Word: drilling
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...armed forces are experiencing in recruiting qualified young people these days, we think his experiences and impressions are worth sharing. Here is the fourth missive; others will be posted as they arrive. I just got myself dropped. As in push-ups. As in on the floor of the drill sergeant's office while the afternoon football game - oh, the outside world! - murmured off to the left. "Ged down dere," he drawled in his Philippines twang, and we did, me and my bunkmate, the one who'd gotten us in trouble in the first place. The one I'd insisted...
...signed that X. One guy I talked to had failed at a rare bit of exercise and had been sent to "fat camp," whereupon he passed the test the very next day. Three weeks later he was still there, sweeping up after the other detainees and hiding from the drill sergeants' school next door (fat camp and a steady stream of newly anointed drill sergeants make for fun times, apparently...
...Then there were the 77 soldiers who the chaplain had said had come to see him within just a few weeks, all begging for passage from purgatory. There was the Jamaican who affixed a padlock to his belt and started beating guards; the kid who was sleeping in the drill sergeant's office because he'd threatened to kill himself in front of a corporal...
...formation and chow line to chow line, getting an errand done here and there and enjoying the occasionally "serious" outing (try putting two platoons in a classroom for a chlamydia lecture and then telling them to be quiet). We weren't allowed to run it off - there were no drill sergeants who would supervise us, and we might get hurt out there. We were government property now, after all. Meanwhile chow at 05:30, chow at 11:00. Chow at 16:30. Full, free meals, all we can eat and plenty good, too. No cigarettes to curb the appetite. This...
...When schools can nurture such comprehensive learning in small groups, experts say the results can be excellent (even when the kids eat the lesson). But for schools with fewer resources, teachers have to do much more instructing from the front of the class and employ methods they describe as "drill and kill"--because they often kill the kids' enthusiasm...