Did "old school" drill sgts ever lose fights? What about hands-on corrective training at line units?

SPC David Willis — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 10:06:47 -0500

I love hearing the stories of when some private got what he had coming to him. I have always wondered though, while I was in OSUT my drills were like gods and I thought they were probably the toughest people in the world, however after getting to the real army and knowing many drills myself now personally I know they are just humans that can be beat. So has anyone seen or had happen to them an instance where the NCO got bested?

Response by SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth made Dec 1 at 2017 10:30 AM

SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 10:30:32 -0500

None of the D I's I had, had any problems, recruits heard they were Vietnam vets, none of them even thought of being stupid.

Response by SGT Dave Tracy made Dec 1 at 2017 10:50 AM

SGT Dave Tracy — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 10:50:51 -0500

Not so much a "fight" but...

One slow day during recovery--and after our clinch drills when lots of Joes got their asses handed to them by the CO, XO, DSs, and dudes from Benning's fight house busting out some Muay Thai on us poor SOBs who weren't allowed to fight back! (let it go dude...let it go)--our drill sergeants pulled out the mats into the CTA to do some recreational Combatives with all us newly minted Level 1s. It was just for fun, and since we had a few hours to kill, why not?

Our senior DS was Combatives level 4, and a trainer. He put out a challenge to anyone who wanted to test his gangster. Get him to tap out, you got an "atta boy" or something trivial I think. Well, a few guys took him up on the offer, and one by one, they failed. Then one young Private steps up, and wins...quickly! So they went at it again.

Must have been an ego thing, I don't know, but they rolled, and he tapped out yet again! The look of pure pissed-off defeat wasn't going to wash off his face anytime soon; you could just tell, but he did accept his (repeated) defeat, and the rest of us only talked about it, when the drill sergeants weren't around.

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 1 at 2017 12:09 PM

SPC Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 12:09:00 -0500

FTX 3, Fort Benning
Everyone was manning the perimeter in their holes at night, 100% security. We had been told that if we could find it we could use it. We knew we were going to get attacked at some point. So guys went out foraging before nightfall while everyone else fortified the perimeter and worked on their hasties getting everything set up with whatever we could find. One guy found an old training site with sand bags, so we took them and used them. Turned our fighting position into a kind of camp, woobies being used at tents over the fox holes, things like that. We stole one of the fake trip wire bombs, string and cord we found for trip traps, set up branches and dry brush all throughout the perimeter so hopefully we would hear them coming.

Come they did, we were located on top of a hill. I was over looking a small creek in the center-right when I hear the shots from blanks on my six. We were tired as hell but that woke everyone up. The sound of whistling before the shouts of incoming, the booms, the rain of fire from the 249's and 240's the Drill Sergeants seemed to have more of them than we did. Apparently they determined we had a weak point near one of our fox holes. It was set up with two 249's and four holes on other side with M16's. They came in and kidnapped on of our guys, future Band type.

While they were dragging him off, another of our guys also a future Band type and our resident Champion of Combatives tackled one of the Drill Sergeants and forced him to tap out. They still got our guy, but one of ours took down a Drill Sergeant. All I kept wondering was are we going to catch hell for this, and holy hell I love that crazy bastard for doing it. Turns out the other Drill Sergeants thought it was funny as hell and were even proud of it.

Of course we reasoned that, we're 1st Platoon and we don't leave our guys behind. So what do we do? We send a squad on a rescue mission after our guy. We adjusted to 75% and I think they took two of the 249's and a 240 and went after our guy. The Drill Sergeants had him in a shed, the squad recovered him and returned back to our position. Apparently according to one Drill Sergeant, no one had ever done that while he was there. They had kidnapped guys before but no one had ever sent anyone after them lol. We didn't get fucked with for the rest of FTX, but we could see the other Platoons getting wrecked, especially 2nd Platoon after they stole a 240 from them Drill Sergeants. Good times.

Response by Maj John Bell made Dec 1 at 2017 12:34 PM

Maj John Bell — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 12:34:39 -0500

I was never afraid to mix it up with the lads in Hand-to-Hand and Pugil Stick Training. I lost about 1 in 5 of my hand to hand matches (more than my share of black eyes, cut brows, and split lips), but was undefeated in Pugil sticks.

Response by SP5 Larry Morris made Dec 1 at 2017 5:37 PM

SP5 Larry Morris — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 17:37:23 -0500

and then you are in hell for a long long long time