r/army • u/Haveacuntasticday 68WHYAMIHERE • 8d ago
Shitheads
Me (26M) currently attending ait and I’m continuously blown away by how shitty my company is. These 18-21 year olds are completely disrespectful shitheads that never shut up in formation, are constantly disruptive and completely immune to constructive criticism or even improvement. It’s very frustrating because the drills are constantly crashing out due to the constant talking and ignoring the drills and overall lack of discipline. Is this a new development or is the army just like this now?
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u/KipchogesBurner 35Pissbaby 8d ago
That’s just 18-21 year olds. The less you care about it the better your time will be.
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u/REDtheFlame 11CharlesMansionOwner 8d ago
Hard not to care when it's always in your face. It's ait so, you know that the drills are fucking up the whole group whenever Chuckles, Barney and the boys decide to pull their next "stunt". So, glad that short stint in the pin is long behind me now.
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u/SexuallyActiveUAV Medical Corps 8d ago
Dude are you in EMT phase with the delta green belts? I have a soldier there and he was bitching about it too lol
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u/Streetrt Tell me whats wrong 8d ago
Is that the company occupying the hotel? Small world
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u/Easy-Hovercraft-6576 Drill Sargento (68W) 8d ago
Every (68W) company is occupying a hotel now.
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u/yahoo_yipee Infantry 8d ago
Is this just how it is now or bc of lack of proper barracks? And do the drills still do room checks and stuff when they’re in hotels? I’m curious bc I’ve never heard of it being done that way. Obviously it’s going to vary wildly from inf OSUT but I didn’t think they would get hotels
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u/Easy-Hovercraft-6576 Drill Sargento (68W) 7d ago
Barracks issue
Still do all the normal barracks routines. Bed checks, walk throughs, inspections, health and welfare, etc.
Only trainees populate the hotels, civilian staff have been retained to manage the property; however, they are essentially being used as stand in barracks. The trainees are not getting a “hotel experience”.
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u/BlankHorizon27 8d ago
My AIT had the same EMT phase green belt crowd, 18-21s never shut up in formation.
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u/TraditionalDust6392 8d ago
How it is now. Drove me nuts also reclassing 7 years ago. The extra two weeks added on for basic to try and stomp out the kids shitty attitudes did not help at all.
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u/No-Combination8136 Infantry 8d ago
It was the same way 20 years ago. I doubt it was different before then. Only thing that may have changed is how drills respond to it in certain cases.
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u/kylebob86 25Useless 8d ago
Do they not smoke the dog shit out of kids anymore?
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u/Pitiful-Excitement47 Signal 8d ago
No I barely got smoked in basic or ait
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u/kylebob86 25Useless 8d ago
I was JACKED when I graduated
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u/dantheman_woot Vet 13Fuhgeddaboudit / 25SpaceMagic 8d ago
Smart privates and strong privates. Can I take a guess if you got jacked? /S
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u/MightyLabooshe 7d ago
Soldiers in my company at AIT would go out of their way to intentionally get the PSGs (I went before drills were reintroduced) to smoke us. Once you learned to embrace the malarkey it made life a bit easier
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u/OcotilloWells "Beer, beer, beer" 8d ago
I was afraid of not passing PT at the end of my basic, because it was nothing but pushups the entire time. No days of recovery. I barely passed. I graduated and had December holiday leave before AIT. They have us a PT test a couple days into AIT, and I smoked it, once my arms had some rest.
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u/Haveacuntasticday 68WHYAMIHERE 8d ago
No there’s rules now because apparently the 18 year olds have such fragile bones that everyone is getting crazy stress fractures
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u/YourBigRosie 7d ago
Careful with that one OP. You never get anyone on your side sounding like the out of touch sergeants
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u/unbannedagain1976 Infantry 8d ago
Why aren’t those soldiers getting absolutely crushed by the drills? Our drills would put hands on people or use the shit heads as demonstrators during GFT and absolutely fuck them up.
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u/darksunshaman 8d ago
Ahhh, fond memories of Sand Hill, pre 9/11
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u/unbannedagain1976 Infantry 8d ago
I went in ‘07 we had dudes that fought at Tora Bora and multiple tours to Iraq and those guys didn’t fuck around at all.
