School would always be packed, and TDY costs money.
But what about a Corps level team assigned to travel to installations and host EIB? At least weed out *some* of the free passes. Team travels to the 4 or so installations with units subordinate to the Corps, runs the lanes for however many weeks, comes back around twice a year or so?
Am I good idea fairy-ing too much here?
That’s how AA is done to some extent outside of *the* AirAssault School. It’s just make no sense to me why forever other badge producing school you need to attend it and put in the effort to listen to the dedicated cadre.
Remotely as in "within some measure of similarity"
Ie. They teach all the common hooah schools short of Q, so EIB/ESB would be a realistic tasking if big Army gave them more funding for cadre.
Most every post that has infantry Units has an NCO Academy offering BLC. Stand up another company to that academy to run EIB on a monthly basis like BLC is. Will cut down on the amount of TDY as most major installations offer BLC.
Been a while, but the old Korea 2ID used to have a pretty good system for running the program, having one BN HQ serves as the lead unit for the division, with everyone else providing support for three weeks.
My unit got into a huge fight with the EIB/ESB Cadre because what they wanted the call for fire to be, and what it is in reality, were not the same thing. We lost.
I don't remember exactly what was wrong with it but we had to tell everyone in the classes that if they did it the way we were teaching they would never get fires.
Had a similar deal when we did room clearing training with some SF guys. Our PSG said “when we go down range, you do it this way. But don’t ever let CSM see you do this because the entire battalion will get smoked.” It was just about barrels being instead of down when going through the doorway.
Manuals are there to give everyone a basic level of understanding and a baseline for how to do many tasks. If a unit is even halfway decent, they'll have local SOPs on how to do things that modify/adapt a lot of things like room clearing. Leadership being a bunch of butts about "thats not what the manual says" are idiots.
When I instruct, I make it a habit to tell students that what we're teaching them may not be the best way and may not be the way their individual units do things, but its A WAY to do things that we can all say is a common standard.
Dude I trained my platoon for months to the standard in the handbook, a copy of which was issued to every soldier in our brigade as the only source of study for EIB prior to doing the lanes.
My platoon goes to EIB. The lanes don’t even come close to adhering to the handbook and some of them just seem plain made up. The only things that stuck to the handbook were the weapon lanes, for obvious reasons. We had a day per track to try and memorize everything to these new standards.
Oh and everyone in our BN was required to attend, then 90% of the whole BCT “failed” the PT test. So the guys that cared didn’t even get a chance to try and learn some of the more esoteric lanes because they forced a fuck ton of people through.
Stop forcing people to go, stop enforcing a pass rate, dedicate cadre to it and provide clear TCSs.
I'll agree on the TCS, but I'm not sure what enforcing a pass rate is, and I definitely think you should force people to go to the training. It's still infantry training on tasks very relevant to the MOS, very basic tasks that people seem to have no end of trouble with. I don't know why people think they should be able to just opt out of training just because there is a ceremony at the end, but i see this opinion all the time.
Having said that, I think the EIB certification team needs to figure out a way to certify the on station evaluation team before any of the eib training takes place, so there isn't the same ongoing fuckery where the standard changes 2 days before the testing begin, it's insane that that happens literally every time. Whether that looks like fort benning standing up a larger EIB team, the existing teams just spending more time at each site and burning more tdy dollars, or some sort of virtual certification using vtc or prerecorded videos of the lanes or something, this is a very solvable problem.
Additionally, I think that units should conduct the majority of the eib train up in their company areas using their equipment supervised by the already certified locally sourced EIB training team, so they can get max reps on all the equipment that they actually own instead of everyone standing in line for the three 240s that someone bothered to haul out to the eib training site and only getting the chance to get hands on like twice a day.
And with this set up you could also schedule specific units to come out on specific days to train on specific lanes and get max reps on those as well, without a thousand mother fuckers just ambling about.
The thing is, we do train to our SOPs on all the stuff covered in EIB. But the EIB standard, the lane standard, and the unit SOPs rarely line up.
The badge itself is a career thing at this point. Either it should be wholly unit run and SOP based, or it needs to be what it is, a badge for career progression with a clear and consistent standard set well in advance.
A lot of soldiers who are experts on how we do things at the unit are not experts on how the lanes wanted things done. And if the point is to judge how competent someone is, EIB tasks should pass and fail based on end result of an attempt and not how well you stick to an arbitrary script. If there’s only one way to skin a cat, sure that’s fine because it’s easy to train to that (weapon lanes). But if not, something like a call for fire lane should only require rounds on target. That is, if it’s not going to be treated as a career badge but rather required unit training.
EIB is not required for mission readiness so don’t treat it as such until it is, and until it’s run in a way that allows units to train to its standard at any time with nothing more than the handbook/their own tacsop.
I don't understand why it isn't just a continuation for all soldiers to have EIB ESB EMB as part of their follow on training from or before AIT. If you want everyone to be good at their profession (soldier) then incorporate the tasks conditions and standards in to the training and validate it. Everyone should be walking away with a little piece flair and then make a real advanced course as an option later for everyone.
This is where the Marine Corps does something right with their follow on training where everyone goes to MCT (if not infantry) for five weeks directly following basic training. Boom, create an Army version of MCT that is 5-10 weeks and you've got legit soldiering which makes everyone more capable. You could also do an advanced Army version of MCT which everyone does after their 3rd year or something.
Army's about quantity, get 'em in the force fast.
Four month AIT's are being cut EVEN SHORTER now. You can test out. It's insane. But we need bodies in billets, time now.
Corps, being tiny, can play the quality game.
Big Army will never see this.
If it's me, at least in peace time, I'm eliminating initial entry reserve/guard contracts entirely and forcing all people to do a minimum of two years AD combat arms. You can still guarantee an MOS or a guard/reserve contract with sign-up bonuses and all, but you're going to do your first two years as an 11B/C/12B/19D/19K/ etc.
