, instructors, administrators and the communities within which such training programs take place. The instructors are professionally trained to deliver meaningful instructions to the students on this program. The largest J-ROTC program is carried out in Chicago Public Schools although the same programs can be carried out elsewhere in the United States.
Students on this program are involved in an array of personally and socially beneficial events like field trips, summer camp, sporting challenge, leadership camp, national and local drill competitions and many others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Reserve_Officers%27_Training_Corps
www.jrotc.org
https://www.usarmyjrotc.com/
Discipline can be defined as orderly behavior that is as a result of effective training. Military discipline can be achieved through obedience to orders. Military recruits are encouraged to obey their seniors immediately they enter the boot camps.
Types of Military Discipline
The Air force has published a book called, Air Force standards, in which they explain four types of discipline. These are: task discipline, group discipline, imposed discipline and self discipline.
Task Discipline
This type of military discipline is based on how we handle the tasks or work given to us. Task discipline requires us to be responsible in doing our jobs with excellence. It also entails working overtime to accomplish a mission when the need arises.
Group Discipline
This military discipline emphasizes the importance of team work. It can require that you deny yourself some preferences for the sake of your task team or group or unit.
Imposed Discipline
This military discipline requires that you obey every legal order and regulation. The order does not have to be explained for it to be obeyed. You are expected to obey orders quickly.
Self Discipline
This military discipline is a discipline that will lead us to willingly do whatever needs to be done. Self discipline will ensure that we get to work on time, know all about the tasks we’ve been given, set priorities and deny ourselves some personal preferences. Self discipline can also show our commitment and sense of duty.
Military Indiscipline
Military members who do not obey the lawful orders of their seniors or superiors can face serious consequences. The uniform code of Military Justice states that it is a crime for a military member to willfully disobey a superior warrant officer. It is also a crime to willfully disobey a superior commissioned officer. It is a crime to disobey any lawful order. The military members have to obey lawful orders; if the order is not lawful they do not need to obey it. Obeying an order which is unlawful can lead to criminal persecution. Military members can be held responsible for crimes committed under the pretence of ‘obeying orders’.
There are three approaches in dealing with indiscipline: the punitive approach, the preventive approach and the corrective approach
Preventive approach involves understanding human habits, using effective management and leadership skills, being a role model and imposing the standards.
Corrective approach involves disciplining the people who have not responded well to the preventive approach.
The punitive approach involves some form of punishment as a way of dealing with the indiscipline case.
Links
www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil
www.usmillitary.about.com.
Here are few paragraphs from the book:
The officer of to-day has big problems to face at short notice. His training has necessarily been so intensive that he cannot absorb a large amount of it. He has little time to make out schedules or even to look over the hasty notes he may have made during his training period, yet he finds himself facing problems which force him to immediate action.
This book so condenses and systematizes general military instruction and the work done at Plattsburg so that it may be easily utilized in training other troops. No broad claim for originality is made except in the arrangement of all available material; the bibliography makes acknowledgment to all texts so utilized. Besides bringing helpful reminders to new officers regarding the elements of modern warfare, much of the material will be found of radical importance, as it is practically new and never before condensed. Since under the new army organization the platoon leader virtually has assumed the roll of a captain of a company, it is not enough for him to know simply his own part; he must be ready with all the information that his non-commissioned officers and men should know, and more important still, he must know how to teach them. Having little or no time to work over and digest for himself this mass of new material pouring in upon him, the officer may find in this book, material condensed and already arranged.
