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It really is amazing how significant the transformation from civilian to soldier is.  The way we walk, talk, move, and think is so influenced by what we went through down south that we can never truly shake it.  The way we conducted ourselves at the beginning required a lot of thinking and focusing though the actions, which is the Cognitive Stage of Fitts and Posner's 3 stages of learning.  The Associative Stage is the when motor patterns are established.  This is when we were able to perform the correct actions with a little thought and remembering.  This was the halfway point through basic when we didn't feel quite as out of our element.  By the end of Basic Training, we were acting, talking, and living like a soldier.  It wasn't something we were trying to do, it was who we were.  The Autonomous Stage was apparent in our Soldierization process (yes its a word, my Drill Sergeant told me so!) signaled the end of Basic Training for us.  We were able to march, shoot, call cadence and act like a soldier without ever thinking about it, allowing us to perform other tasks at the same time without any mistake.  We would forever be, from that point on, American Soldiers.
(I am second from the Left (the difference in uniform means nothing)).

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Part of what makes soldiers look so good is the uniform movement and smooth executions. That fancy footwork and coordinated movements is what we in the business call Drill and Ceremony. Drill and Ceremony covers individual, squad, platoon, and company level movements and formations. There are many individual pieces to these movements and must be performed in a certain way in certain settings. Many entry level soldiers must have them explained and demonstrated so that they have the semantic knowledge of how to perform it. They are able to describe the movements and when they need to be performed. Many soldiers later in their career, and even myself somewhat after almost 4 years, aren't able to describe or name the movements very well, but when we are in formation and the order gets called out we perform it without hesitation and error. The knowledge of the Drill and Ceremony is now Procedural, more muscle memory than conscious action. All the years of being a soldier has ingrained in us the ability to go through the motions without specifically knowing how to describe it.

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Soldiers are issued tons of gear while they are in training; sleep systems, shovels, body armor, and the ever lovely ruck.  The Ruck Sack is the large camo 'backpack' that many military members are seen wearing when conducting a road-march, with weapons and other gear sticking out of it. Ruck marches are a required part of every soldiers training, and the more intense units have ruck marches often as part of their training regiment, males having 45-55 lbs of gear and females having 35-40 lbs. The marches range from 5 miles to 25 for the super HOOAH soldiers. I was worried initially about the ruck march, as I had heard about how it can hurt your back if you do not set it up right. However, after trying my ruck on for the first time with my gear in it, I found it very similar to when I went Back-packing through the Rockies for Boy Scouts. The way the pack sat on my hips and shoulders was very familiar, and I found that I was able to complete the road march with little difficulty. The Positive Transfer of Learning was displayed in my ability to backpack through the Rockies with correct form allowed me to perform the Ruck March in much the same way due to the Similarity of Skills. Mind you the Ruck March still sucked, as we had a Ranger Drill Sergeant who wanted us to run it during the last hundred meters, but I did not have to worry about form or technique during it.

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One of the main parts of being a good soldier (and arguably the most fun) is being proficient in shooting a semi-automatic rifle, usually a M-16 or M-4. In order to qualify, soldiers must shoot 23 out of 40 poop-up targets ranging from 50-300 meters away and from 3 different firing positions; prone supported, prone unsupported, and kneeling. Soldiers line up the target with their front and rear sight posts and aim at a certain area around the target to compensate for the bullets arcing path. However, each target is up for a certain amount of time, and if it is not shot down it counts as a miss. Every soldier spends hours learning about the proper breathing, body position, trigger squeeze, and sight picture, and how to fix a weapon jam before they even shoot their first bullet. The Drill Sergeants want us to become familiar with the weapon before we shoot it, so we know how it handles and what it takes to use it properly. When we do shoot our weapons, they always tell (yell) "Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast!" The meaning behind it is that if we move/aim the weapon in a slow, controlled manner, our sight picture will be better and we wont need to make any adjustments before we pull the trigger. This is a perfect example of Fitts' Law and the Speed Accuracy Trade-Off, where moving to fast will screw up our aim, yet moving to slow will make us miss our target all together. There is generally more than enough time for a COMPETENT shooter to move their weapon, line up the shot and hit the target. After enough time in the Army, we can move, aim, and fire at the target well before we could even locate the next target back in Basic Training. As, the little girl in the Taco-Shell commercial said, why can't we have both?