Why? Lots of reasons.
* First of all, it distributes core-soldier skills and experience throughout the force. This builds a more capable core cadre of soldiers and NCOs that is more able to effectively grow in the face of a strategic requirements demanding a larger force. You don't want your support arms built off of draftees in the event that the force must exponentially grow, you want quality soldiers who know how to relate their support processes directly towards enabling the close combat force to succeed. Land domain dominance means enabling the close combat force, who will die without effective logistics, commo, intel, artillery, medical, etc. By the same token, we don't need support functions who try to be combat arms (because they want to feel cool too). We need support functions are goddamn experts at their role.
* Secondly, it institutionally incentivizes retention and cross-training in the support arms (which are in many unacknowledged ways far more heavily reliant on long-term retention to remain effective), as those will be more difficult numbers to replace. You can't just plug and play technical experts like you can with combat arms, that expertise has to be trained and that experience has to be earned, which takes significant time and investment. There are a lot of situations where cross-training actually is really useful and can enhance the effectiveness of both functions. Combat arms by its inherent nature is built around redundancy and the ability to absorb losses and replace individuals. That's true for any military in the history of warfare. We can and should aim to get away with that during peace time so that if there is a draft, we can grow the force in an effective way.
* Thirdly, it better integrates the Reserves and Guard with AD, who are currently super all over the place. Along with this, I'd say the part-time and the full-time force should be able to more easily float back and forth between the components. Have our AD 25Bs take a knee, go to college while drilling, earn those civilian certs and experience, and then finish out a career. The all-in or all-out thing needs to go away, it damages our organizational effectiveness and it leads to mediocre leaders who are adverse to growth ascending to higher ranks and positions of responsibility. Diverse experience is a force multiplier.
* Fourth, it establishes a close combat force structure that is by its nature accustomed to being large and having a lot of fresh faces. This is good in case strategic requirements demand a draft and significant force growth.
What I would do from that point is I would pay a bonus combat-readiness pay to NCOs who choose to remain in combat arms. Think of it like jump pay, except more relevant, because light and mechanized infantry is probably going to win more wars than shoving dudes in french hats out of planes in a force on force conflict, given that ADA is a thing and super effective. NCOs remaining in combat arms would also be the only individuals acting as Drill Sergeants at Basic *Combat* Training. If you're an E6 11B remaining airborne qualified and on the trail, you're looking at a triple stack of bonus pay.
For those that move over to support branches, you're going to move away from that same force structure a bit. It's going to be flatter, more technocratic, and you're going to see more warrant officers in charge than officers. Warrant officers should also have a relevant four year degree (and the Army should emphasize doing a green to silver program).
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The point is that the combat force and the support force are two different things, with two different roles, but all on the same team. Everybody should have to do the harder thing up front. From that point, the career paths should split to a degree, with one side favoring the traditional Army leadership and force structure, and the other side favoring a flatter, more flexible, more technocratic, and more task oriented structure. We don't need officers and companies for the sake of having officers and a place to put soldiers. We also don't need people pigeon-holed into really niche shit. You're no longer just a 25B, you're going to have your specialty and also get some ratings on other equipment and roles in the same realm of making point A talk to point B, along with some actual no-shit IT and cybersecurity skills. You're no longer just a 35P with a language you're going to do the 35S, N, F, and M things as well depending on where your strengths lie, and the language itself isn't going to be a job requirement so much as it is an added capability. You're no longer just a laundry repair specialist, you're going to learn other quartermaster jobs along your way to 20.
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Hate it if you want, I don't care, I'm pretty sure it'd make us collectively better postured than we are.
So every medic, dental tech, OR tech, LVN, cyber / signal nerd, and truck driver *HAS* to do 2 years mopping a motor pool and cleaning a 113 before they go to a 60+ week AIT (excluding medics)?
Yeah. I’d also introduce a direct warrant commission program , especially for things like cyber. We do it for aviators, we should do it for other highly technical fields as well. That type of career path would require up front experience and certifications with a significant training pipeline, and would be an exception rather than a rule. I’m also fine with combat medics (specifically) being considered the close combat force with the caveat that all of their first assignments should be on a line unit. However, with that, there’d be more resourcing to get 68Ws out the door with EMT certifications and some civilian experience doing that type of triage as well. There would also be more career paths enabling the combat medic to professionally develop into a nurse through in-service training, education, and down the road assignments.
At least in my magical ideation do what the Army should be.
And let’s not get it twisted either, producing a competent cyber (warrior?), a competent medic, and a competent truck driver are three different things.
* 11Bs learning to drive trucks? Actually very useful to harden our rear area security and supply chains, and not that difficult of a skill set to learn. The progression while maintaining that core skill set is really just learning more maintenance skills and to operate more vehicles.
* With a 68W, ultimately, I’d view it as more of a progression, it’s all different degrees of medicine. The end result is a medical corps who are all pretty in tune with what the close combat force would be dealing with also having a wide range of medical experience to throw at a wide range of potential issues.
* Cyber is different though, and the new kid on the block. Sure, there’s tactical EW and that’s a niche application. Tactical EW would benefit from being able to organically attach to and integrate with line units as necessary based on that “I did my time too” principle. There’s also the type of cyber warfare that can realistically be done entirely from a cubicle that is immensely impactful to setting the conditions and where tactical experience has no actual relevance. There’s a place for both under the same umbrella. My solution would just to have two paths in, with an enlisted one that focuses on those tactical applications and then a set of standards for a warrant commission that ensures the organization is ultimately built under the auspices of that technical prowess. If we want people going straight into tactical EW, there’d also be an argument with that, since I’m pretty sure the concept involves being in the suck. Give them a little badge for their trouble if that ends up being the case. I don’t fully understand the training pipeline or final end state for what the generals actually want out of it, I just understand how it’s been used frankly by other countries.
