Hegseth Wants Basic to Go Old School. What Policies Must Change First?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants the military services to return to old-school discipline at basic training—with instructors “tossing bunks” and “putting their hands on recruits.” But first the services will have to rewrite the policies governing training instructors, which disallowed such practices over the past few decades.

Hegseth’s drive to “restore warrior ethos” across the U.S. military includes rewinding the clock on the kindler, gentler approaches that began in the 1990s and dialed back hardcore discipline in the years that followed. At an unprecedented all-call for general officers Sept. 30, Hegseth told hundreds of senior military leaders that the cultural changes he envisions must begin at Basic Military Training.

“We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring that future warfighters are forged,” he said. “They can toss bunks, they can swear, and yes, they can put their hands on recruits. This does not mean they can be reckless or violate the law, but they can use tried and true methods to motivate new recruits, to make them the warriors they need to be.”

Each of the armed services is responsible for implementing the changes, altering its own written policies and training to make that possible. No details have been shared publicly on next steps. Indeed, while the Pentagon issued a flurry of memos directing other initiatives Hegseth shared his speech, none concerned basic training. An Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that, for now, Air Education and Training Command’s policies on the conduct of military training instructors remain in place.

Aligning those policies with Hegseth’s directives will require changes. The policy, last updated in October 2020, forbids instructors from any physical interaction with trainees, including:

poking
hitting
pushing
grabbing
physical violence
physical intimidation

In addition, trainers are in the midst of a 30-day review of policies and definitions regarding hazing, bullying, and harassment, also as directed by the Defense Secretary.

Current policy forbids instructors from using language that “threatens, degrades, belittles, demeans, maliciously embarrasses, or slanders an individual or group.” It also forbids “unnecessarily rearranging the property of a trainee, cadet, or student to correct infractions”—which would include bunk tossing—defined as “maltraining.”

A 2012 Air Education and Training Command investigation corroborated a pattern of abuse across BMT in the wake of a scandal that sent multiple training instructors to prison for reasons ranging from physical and emotional abuse to sexual assault.

Return to Old School

Hegseth told the generals he has two basic tests for whether policies should be reviewed: “The 1990 test and the E-6 test.” The first is simple, he said. “What were the military standards in 1990? And if they have changed, tell me why: Was it a necessary change based on the evolving landscape of combat, or was the change due to a softening, weakening, or gender-based pursuit of other priorities?” Hegseth, who was 10 years old in 1990, said “1990 seems to be as good a place to start as any.”

Steve Sargent, a retired Air Force command chief whose service spanned from 1979 to 2009, recalled that in his time as a military training instructor from 1981 to 1984 that he tossed his share of bunks, which he called “white tornados.” The aim was to teach trainees attention to detail, he said.

“We would go in and basically rip the dorm apart, empty the wall lockers, flip the bunks if there was just a minor infraction, like shoe alignment,” Sargent said in an interview. “It was all about enforcing the standards.”

Years later, Sargent became superintendent of Basic Military Training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, a post he held from 2004-2007. While he says he supports Hegseth’s desire to restore discipline and high standards, he is uncomfortable with easing the rules on instructors “putting their hands” on recruits.

“You can’t snatch up the trainee and stuff him in a wall locker,” he said. “That’s unacceptable conduct, and that’s what I would consider maltraining. … There’s a fine line there between effective training and maltraining, and you have to be careful you don’t cross that line in your in your training approach.”

As superintendent, Sargent had to discipline training instructors who crossed the line into abuse. “I’ve seen some horrendous things happen to trainees, where the MTI was wrong,” Sargent said. Sometimes, instructors could be retrained through remedial instruction, but “other times, we just had to dismiss them.”

Former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Gerald Murray, who served from 1977 to 2006, also said he also supports bringing back some of the old methods. He recalled his own time in Basic shortly after the end of the war in Vietnam.

“Training instructors in the Air Force couldn’t put their hands on you, but they could sure scare the crap out of you,” he said. “They put the brim of their hat right up in your face.”

Murray said reform must not blur the line between hard discipline and abuse.

“There’s a difference in an MTI in your face and abuse,” Murray said. The Air Force will need to lay down clear guidance to ensure instructors know and obey the limits of their disciplinary techniques.

Each of the military services have different styles and approaches to training and instilling discipline and attention to detail. Hegseth, a former infantry officer in the Army National Guard, sees training through that particular frame of reference. In his Sept. 30 speech, he called for bringing back “shark attacks,” the slang term for situations in which multiple drill sergeants surround a trainee like sharks zeroing in on prey in a feeding frenzy.

The Army barred shark attacks beginning in 2020, directing alternative techniques intended to still induce stress while at the same time teaching recruits to trust their leadership.

The Air Force, however, never utilized the shark attack concept at BMT. Indeed, Murray said he was not familiar with the term.

Air Force BMT trainers hold regular reviews to identify ineffective training techniques. Every three years, the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force convenes a board of senor noncommissioned officers to review the program, Sargent said.

“There has to be some guidelines, some boundaries there,” Sargent said. “There has to be a methodical approach to this training where it’s effective and it’s not ineffective.”

Hegseth’s direction comes just as the Air Force is launching a planned BMT revamp, with an eye toward increased physical fitness training and greater focus on trainees working together in small teams. Those changes are consistent with the Defense Secretary’s push for better preparation for real-world combat and should not interfere with any increase in old-school-style discipline.