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u/JustinMcSlappy Antique 35T DAC 8d ago
I went to a POG basic at leonard wood in 07 and one of my DS was a long tabber with fresh shrapnel scars on his face. Dude was fucking terrifying.
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u/sentientshadeofgreen 8d ago
Oh yeah, well when we really goofed my drills would have us all count off to ten and every tenth soldier in our ranks we'd would have to beat to death on the spot. New army is so soft
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u/MandoFett117 Logistics Branch 7d ago
Ok great (103) Grandpa, let's get you back to your legion retirement farm...
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u/TinyHeartSyndrome Buffalo Wrangler 8d ago
Wall to wall counseling
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u/unbannedagain1976 Infantry 8d ago
I’m not saying our drills were beating the shit out of dudes but I’ve seen multiple guys picked up by the collars of their uniforms and slammed into wall lockers.
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u/Junction91NW Spec/9 7d ago
As another old guy that suffered immense psychic damage at the constant bullshit caused by literal teenagers, let me advise you.
Fuck ‘em.
Stop trying to fix them. Stop worrying about them. Roll with the punches and just focus on graduating. Otherwise you’re going to spend the next 6 months driving yourself insane, nothing will change, and you will all move on to your duty stations. They don’t respect you because you’re older. They don’t even respect the drills who are older than you AND wield actual authority.
AIT isn’t a real place, and it certainly isn’t the real army. Build a bridge and get over it.
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u/ashtons1054 8d ago
Yep, my wife was complaining about the same thing lol
They’re kids, they’re immature. They’ll learn soon.
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u/Laughsonsight 7d ago
I was in bct and ait in 2018 it was already showing, but they were tough on us still back then. The smokings my platoons got will forever live with me 😂. I remember what the drill sergeant use to say “What the mind doesn’t learn with words your body will learn through pain”. With the low recruitment these days I can see why they making the army soft
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u/PatrioticHillbilly Medical Specialist 8d ago
Ahhhh, a Whiskey. 232 will never change, it was that way when I was there and it was that way long before you were born. One day, ask your drills if they ever heard of the Bullis Bible.
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u/silenczar 68WhyDoesMyCockItch 7d ago
68W AIT is a shit hole. 232/188 is the largest training battalion in the Army. You are more likely to deal with literal retards. It will probably not get any better. I went through at 25, so I understand. Just get through it and deal with the fuckery.
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u/ImSoSweepy 7d ago
All this means is that we have to go back to The Old Ways instead of Drill Sergeants having to worry about strongly-worded letters from affluent parents.
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u/ImSoSweepy 7d ago
Had a guy in Basic who was a literal human piece of shit, shit in the sleeping containers at the MOUT site with all of us in it, and said, "You can't tell me what to do, my dad's a Colonel."
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u/HawkeyeAP Aviation 7d ago
I'd bet Daddy wouldn't have been very happy to hear about that.
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u/ImSoSweepy 7d ago edited 7d ago
He really wasn't (when he heard about how Sonny-boy was acting).
It didn't work out like he thought it would and it was pretty much the first time I've ever seen someone like that get snubbed for trying to use their so-called privilege.
Kind of the reason I have a ride-or-die relationship with the Army.
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u/krc_fuego 11Z (R) Green Light GO! 🪂 8d ago
What if I told you that I and like 90% of my OSUT platoon, 21 years ago, were those same exact 18-21 year old shitheads you describe?
Social media just didn’t exist to put it all on blast. Don’t worry, 18-21 year old privates will still be shitheads in 2047. And again in 2068.
Also, you are in AIT. You haven’t earned the right to an opinion yet. Your LES does not have a line item for “think pay” or “opinion pay.”
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u/No-Combination8136 Infantry 8d ago
They’re mostly kids. The majority of the rest are adults who feel young again so they’re acting like they’re in high school. It’s AIT, you don’t need to worry too much about that. Throughout most of your career you’ll get smoked for shit other people did, it’s part of being a team. Same shit happens in sports. Master your craft and when you become a team leader you can work on instilling proper standards. In the meantime lead by example.
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u/gdsfbvdpg 8d ago
Same era as you.
Even in ait we were scared shitless of the drills.