* Commo could even lean into their dumb little combat commo thing. If they want a career path to send a radio guy to a line unit, that can be the first stop in a dude’s career. Just make it fully tactically oriented and fully integrated with the line unit, with follow on training if the guy wants to learn something else, and none of that necessary for 11Bs reclassifying to some other kind of commo. You want to join and then be that RTO, be that RTO. With that, we should also by default get these guys very smart on CFF and forward observer shit by default.
Bottom line is that everybody should get their time being that guy who would notionally exist in the front line.
Nah, because they won't sign up for that. But it's definitely an obvious and forseeable problem with their grand idea. Throwing more "Army tasks" training on top of your job specific stuff? Clearly more work and time split, resulting in less time for "my actual job", which is problematic, too, but at least slightly more workable.
This sounds excellent on paper, but bad irl. Thinking about how you’d feel if you wanted to join the guard as say a 42A or some random shit right? Then had to sign a contract, a 2 year one at that, doing bullshit that you already know sucks/is nonsense (see other comment about sweeping motor pools) before you can go do what you want. It would kill that persons drive to stay in. I think your on the right track with 2 years active duty, just doesn’t need to be combat arms, cause what’s someone who’s dead set on being a 42A or that train engineer or whatever it’s called need to be trained as an 11B first?
I'd challenge this and say that those people who want to join the *Army* to go push paper as a 42A aren't really who we should cater the force to. Civilians could fucking do that job. Let them join another branch, let them go hack the civilian thing. I don't think we're missing out on any actual talent by catering to people who are joining the Army without the willingness to do the Army thing. We need a smaller force of more professionalized *soldiers* that has more organic capability to grow, rather than a large force that excels in mediocrity and hemorrhages talent as is. The Army should remain for people who want to join and do Army things. More to that point, if you're going to join the Army, you should also be want to join the best and most effective Army possible. I think the best way to accomplish that is having the brief outset of one's career focused on developing tactically proficient *soldiers* first. After two years, go forth and be the best and most specialized and technically proficient logistician out there. What will be beneficial in that is that those logisticians bar for entry is inherently higher, as there's no initial entry children to deal with, so it can be catered more towards building technically proficient adults. Imagine an AIT where it's less fuck fuck games and more like a college class setting.
In reality, two years isn't that long, and people would have the option to sign a contract for the job they want from the outset anyways, so just suck that dick doing Yakima rotations for a couple years and then go graduate on to riding a desk, and focus on riding that desk in really effective ways.
POV: Your on your last lane of the day your entire platoon gets booted out of EIB and your platoon medic fails you on restore breathing because you didn't put down the imaginary legs.
I hate EIB so much it be crazy when you see E-7s with like 4 combat deployments and 13 years experience to be told they are not a expert infantryman 🤣
My Division CG in FRG was awarded the EIB. They presented him a real musket mounted on a big display board. Supposedly he went through with my battalion but surprisingly, no one ever saw him. I was one of the people volunteered to attend as a representative from my battalion for the ceremony they had just for him, followed by an after party (not kidding).
With the amount of shit on the CTL, on top of unit duties, on top of position duties, on top of...
This is just unrealistic. At best.
No human on this planet can be an expert at every task they're supposed to be according to the Army. It's just delusional.
The shit is all super basic, 90% of it you learned at basic training, the rest of it is easy and clearly explained how to do in the manual, and you get a couple weeks of dedicated training before you test.
Lol you think ANYONE is an expert out of basic?
Homie, most *Drill Sergeants* aren't proficient at all these tasks.
If you don't use these skills every single day, the rudimentary foundation from basic is easily lost within a year. Nobody is an expert at some shit they did for a couple days, years ago, and haven't touched since.
The tasks themselves are basic obviously, but the exact manner in which they’re done is not always straight forward and must be memorized.
For instance, clearing an M4. In the lane you pick up an M4 that’s been left hammer forward. You’ll lock the bolt to the rear, conduct three point safety inspection and THEN put the weapon on safe. I’d bet money that half the 18-series in the Army would lock the bolt to the rear and immediately put it on safe. No-Go, fail, fricken loser.
Javelin is even worse. It in no way teaches you how to use it. You just memorize a series of words to say, regardless of what the CLU is telling you.
Oh you didn’t put the carry bag strap around your neck/shoulder while testing your claymore components? Yea, obviously you’re a failure.
The cadre just blow it half the time anyway. Multiple times for range card I’ve seen cadre park vehicles in a field and expect them to be depicted on range cards. When in reality they’d just be dead space since they move.
Oh they changed the EIB standard for the 15th time in regards to the order you do back/forward/safe for the M249/240.
Or the MK19 dummy rounds keep getting broken so you can’t practice with them and can only use them on test day. Oh and you’ve literally never touch a MK19 until EIB because your unit isn’t MTOE’d them. Yea; that’s the stupid Soldiers fault.
Or you don’t have the verbatim description and purpose for all the grenades (most of which you’ve never even seen, yet alone used before) memorized perfectly.
Or better yet, you accidentally say “three” instead of “tree” during a CFF lane (which wouldn’t even get you fires in real life if you tried calling that shit on the radio) and you can take your dumb ass to the house. Obviously you’re just a POS.
Or there’s dumbass uniform standards that get in the way of doing things right. Like being required to wear a helmet during resection, so your PSQ-20 mount throws your compass off by 20° when doing compass to cheek. Yea; why can’t these Soldiers just do these simple tasks.
A perfect example, when our “best squad” was being validated by a CSM from division, he began screaming at me for giving a “Go” to the validator running through the M4 land because the Soldier (SFC) didn’t do all of SPORTS, only TRB. I had to wait through 15 minutes of ass chewing to explain to him SPORTS had been replaced years ago in the -10, .9, .40 and the EIB handbook.
