Word: basic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...nine weeks of Navy basic training begin on a luxury bus that takes recruits from O'Hare airport to the Navy's lone boot camp, Great Lakes Recruit Training Command, just north of Chicago. Onboard they watch an 18-min. orientation video with a rock-music soundtrack in which recent boot-camp grads tell the new arrivals that "physically, anybody can get through boot camp," and that it's O.K. to cry. Recruits get a "Blue Card," which helps them deal with stress. The card instructs a recruit to hand it over to a Navy trainer...
Congress is looking into the wisdom of resegregating basic training. The Army in particular is sensitive on this point, having suspended mixed-gender training in 1982 after a five-year attempt--too many women were injured and too many men complained that training with women wasn't tough enough--then reinstating it in 1994. While Army officials insist it's going well this time, reports from the field suggest caution. "Some male drill sergeants said standards had to be lowered to accommodate females, especially for physical training," a new Army report says. "They felt they could not go 'full bore...
Last week there were rumbles at the top levels that change could be looming. The Army's top trainer, General William Hartzog, said he may lengthen basic training beyond its current eight weeks, primarily to include more human-relations instruction designed to curb sexual harassment. But Army officials say they are also weighing beefed up physical standards for recruits. That draft Rand Corp. study now circulating around the Pentagon says only 42.9% of the troops surveyed believe their unit is ready for a crisis. "That number is unsettling," the study notes, "given that the military...
...last year the corps stretched boot camp from 11 weeks to 12. "This is not making things easier," says General Charles Krulak, the Marine Commandant. "This is making things tougher--physically, mentally and morally." Unlike the other branches, the Marines have also refused to mix men and women in basic training, which angers some who believe that it shortchanges women. Each sex trains the same way, but physical requirements for women are less demanding...
...decade ago, Republicans and Democrats were able to set aside traditional politics and pass a tax-reform bill based on the basic principles of fairness, simplicity and efficiency. It appealed to Republicans because it lowered rates, and to Democrats because it eliminated loopholes. Tax reform, in defiance of the odds, upheld the public interest against the special interests...