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Surmounting Obstacles and Gaining Confidence

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Surmounting Obstacles and Gaining Confidence

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One of the things that soldiers need to accomplish at Basic Training is the Obstacle Course and the Confidence Course, which includes rope climbing, low crawling, maneuvering through nets, towers and bars. Basically its an adult playground. All soldiers must complete the courses, and like most other events, some perform better than others. While most soldiers are physically fit and have the necessary skills, such as the strength and form to complete the obstacle, not all of the have the same ability. Soldiers come in all shapes and sizes, my own platoon had a range of almost 3 feet between our tallest and shortest soldier. Some of these soldiers who were taller had an easier time doing some of the obstacles, and therefor had more ability. There ability (height) was a stable trait that gave them a predisposition to perform to a certain level in the task, which was higher than those of use who were shorter. While other soldiers were finishing the course, those who had already completed it were back cheering the others on and supporting them, leaving no man behind.

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One of the first things that soldiers learn how to do is march. We march when there are as little as 3 people, to as much as a 100+ soldiers going from one place to another. We we do look bad-@$$ while we do it, there is more to it than moving your feet. The person marching the formation (usually an NCO), has to look ahead and plan the route that they will send the formation, and give the appropriate commands to the formation. When they give the command, it comes in two parts. The preparatory command, which alerts the marching troops as to what action they are to take- "COLUMN LEFT......", and the command of execution, which singles the troops to execute/perform the action- "MARCH!" After the preparatory command column left' the lead soldiers being marched know that, within the next 2 steps, they will be pivoting left and the soldiers behind them will be turning on the same spot. They then turn on the command of execution 'MARCH!' With the two commands, the soldiers being marched are using Feed-forward Process to prepare themselves for the action, thinking about the movement they are about to make and the impact of the movement of themselves. It allows them to perform the movement smoothly, professionally, and looking awesome.

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The amount of times I have had to stop mid conversation and come to the position of parade rest while at a military installation is too great to count. Whenever a NCO comes into a room, or a more senior NCO enters, whoever notices them first must yell "AT EASE!" which tells everyone in the room to come to Parade Rest, the position of respect for Non Commissioned Officers (sergeants and such). Every soldier is conditioned to move instantly upon hearing the command. One reaction is required from this stimulus, meaning the time it takes us to respond to the action is our Simple Reaction Time. While technically there may be more to it than that (choosing a response, discerning the various stimuli), I can say as a soldier that there is no questioning, sorting, or debating the response to this stimulus. We are conditioned to 'hop to' Parade Rest whenever an NCO enters a room that we have had soldiers who are lying down holding a conversation across the room assume the correct position in under 2 seconds. To us, its simple; hear 'AT EASE!' and come to Parade Rest. No doubts, no 'ifs', just plain old reacting. It got so constant that our Drill Sergeant made a line of tape across the hallway out of our barracks where we were only allowed to call it when they crossed THAT line as opposed to the doorway.

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1. May people assume that Basic Training is all physical challenges with some mental knowledge thrown in there for good measure.  And they would be right, almost.  While 9 of the 10 weeks of Basic are spent being active and performing hands on training, the 1st week is spent in the mind-numbing, soul sucking, will testing place called "Reception."  Reception is where soldiers get in-processed; blood draw, shots, uniform sizing, and paperwork finalizing.  There are many stages of reception, and they must be completed in a certain order.  This means that if you are not actively completing a station, you are waiting.  While waiting, you are expected to by studying your "Blue Book," which is the guide for all soldiers going through training.  Soldiers were expected to be nose deep into the book, yet we were also expected to be aware of our surroundings so we could render the proper customs and courtesies to our superiors.  This lead to some Structural interference; decreases in attention performance due to physical or neurological elements in the situation.  Because we were expected to focus on our reading so we could memorize the information while we were supposed to stay aware of our surroundings, we tended under perform on both.  We would not notice the NCO's (Non Commissioned Officers) approach us, then we would not know the answer to the question they would ask.  Overall, they (knowingly) set us up for failure.