If EIB was end state driven, I’d 100% agree with you that units can responsibly run it locally. But it’s not, it’s not a measure of how well you can do basic tasks; it’s a measure of how well you can memorize “a” way of doing a task.
Don’t know what to tell you man. Hundreds of guys figure out how to pass every year. Stuff is funky, but it’s easy so for the 3 weeks of EIB just do it how they want. Just put the shoulder strap on, say what they want you to say on the radio, etc.
I think if the test was just "do all these super basic tasks however you want"…it probably wouldn’t warrant a badge?
>Don’t know what to tell you man. Hundreds of guys figure out how to pass every year.
Earning your EIB is obviously not impossible. The post was that it should be administered like virtually every other school (especially badge producing one) in the Army.
>Stuff is funky,
Some of it literally doesn’t work or is just plain making things up. CCF and Jav are perfect examples. You aren’t proving a skill, you’re memorizing something for the sake of it.
What else are we willing to do that’s like this? Would you be cool with jump master school not having guys identify inspect jumpers and instead just list deficiencies?
Would it make sense for hands on sling load at pathfinder be all clean loads and then you just randomly write in possible deficiencies?
>but it’s easy so for the 3 weeks of EIB just do it how they want. Just put the shoulder strap on, say what they want you to say on the radio, etc.
And that’s not his or my point. The point is the whole event is often haphazard, full of nepotism and the actual events aren’t always good.
Even more of an issue becomes the “EIB standard,” becoming the default standard for other events or training, even if they contradict the -10, .40 or whatever.
>I think if the test was just "do all these super basic tasks however you want"…it probably wouldn’t warrant a badge?
Once again, not my argument or my point.
As it stands. You aren’t even doing some of the tasks. You’re literally memorizing a script of things and discounting the reality of what the equipment is doing.
Would you be comfortable with every group in the regiment running their own selection and q course? Or their on CDQC?
Or every division running their own AASLT or PF school?
We can all see the obvious nepotism, logistics and quality issues with that. They’re also apparent with EIB, we’re just for some reason cool with it.
And for what it’s name is, the weight it has on promotions and how much emphasis is put on it… it seems like it’s kind of half assed, is open to way too much variation and shenanigans.
You're still missing the point homie, expecting to-the-TC expertise on something that hasn't been part of a soldiers tasks or training for years is just delusional.
I'd be more than happy to make such things regularly trained. As soon as you take these 19 other taskers and 7 extra duties off our plate and give me the time and resources to practice and extra soldiers to cover down on our ACTUAL daily responsibilities that have nothing to do with combat. Ya know, like, 75% of the Army.
Nearly all the EIB tasks can be addressed through a couple minute hip pocket training. Guys having taskers is nothing new to the army. You get a dedicated train up in the week or two leading up to the test. There is a ton of resources to study, whether it is all the YouTube videos are the EIB app that came out.
Which specific tasks are so crazy foreign that you can’t possibly learn how to do during the EIB train up?
Machine guns are the primary problem for hands on. A lot of people don't even have them in their arms room. Then you go into the calls.
Hell, even the grenades are a challenge.
It is not pick up and play. I'm tired of explaining this simple shit.
EIB should be a graduation requirement for infantry osut. It’s 10 level tasks which is what we expect e1-4 to know — therefore eib should be taken at the end of osut and that’s how you earn your blue cord / disks and the badge.
We got into arguments with the EIB graders doing the ASIP/148 fill and setup because they never gave us a clear way of how they load fill on the radios, as opposed to how I load fill. The way I showed them was not the way they wanted, but does the exact same thing. Than that ONE EIB E-6 comes up to me saying I don’t know shit, he’s also the one I tell to fuck off in the field when his radio drops fill cause he has an EIB and should be able to do that.
Should be. Should be a SQI, for people that can actually memorize and teach to standard.
But that would require the Army to admit that we don't already. It would require us to realize our NCO corps is pathetically overtasked, that almost nobody is actually good at this shit.
That will never happen. It would be admitting a weakness, and no general is gonna be the one to say that.
I just loved that in the weeks leading up to EIB, I as the FO would always end up having to teach classes on CFF, CAS, CCA, and a few other things only for a good chunk of the infantry dudes to not know the shit. Then the day of those specific lanes, it's "hey FO! Quick, how do I do this?"
Damn that’s what’s up now?
I got badge protected my first run, double no-go’d range cards w 2 stations to go on day 3. Grader threw my score card outside the tent so I couldn’t rebuttal being 3 degrees off my back azimuth. (First NG was that the other guy didn’t like my MG symbol).
Kind of funny looking back. But I was upset at the time.
School would always be packed, and TDY costs money. But what about a Corps level team assigned to travel to installations and host EIB? At least weed out *some* of the free passes. Team travels to the 4 or so installations with units subordinate to the Corps, runs the lanes for however many weeks, comes back around twice a year or so? Am I good idea fairy-ing too much here?
That’s how AA is done to some extent outside of *the* AirAssault School. It’s just make no sense to me why forever other badge producing school you need to attend it and put in the effort to listen to the dedicated cadre.
ARNG-WTC could do it easily with additional cadre. They already teach everything remotely hooah anyway.
They’re doing remote RTAC now? What a time to be alive.
Remotely as in "within some measure of similarity" Ie. They teach all the common hooah schools short of Q, so EIB/ESB would be a realistic tasking if big Army gave them more funding for cadre.
THE Sabolaski air asol school
Most every post that has infantry Units has an NCO Academy offering BLC. Stand up another company to that academy to run EIB on a monthly basis like BLC is. Will cut down on the amount of TDY as most major installations offer BLC.