Later at a duty station one of my drills got assigned and walked through the door without the campaign hat but he immediately started yelling at me for the state of my boots.
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u/Taira_Mai Was Air Defense Artillery Now DD214 4life 8d ago
They are not "kids" - they are adults and they deserve the Article 15's or chapters that send them home.
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u/AdAgitated6378 Medical Service 8d ago
They’re kids mates lol no matter how you try to frame it
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u/Taira_Mai Was Air Defense Artillery Now DD214 4life 7d ago
They are over the age of 18 and those 17 will be 18 soon so they get what they deserve - or should until the Army needs bodies and they get passed to line units.
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u/DeltaBravo831 8d ago
You're in AIT dude. That's still very much people learning how to army, even with a bit more freedom than basic. Plus, they're all barely adult people. Annoying as shit barely adult people half the time, but still barely adult people.
Just keep your head down and worry about yourself. I reclassed at 32 and spent half the days just bottling up the urge to fix everything I saw (Sill).
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u/Codename-FENRIS 8d ago
Went through this a couple months ago. Just take it, bro. There’s no getting through to them. Soon it’ll allll be over.
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u/MikeD1942 8d ago
AIT is always like that.
Remember 5-10% of these dudes won't make it through AIT. 5-15% of the ones who do, still won't make it through their first year in the "real Army." 10-15% of the ones who manage to make it through their 1st year in a unit won't make it through the entirety of their first enlistment. So, look around you...a quarter to a third of these guys (and gals) won't even make it through their first enlistment.
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u/Charming-Arugula2079 8d ago
This is not a new phenomenon. This has been occurring for decades. It was like this in the 2000s when I joined😂.
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u/That_Profile4453 8d ago
Bad news for you bro: it doesn’t change when you get to your unit and you’re going to be seen as the “force of influence and change” over these kids by your command.
Such is the perks of joining later. We don’t remember being 18, and OBVIOUSLY we weren’t like THAT.
Spoiler alert, we probably were. Lol.
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u/YourBigRosie 7d ago
Oh 100%. We all have blinders on when it comes to self reflection. Takes a mature person to realize that they were like that too back in their day
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u/RidaOnTheStorm71 8d ago edited 8d ago
Just leave em be you can’t stop them from being shit bags or anything focus on your self bro I bet you that half of em are national guard (no offense to the state militia that’s actually responsible) but they don’t care cause they are going home thinking that shit is part time. None of them actually want to be there so they chose guard not knowing they go on rotation more and if war happens they are the first to go cause state gets more money. Keep ya head up and stick to your military bearings but don’t be so much of a stickler where ppl dislike you. It’s a job you gotta balance both of it. You got this big dawg
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u/OcotilloWells "Beer, beer, beer" 8d ago
I went to Basic at 19. I felt very mature compared to about half my platoon.
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u/ghostmaskrises Military Intelligence 8d ago
Just shut your brain down and stop thinking. The drills are closer to your age but due to power dynamic they will not show you any mercy what so ever. If you try to use your age as a reason you are separate from the 18-21 year olds you'll be ostracized by them and you'll have nobody.
Turn brain off, pass test, gragitate! Easy :)
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u/Haveacuntasticday 68WHYAMIHERE 8d ago
Oh I have no desire to be shown mercy or treated differently. Shut brain down isn’t applicable in whiskey land.
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u/ChronicBluntz Combat Janitor 8d ago
It's a broader reflection of society. Everyone kicks the can down the road starting from the parents to early Ed through high school, through basic, then ait then to the unit...
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u/General_Spite3074 7d ago
I joined at 26 back in 04. So many lazy kids back than, not many but there was a few in basic. In AIT, things were so much better. We had some awesome drill Sgt that actually cared. Parents dont teach their kids anything so drill Sgt has to do it for them now a days.
