Word: drill
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...potatoes, green beans and apple pie, Captain Lee McQueen's cell phone rang. The call was from his commander, warning that a practice assault planned for the base's bayonet-combat course might have to be called off: the mercury was creeping into the 90s. McQueen's team of drill sergeants--those fabled hard-noses delegated to whip raw recruits into shape--went into action. They dutifully set up a "wet-bulb globe-temperature-index calculator" and tested the air. Sure enough, it was too hot to attack...
...edge--the rigors aren't all that rigorous, there's more silliness than saluting at shape-ups and there's altogether too much flirting between men and women. For most of this century, basic training was a deliberately harsh introduction to military life, a daily dose of screaming drill instructors dishing out vulgarity and physical intimidation to mortify--and motivate--trainees. These days drill sergeants spend more time mentoring than menacing. "We're no longer the charge-the-beach, stogie-in-the-mouth, cussing, hard-drinking, woman-chasing, World War II guy," says Senior Master Sergeant Paula Byrnes, who supervises...
...number of recruits who wash out after fewer than six months--which is how long it takes most members of the service to complete basic plus some advanced training--has climbed by a third over the past decade. "What we're ending up with is a kinder, gentler drill sergeant who is trying to keep attrition down," says Charles Moskos, a leading military sociologist at Northwestern University. "And kinder, gentler drill instructors are not necessarily creating the kind of force you want to go to war." Although the military denies it, many male soldiers and outside experts also believe that...
Moreover, Dartmouth language students must go to either three or four one-hour "drill sessions" every week in addition to their regular language classes...
...this last critique that got me in some trouble--specifically in how I related this choice metaphor to Presto's early-season appearance: "'Stop, drop and roll' is sound advice during a fire drill, not a goaltending clinic...