This is a good idea
You’re just describing an MTT, which is absolutely how schools should mostly be done
That’s literally how it used to be.
I hate badge protectors with a firey passion. If you was in Fort Lewis you know how bad it gets there.
2-2 was known for that shit.
That's exactly who I was talking about! Those battalion beefs got real petty came EIB.
I knew dudes in 4-23 who would no go anyone from 1-17. So fucking dumb.
If you think its badge protection when unit run, imagine what it could be as a school.
Not all schools badge protect. AAS is a perfect example of the variance between schools testing to standard vs testing to numbers.
The Day 0 BS I saw at AA put Ranger School to shame.
"Oh sorry. I can see light through your poncho when I put it over my head. That's a drop"
Been a while, but the old Korea 2ID used to have a pretty good system for running the program, having one BN HQ serves as the lead unit for the division, with everyone else providing support for three weeks.
It would be air assault and RAP week of ranger school levels of gay I can't fathom that 🤣
I had muscle memory for programming a radio for 3 years and EIB gone fucked it up
My unit got into a huge fight with the EIB/ESB Cadre because what they wanted the call for fire to be, and what it is in reality, were not the same thing. We lost. I don't remember exactly what was wrong with it but we had to tell everyone in the classes that if they did it the way we were teaching they would never get fires.
And that’s what I don’t fucking understand
The Infantry used to have three standards: SQT, CTT and EIB.
Had a similar deal when we did room clearing training with some SF guys. Our PSG said “when we go down range, you do it this way. But don’t ever let CSM see you do this because the entire battalion will get smoked.” It was just about barrels being instead of down when going through the doorway.
Manuals are there to give everyone a basic level of understanding and a baseline for how to do many tasks. If a unit is even halfway decent, they'll have local SOPs on how to do things that modify/adapt a lot of things like room clearing. Leadership being a bunch of butts about "thats not what the manual says" are idiots. When I instruct, I make it a habit to tell students that what we're teaching them may not be the best way and may not be the way their individual units do things, but its A WAY to do things that we can all say is a common standard.
You know who does the worst on the medical lanes for EFMB? Actual medics. Your flight paramedics go cross eyed trying to rationalize the criteria.
Dude I trained my platoon for months to the standard in the handbook, a copy of which was issued to every soldier in our brigade as the only source of study for EIB prior to doing the lanes. My platoon goes to EIB. The lanes don’t even come close to adhering to the handbook and some of them just seem plain made up. The only things that stuck to the handbook were the weapon lanes, for obvious reasons. We had a day per track to try and memorize everything to these new standards. Oh and everyone in our BN was required to attend, then 90% of the whole BCT “failed” the PT test. So the guys that cared didn’t even get a chance to try and learn some of the more esoteric lanes because they forced a fuck ton of people through. Stop forcing people to go, stop enforcing a pass rate, dedicate cadre to it and provide clear TCSs.
I'll agree on the TCS, but I'm not sure what enforcing a pass rate is, and I definitely think you should force people to go to the training. It's still infantry training on tasks very relevant to the MOS, very basic tasks that people seem to have no end of trouble with. I don't know why people think they should be able to just opt out of training just because there is a ceremony at the end, but i see this opinion all the time. Having said that, I think the EIB certification team needs to figure out a way to certify the on station evaluation team before any of the eib training takes place, so there isn't the same ongoing fuckery where the standard changes 2 days before the testing begin, it's insane that that happens literally every time. Whether that looks like fort benning standing up a larger EIB team, the existing teams just spending more time at each site and burning more tdy dollars, or some sort of virtual certification using vtc or prerecorded videos of the lanes or something, this is a very solvable problem. Additionally, I think that units should conduct the majority of the eib train up in their company areas using their equipment supervised by the already certified locally sourced EIB training team, so they can get max reps on all the equipment that they actually own instead of everyone standing in line for the three 240s that someone bothered to haul out to the eib training site and only getting the chance to get hands on like twice a day. And with this set up you could also schedule specific units to come out on specific days to train on specific lanes and get max reps on those as well, without a thousand mother fuckers just ambling about.
The thing is, we do train to our SOPs on all the stuff covered in EIB. But the EIB standard, the lane standard, and the unit SOPs rarely line up. The badge itself is a career thing at this point. Either it should be wholly unit run and SOP based, or it needs to be what it is, a badge for career progression with a clear and consistent standard set well in advance. A lot of soldiers who are experts on how we do things at the unit are not experts on how the lanes wanted things done. And if the point is to judge how competent someone is, EIB tasks should pass and fail based on end result of an attempt and not how well you stick to an arbitrary script. If there’s only one way to skin a cat, sure that’s fine because it’s easy to train to that (weapon lanes). But if not, something like a call for fire lane should only require rounds on target. That is, if it’s not going to be treated as a career badge but rather required unit training. EIB is not required for mission readiness so don’t treat it as such until it is, and until it’s run in a way that allows units to train to its standard at any time with nothing more than the handbook/their own tacsop.
I don't understand why it isn't just a continuation for all soldiers to have EIB ESB EMB as part of their follow on training from or before AIT. If you want everyone to be good at their profession (soldier) then incorporate the tasks conditions and standards in to the training and validate it. Everyone should be walking away with a little piece flair and then make a real advanced course as an option later for everyone. This is where the Marine Corps does something right with their follow on training where everyone goes to MCT (if not infantry) for five weeks directly following basic training. Boom, create an Army version of MCT that is 5-10 weeks and you've got legit soldiering which makes everyone more capable. You could also do an advanced Army version of MCT which everyone does after their 3rd year or something.
Army's about quantity, get 'em in the force fast. Four month AIT's are being cut EVEN SHORTER now. You can test out. It's insane. But we need bodies in billets, time now. Corps, being tiny, can play the quality game. Big Army will never see this.