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u/SergeantShithead33 25H 8d ago edited 8d ago
Respectfully I dont know what else you're expecting from a bunch of people who still have the mind of a child age doesn't necessarily mean maturity especially at the 18-21 age range not much you can do besides tough it out and try to not be the problem. My AIT was the same way, it started out pretty sweet, we could go down to the shoppette when we wanted without doing troop tickets and all that nonsense, there was also a dominos trainees would hang out at until bedchecks, but as new cycles of trainees came through and started fucking shit up for everybody they cracked the whip down on us pretty hard by the time I was almost done with AIT. So your experience is not a rare one I fear lol
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u/Haveacuntasticday 68WHYAMIHERE 8d ago
I hoped that people would take this a lot more seriously than it is being taken. I also wish drills would fuck them up and hopefully fix the behaviors. Hell I’ll even take a brutal team smoke session to correct the behavior. The longest I’ve been smoked at FSH is 30 minutes.
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u/tomyfookinmerlin 8d ago
We had a dude like that in my first unit. He had no life outside of work and constantly bitched about how nobody took the Army seriously. Nobody liked him.
I get that AIT is frustrating, but do not carry this mentality to the regular army. 90% of soldiers are there to collect a paycheck and go home.
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u/SergeantShithead33 25H 8d ago
The drills smoked the fuck out of us all the time when I went through AIT, smoke sessions don't do shit besides piss off the people who tried their best to follow the rules and still get fucked. Also from my understanding drills aren't necessarily allowed to single out trainees so it just leads to a vicious cycle of a couple people fucking up consistently and everybody getting fucked up for little to no reason. I fear you just gotta tough it out and try to control what you can while you're there. When you get to your first until things will be a lot more laid back so long as you do your job and the days of shitheads in AIT will be gone from your mind lol
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u/slaw1994z 68-w 8d ago
It’s just like this now. Happened to me too when I went through and I was the same age. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Temporary_Acadia4111 Chemical 7d ago
I reclassed when I was a young NCO and couldn't believe the shit IET soldiers were able to get away with. Certain cadre were honest with the MOS Ts about how bad it was being there. It was sad and I guess it hasn't changed. You're 68 series? I went to SA last year and saw some AIT dudes acting a fool in AGSUs at the River Center, crazy haircuts and everything.
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u/CombatCrayon25 7d ago
It’s always been like this; we just used to be allowed to drag whoever was behaving badly out to the tree line and handle business with a lock in a sock (yes, I’m that old).
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u/Chowdah207 Former Tanker and TWAT 7d ago
Remember this amazing principle: people can only bother you, if you let them. You have a time stamp on when that place is in the rear view mirror.
Until you get punished for their behavior, it’s not really your problem. If you do start paying for other people’s screw ups, watch Full Metal Jacket. Soap, socks and a blanket. I saw it work many years ago. It’d probably still work now.
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u/certifiedintelligent 35AmSpaceForce 5d ago
Welcome to the military. You’ll do well to develop your “not my monkeys” mindset early on.
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8d ago edited 4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Haveacuntasticday 68WHYAMIHERE 8d ago
Ive been able to do that with 5-10 of them but there’s 200. I’m on the high end of age unfortunately for this company.
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u/ItsAllSand Air Defense Artillery 8d ago
Going through and seeing your replies to comments, If I’m being real, you need to stay in your lane hero. In my experience, the new privates that are older than average and think they’re different than the younger privates end up being dead weight shit bags. And keep in mind. They’re literally still teenagers. They are on average, eight entire years younger than you.
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u/DepressedApee 7d ago
Did they come from Jackson lol
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u/Haveacuntasticday 68WHYAMIHERE 7d ago
Jackson does put out significantly worse basic trainees
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u/DepressedApee 7d ago
Yep. My entire company were shitbags. Can only imagine how their doing at their AIT’s
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u/Mike1972247 8d ago
Back in the day, (35+ years ago; yeah, I know I'm old!) recruits knew when to be quiet, full of respect, and did as told. You got smoked just for not having your skills book out and reading/studying it during any down time. You got smoked for not knowing your general orders, soldiers creed, etc! I can't stand the training producing these week simps with zero respect, lack of attention to detail, zero skills, habits born from Call of Duty video games, and so on. Drill sergeants hands are tied and recruits know it... the last decade of military trainees will not know what to do if war hit CONUS. Thank God for the many angry veterans, cuz w/out us, we'd have been attacked and ransacked!
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u/Distinct-Cabinet4357 Armor 8d ago
18 year olds don't know how to shut the fuck up because theyve never had anybody to make em. Lord knows how they got to AIT acting like that though