I doubt they had a decent quartermaster. Personally, I would trade the whole special forces for a decent Q…
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
(Oh, and by the way… as evidently nobody here reads Greek, the phrase I wrote in my previous post is the motto of the USMC, “always faithful.”)[/quote]
You tricky bastard!
Thanks for the poem, it definitely leaves an impression.
300 : Separating Fact from Fiction
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/osp_img/specialfeatures/300article.pdf
[quote]PGJ wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
PGJ wrote:
dhuge67 wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Those guys possessed a mental and physical toughness that doesn’t exist today, anywhere.
Ever heard of the United States Marine Corps?
Read “One Bullet Away” by Nathaniel Fick (Former Recon Captain)
I am a Marine officer. We are pretty tough as a whole, but not even close to the average Spartan soldier. I went through 10 weeks of bootcamp, Spartans went through about 50 years of bootcamp. Starting when they were about 7 and it didn’t stop until they “retired” at age 60 (if they survived).
Their average day, and every day to a Spartan was a training day, was tougher than today’s “Mothers-of-America” approved military bootcamp. For example, in order to toughen the youngsters, Spartans would whip them until their backs bled. Sometimes kids died from this. That was accepted as normal training.
Today, Drill Instructors can not lay a finger on recruits. Even pointing at recruits in an angry manner can get them in trouble.
Marines are tough, way tougher than 99% of average Americans, but compared to Spartans we are pussies.
First, thank you for your dedication and service to our country. It is greatly appreciated.
Second, is the basic training that pussified? The DI can’t even point at someone whose f’d up? Can he even raise his voice to them anymore? How are they going to survive in brutal combat if they’ve gotten the ‘kid glove’ treatment?
Marine Corps bootcamp is still very intense, but DI’s are DEFINATELY not allowed to lay hands on recruits. And the up-close-and-personal finger pointing in the face technique is frouned upon. There was a great article in the Army Times magazine about a Marine Captain who visited an Army recruit training facility. He commented in public letter that the Army is training bunch of office workers, not soldiers. In retalliation, the Army tried to justify the fact that they don’t yell at recruits anymore by saying that it just isn’t necessary. Air Force and Navy bootcamps are a joke.
Thank God we are technologically superior to our enemies.
Here’s a link to a military forum that has an article from the WSJ about the new Army bootcamp changes.
http://forums.military.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2681962206/m/2040069150001
[/quote]
I agree. I went thru Air Force Boot Camp back in 1982. From a physically and really mentally challenging standpoint it was a joke. I work harder than that in the gym now. I always thought the point of boot camp was to tear down in order to build back up, but we can’t tear down anymore. Might hurt someone’s feelings.
That being said, boot camp was a wonderful opportunity for someone to tell my young stupid ass to get my shit together. I think all young people should have go thru it. Sorry, but that is my opinion. I don’t want to see anyone have to go and die, but from a purely getting squared away standpoint it gets two thumbs up.
The problem with idolizing the Spartan culture is not that they killed deformed babies and beat their kids. The problem is that they were a Caste system. The Spartans everyone talks about were the warrior caste, the top 5% of the population of Sparta and the territories they controlled.
The bottom 95% comprised the Helots (peasants) and others (trades people) who had no legal rights and were treated like shit. In fact the Spartans had a anual holiday in which the young Spartan soldiers hunted and killed helots for sport.
The Spartans spent their life training for war because they had an enormous population of rebellious servants they had to maintain control over. And they had the time to train for war because they had an army of servants to do all of their manual labor for them.
There is much to respect and admire about the Spartans, and a lot of great quotes. But the ancient writers often pointed out that the spartans themselves seldom lived up to their own ideals.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
There is no doubt in my mind that a Spartan army, equipped with automatic rifles and drilled in modern maneuver and tactics, would wipe the floor with any similarly-sized and equipped infantry force, from any period of history, from any nation in the world, including, yes, the United States Marine Corps.[/quote]
In a Spartans vs. Mongols fight, I’d put my money on the Mongols. The Spartans were a one-trick pony army and mean and smart (the Mongols) beats mean and dumb (the Spartans) any day of the week.
Thermopylae is a nice effort, but it’s Athens, not Sparta, that won the decisive battle of that war when they sunk the Persian fleet at Salamis.
Epaminondas kicked their asses at Leuctra by using his head and a new tactic. The Spartans, unable to cope with any deviation from Plan A crumbled and lost.
I don’t get why everyone has a hard-on for Spartans, they were a bunch of butt-pounding anti-family “live for the state” neanderthals.