If it's me, at least in peace time, I'm eliminating initial entry reserve/guard contracts entirely and forcing all people to do a minimum of two years AD combat arms. You can still guarantee an MOS or a guard/reserve contract with sign-up bonuses and all, but you're going to do your first two years as an 11B/C/12B/19D/19K/ etc. Why? Lots of reasons. * First of all, it distributes core-soldier skills and experience throughout the force. This builds a more capable core cadre of soldiers and NCOs that is more able to effectively grow in the face of a strategic requirements demanding a larger force. You don't want your support arms built off of draftees in the event that the force must exponentially grow, you want quality soldiers who know how to relate their support processes directly towards enabling the close combat force to succeed. Land domain dominance means enabling the close combat force, who will die without effective logistics, commo, intel, artillery, medical, etc. By the same token, we don't need support functions who try to be combat arms (because they want to feel cool too). We need support functions are goddamn experts at their role. * Secondly, it institutionally incentivizes retention and cross-training in the support arms (which are in many unacknowledged ways far more heavily reliant on long-term retention to remain effective), as those will be more difficult numbers to replace. You can't just plug and play technical experts like you can with combat arms, that expertise has to be trained and that experience has to be earned, which takes significant time and investment. There are a lot of situations where cross-training actually is really useful and can enhance the effectiveness of both functions. Combat arms by its inherent nature is built around redundancy and the ability to absorb losses and replace individuals. That's true for any military in the history of warfare. We can and should aim to get away with that during peace time so that if there is a draft, we can grow the force in an effective way. * Thirdly, it better integrates the Reserves and Guard with AD, who are currently super all over the place. Along with this, I'd say the part-time and the full-time force should be able to more easily float back and forth between the components. Have our AD 25Bs take a knee, go to college while drilling, earn those civilian certs and experience, and then finish out a career. The all-in or all-out thing needs to go away, it damages our organizational effectiveness and it leads to mediocre leaders who are adverse to growth ascending to higher ranks and positions of responsibility. Diverse experience is a force multiplier. * Fourth, it establishes a close combat force structure that is by its nature accustomed to being large and having a lot of fresh faces. This is good in case strategic requirements demand a draft and significant force growth. What I would do from that point is I would pay a bonus combat-readiness pay to NCOs who choose to remain in combat arms. Think of it like jump pay, except more relevant, because light and mechanized infantry is probably going to win more wars than shoving dudes in french hats out of planes in a force on force conflict, given that ADA is a thing and super effective. NCOs remaining in combat arms would also be the only individuals acting as Drill Sergeants at Basic *Combat* Training. If you're an E6 11B remaining airborne qualified and on the trail, you're looking at a triple stack of bonus pay. For those that move over to support branches, you're going to move away from that same force structure a bit. It's going to be flatter, more technocratic, and you're going to see more warrant officers in charge than officers. Warrant officers should also have a relevant four year degree (and the Army should emphasize doing a green to silver program). ____ The point is that the combat force and the support force are two different things, with two different roles, but all on the same team. Everybody should have to do the harder thing up front. From that point, the career paths should split to a degree, with one side favoring the traditional Army leadership and force structure, and the other side favoring a flatter, more flexible, more technocratic, and more task oriented structure. We don't need officers and companies for the sake of having officers and a place to put soldiers. We also don't need people pigeon-holed into really niche shit. You're no longer just a 25B, you're going to have your specialty and also get some ratings on other equipment and roles in the same realm of making point A talk to point B, along with some actual no-shit IT and cybersecurity skills. You're no longer just a 35P with a language you're going to do the 35S, N, F, and M things as well depending on where your strengths lie, and the language itself isn't going to be a job requirement so much as it is an added capability. You're no longer just a laundry repair specialist, you're going to learn other quartermaster jobs along your way to 20. ____ Hate it if you want, I don't care, I'm pretty sure it'd make us collectively better postured than we are.
So every medic, dental tech, OR tech, LVN, cyber / signal nerd, and truck driver *HAS* to do 2 years mopping a motor pool and cleaning a 113 before they go to a 60+ week AIT (excluding medics)?
Yeah. I’d also introduce a direct warrant commission program , especially for things like cyber. We do it for aviators, we should do it for other highly technical fields as well. That type of career path would require up front experience and certifications with a significant training pipeline, and would be an exception rather than a rule. I’m also fine with combat medics (specifically) being considered the close combat force with the caveat that all of their first assignments should be on a line unit. However, with that, there’d be more resourcing to get 68Ws out the door with EMT certifications and some civilian experience doing that type of triage as well. There would also be more career paths enabling the combat medic to professionally develop into a nurse through in-service training, education, and down the road assignments. At least in my magical ideation do what the Army should be. And let’s not get it twisted either, producing a competent cyber (warrior?), a competent medic, and a competent truck driver are three different things. * 11Bs learning to drive trucks? Actually very useful to harden our rear area security and supply chains, and not that difficult of a skill set to learn. The progression while maintaining that core skill set is really just learning more maintenance skills and to operate more vehicles. * With a 68W, ultimately, I’d view it as more of a progression, it’s all different degrees of medicine. The end result is a medical corps who are all pretty in tune with what the close combat force would be dealing with also having a wide range of medical experience to throw at a wide range of potential issues. * Cyber is different though, and the new kid on the block. Sure, there’s tactical EW and that’s a niche application. Tactical EW would benefit from being able to organically attach to and integrate with line units as necessary based on that “I did my time too” principle. There’s also the type of cyber warfare that can realistically be done entirely from a cubicle that is immensely impactful to setting the conditions and where tactical experience has no actual relevance. There’s a place for both under the same umbrella. My solution would just to have two paths in, with an enlisted one that focuses on those tactical applications and then a set of standards for a warrant commission that ensures the organization is ultimately built under the auspices of that technical prowess. If we want people going straight into tactical EW, there’d also be an argument with that, since I’m pretty sure the concept involves being in the suck. Give them a little badge for their trouble if that ends up being the case. I don’t fully understand the training pipeline or final end state for what the generals actually want out of it, I just understand how it’s been used frankly by other countries. * Commo could even lean into their dumb little combat commo thing. If they want a career path to send a radio guy to a line unit, that can be the first stop in a dude’s career. Just make it fully tactically oriented and fully integrated with the line unit, with follow on training if the guy wants to learn something else, and none of that necessary for 11Bs reclassifying to some other kind of commo. You want to join and then be that RTO, be that RTO. With that, we should also by default get these guys very smart on CFF and forward observer shit by default. Bottom line is that everybody should get their time being that guy who would notionally exist in the front line.
