Why are some of our soldiers getting killed at there basic training before they even leave for the war?

Question

Well, my finance called and informed me that a boy on his base got shot and killed during training. It scared me, because I thought Basic Training was the harmless easy part, I never expected that people were actually dying while they are only training.

Answer 1

accidents do happen. When I was in we had a soldier freak out and dropped a grenade at his feet instead of throwing it out of the pit. Fortunately the NCO supervising the exercise got everyone out of harms way. Could have been nasty. The young man was never seen again by any of the rest of us in that training group. May have been discharged. The fact is that they play with dangerous equipment and people will get hurt. Its just the nature of the job.

Answer 2

Accidents, medical conditions (some of which weren't declared during the recruiting and application process), neglect, possibly even foul play (though I haven't heard of this happening in any civilized military).

Besides your decades-old confirmed incidents in which numerous recruits die at once, a few years ago I did read of a Marine Recruit that died of a heart attack after a particularly strenuous run.

When I did recruit training at Kapooka for the Australian Army, some of the instructors mentioned two incidents to us while we were in the 'butts' on the firing range where the targets are set up

- In one case, a Recruit stuck his head over the edge of the trench while the instructors were shooting rounds to demonstrate the crack sounds made by rounds going overhead. Supposedly, one of these rounds killed him.

- In another case, a Recruit decided he couldn't hack it anymore and shot himself in the head with his rifle. I assume that could be why we weren't issued any live rounds until minutes before it was our turn to shoot.

I can't confirm if they're true, but it's the instructor's word... plus it's not hard to imagine how they'd happen.

Answer 3

Wow, nobody can kill us like us! That is so unfortunate, and my heart goes out to his family. Unfortunately we have a dangerous job, and not everyone always adheres to safety standards. I assume that this happened during basic rifle marksmanship training. They have to use real bullets. The drill sergeants are very well trained and they try to keep the soldiers' weapons pointed down toward the targets, but some people do stupid things, especially when they stop treating every weapon like a loaded weapon.

There are more training deaths than I care to talk about, but safety is the key. We have to enforce standards of safety because we are entrusted with the lives our our nation's children!

Answer 4

Basic is neither harmless nor easy. Accidents happen; during a practice fire mission with blanks, a guy was supposed to be shooting at my husband. Just before he started shooting, they found out that the rounds were live. He could have died. Not happy.

Also, the medical care is practically non-existant. I know dozens of cases of neglect in the active army and in basic, but just last week a friend of mine was having trouble breathing, so the drill sarge told him to walk it off. Now he's in the hospital, because he wasn't allowed to see a doctor. There's a WHOLE lot of that. If you're near the military, ALWAYS DEMAND MEDICAL CARE EVEN IF THEY'RE MEAN ABOUT IT. So many problems with that lately, I swear.

Answer 5

In Basic training like any other military training where there are men and women with guns and ammo, or humans and machinery there will always be a potential for accidents leading to death and injury.

Accidents happens in all workplaces and even in the home, why should the military ebviroment be any different??

Answer 6

This may sound harsh and i mean absolutely no disrespect by this at all but the biggest reason people get hurt at basic is because they are idiots. They don't follow orders, make silly mistakes and don't pay attention. Another huge reason is that they lie to their recruiters about health issues they didn't think were important and it ends up killing them. It is not a pretty truth but a truth none the less. I feel for the soldiers family. I'm sure you fiance will ba fine as long as he and his battle buddy follow all the rules even the ones that seem ridiculous. Good Bless

Answer 7

People die in training all the time. I once gave a shot at Parris Island to a guy with all of two days in the Marine Corps. He had never received shots before. He died before I could get the needle out of his arm. Cause was anaphylactic shock.

Answer 8

its rare that someone dies in basic. For the most part it is safe, however all training has some risk, they take steps to mitigate this risk but they cant eliminate it all without affecting the training too much. After all they are training for combat.

Answer 9

Must say you have some very valid points there, BUT, I feel 60s are a bit too old. How 'bout more in the line of the 50ish folks. You do have a lot of "truthisms" there tho...Did a lot of thinking on that one tho...:)

Answer 10

Hon, when an enlistee gets killed in BCT, it is usually due to his/her own stupidity. When a Sargent says keep your noggin's down he/she means Keep your noggin's down and some enlistee don't think they mean it, but we do. I saw a young woman get her head blown off in BCT because she put her head up while on a crawl in the mud going under barbed wire to see how far she still had to go and POW! Sorry, it happens!