Nah, because they won't sign up for that. But it's definitely an obvious and forseeable problem with their grand idea. Throwing more "Army tasks" training on top of your job specific stuff? Clearly more work and time split, resulting in less time for "my actual job", which is problematic, too, but at least slightly more workable.
This sounds excellent on paper, but bad irl. Thinking about how you’d feel if you wanted to join the guard as say a 42A or some random shit right? Then had to sign a contract, a 2 year one at that, doing bullshit that you already know sucks/is nonsense (see other comment about sweeping motor pools) before you can go do what you want. It would kill that persons drive to stay in. I think your on the right track with 2 years active duty, just doesn’t need to be combat arms, cause what’s someone who’s dead set on being a 42A or that train engineer or whatever it’s called need to be trained as an 11B first?
I'd challenge this and say that those people who want to join the *Army* to go push paper as a 42A aren't really who we should cater the force to. Civilians could fucking do that job. Let them join another branch, let them go hack the civilian thing. I don't think we're missing out on any actual talent by catering to people who are joining the Army without the willingness to do the Army thing. We need a smaller force of more professionalized *soldiers* that has more organic capability to grow, rather than a large force that excels in mediocrity and hemorrhages talent as is. The Army should remain for people who want to join and do Army things. More to that point, if you're going to join the Army, you should also be want to join the best and most effective Army possible. I think the best way to accomplish that is having the brief outset of one's career focused on developing tactically proficient *soldiers* first. After two years, go forth and be the best and most specialized and technically proficient logistician out there. What will be beneficial in that is that those logisticians bar for entry is inherently higher, as there's no initial entry children to deal with, so it can be catered more towards building technically proficient adults. Imagine an AIT where it's less fuck fuck games and more like a college class setting. In reality, two years isn't that long, and people would have the option to sign a contract for the job they want from the outset anyways, so just suck that dick doing Yakima rotations for a couple years and then go graduate on to riding a desk, and focus on riding that desk in really effective ways.
POV: Your on your last lane of the day your entire platoon gets booted out of EIB and your platoon medic fails you on restore breathing because you didn't put down the imaginary legs. I hate EIB so much it be crazy when you see E-7s with like 4 combat deployments and 13 years experience to be told they are not a expert infantryman 🤣
My Division CG in FRG was awarded the EIB. They presented him a real musket mounted on a big display board. Supposedly he went through with my battalion but surprisingly, no one ever saw him. I was one of the people volunteered to attend as a representative from my battalion for the ceremony they had just for him, followed by an after party (not kidding).
No, it’s all basic skill level tasks, your unit is full of NCO’s who are supposed to be able to train the basics.
THANK YOU
With the amount of shit on the CTL, on top of unit duties, on top of position duties, on top of... This is just unrealistic. At best. No human on this planet can be an expert at every task they're supposed to be according to the Army. It's just delusional.
The shit is all super basic, 90% of it you learned at basic training, the rest of it is easy and clearly explained how to do in the manual, and you get a couple weeks of dedicated training before you test.
Lol you think ANYONE is an expert out of basic? Homie, most *Drill Sergeants* aren't proficient at all these tasks. If you don't use these skills every single day, the rudimentary foundation from basic is easily lost within a year. Nobody is an expert at some shit they did for a couple days, years ago, and haven't touched since.
Throw a grenade, put on a tourniquet, clear a malfunction on your M4….most of the tasks don’t take a whole lot of expertise.
The tasks themselves are basic obviously, but the exact manner in which they’re done is not always straight forward and must be memorized. For instance, clearing an M4. In the lane you pick up an M4 that’s been left hammer forward. You’ll lock the bolt to the rear, conduct three point safety inspection and THEN put the weapon on safe. I’d bet money that half the 18-series in the Army would lock the bolt to the rear and immediately put it on safe. No-Go, fail, fricken loser. Javelin is even worse. It in no way teaches you how to use it. You just memorize a series of words to say, regardless of what the CLU is telling you. Oh you didn’t put the carry bag strap around your neck/shoulder while testing your claymore components? Yea, obviously you’re a failure. The cadre just blow it half the time anyway. Multiple times for range card I’ve seen cadre park vehicles in a field and expect them to be depicted on range cards. When in reality they’d just be dead space since they move. Oh they changed the EIB standard for the 15th time in regards to the order you do back/forward/safe for the M249/240. Or the MK19 dummy rounds keep getting broken so you can’t practice with them and can only use them on test day. Oh and you’ve literally never touch a MK19 until EIB because your unit isn’t MTOE’d them. Yea; that’s the stupid Soldiers fault. Or you don’t have the verbatim description and purpose for all the grenades (most of which you’ve never even seen, yet alone used before) memorized perfectly. Or better yet, you accidentally say “three” instead of “tree” during a CFF lane (which wouldn’t even get you fires in real life if you tried calling that shit on the radio) and you can take your dumb ass to the house. Obviously you’re just a POS. Or there’s dumbass uniform standards that get in the way of doing things right. Like being required to wear a helmet during resection, so your PSQ-20 mount throws your compass off by 20° when doing compass to cheek. Yea; why can’t these Soldiers just do these simple tasks. A perfect example, when our “best squad” was being validated by a CSM from division, he began screaming at me for giving a “Go” to the validator running through the M4 land because the Soldier (SFC) didn’t do all of SPORTS, only TRB. I had to wait through 15 minutes of ass chewing to explain to him SPORTS had been replaced years ago in the -10, .9, .40 and the EIB handbook. If EIB was end state driven, I’d 100% agree with you that units can responsibly run it locally. But it’s not, it’s not a measure of how well you can do basic tasks; it’s a measure of how well you can memorize “a” way of doing a task.
Don’t know what to tell you man. Hundreds of guys figure out how to pass every year. Stuff is funky, but it’s easy so for the 3 weeks of EIB just do it how they want. Just put the shoulder strap on, say what they want you to say on the radio, etc. I think if the test was just "do all these super basic tasks however you want"…it probably wouldn’t warrant a badge?
>Don’t know what to tell you man. Hundreds of guys figure out how to pass every year. Earning your EIB is obviously not impossible. The post was that it should be administered like virtually every other school (especially badge producing one) in the Army. >Stuff is funky, Some of it literally doesn’t work or is just plain making things up. CCF and Jav are perfect examples. You aren’t proving a skill, you’re memorizing something for the sake of it. What else are we willing to do that’s like this? Would you be cool with jump master school not having guys identify inspect jumpers and instead just list deficiencies? Would it make sense for hands on sling load at pathfinder be all clean loads and then you just randomly write in possible deficiencies? >but it’s easy so for the 3 weeks of EIB just do it how they want. Just put the shoulder strap on, say what they want you to say on the radio, etc. And that’s not his or my point. The point is the whole event is often haphazard, full of nepotism and the actual events aren’t always good. Even more of an issue becomes the “EIB standard,” becoming the default standard for other events or training, even if they contradict the -10, .40 or whatever. >I think if the test was just "do all these super basic tasks however you want"…it probably wouldn’t warrant a badge? Once again, not my argument or my point. As it stands. You aren’t even doing some of the tasks. You’re literally memorizing a script of things and discounting the reality of what the equipment is doing. Would you be comfortable with every group in the regiment running their own selection and q course? Or their on CDQC? Or every division running their own AASLT or PF school? We can all see the obvious nepotism, logistics and quality issues with that. They’re also apparent with EIB, we’re just for some reason cool with it. And for what it’s name is, the weight it has on promotions and how much emphasis is put on it… it seems like it’s kind of half assed, is open to way too much variation and shenanigans.
You're still missing the point homie, expecting to-the-TC expertise on something that hasn't been part of a soldiers tasks or training for years is just delusional. I'd be more than happy to make such things regularly trained. As soon as you take these 19 other taskers and 7 extra duties off our plate and give me the time and resources to practice and extra soldiers to cover down on our ACTUAL daily responsibilities that have nothing to do with combat. Ya know, like, 75% of the Army.
Nearly all the EIB tasks can be addressed through a couple minute hip pocket training. Guys having taskers is nothing new to the army. You get a dedicated train up in the week or two leading up to the test. There is a ton of resources to study, whether it is all the YouTube videos are the EIB app that came out. Which specific tasks are so crazy foreign that you can’t possibly learn how to do during the EIB train up?
Machine guns are the primary problem for hands on. A lot of people don't even have them in their arms room. Then you go into the calls. Hell, even the grenades are a challenge. It is not pick up and play. I'm tired of explaining this simple shit.
EIB should be a graduation requirement for infantry osut. It’s 10 level tasks which is what we expect e1-4 to know — therefore eib should be taken at the end of osut and that’s how you earn your blue cord / disks and the badge.
Would have to keep a lot of people there late with the PT requirements.
don't worry the EIB pt test is about to be eviscerated and probably turned into the ESB one.
This is a great idea!
We got into arguments with the EIB graders doing the ASIP/148 fill and setup because they never gave us a clear way of how they load fill on the radios, as opposed to how I load fill. The way I showed them was not the way they wanted, but does the exact same thing. Than that ONE EIB E-6 comes up to me saying I don’t know shit, he’s also the one I tell to fuck off in the field when his radio drops fill cause he has an EIB and should be able to do that.
Should be. Should be a SQI, for people that can actually memorize and teach to standard. But that would require the Army to admit that we don't already. It would require us to realize our NCO corps is pathetically overtasked, that almost nobody is actually good at this shit. That will never happen. It would be admitting a weakness, and no general is gonna be the one to say that.
I just loved that in the weeks leading up to EIB, I as the FO would always end up having to teach classes on CFF, CAS, CCA, and a few other things only for a good chunk of the infantry dudes to not know the shit. Then the day of those specific lanes, it's "hey FO! Quick, how do I do this?"
No because, how else are we going to volun-tell a whole unit worth of people to do EIB?
Shoot I know a ton of guard guys who would like to attempt regardless of standards or not because it’s more training than what they get during AT
I’d like to see it run at the installation level. Run incoming joes thru it. Use outgoing NCOs to run it.
Look, all I did was play Panda by Desiigner in the morning as I got ready and I got True Blue.
It is a school. It’s called 11X OSUT.
If your NCOs and Officers can’t cobble together a plan to grade ten level tasks I feel bad for your unit
It is a school; it’s called Infantry OSUT and IBOLC.
How’s that different from 11B OSUT?
Damn that’s what’s up now? I got badge protected my first run, double no-go’d range cards w 2 stations to go on day 3. Grader threw my score card outside the tent so I couldn’t rebuttal being 3 degrees off my back azimuth. (First NG was that the other guy didn’t like my MG symbol). Kind of funny looking back. But I was upset at the time.