Teaser: Army Officials Recommend Major Training Cut

EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's a tidbit of what we're planning to report tomorrow morning as the lead story on Military.com:

The Army is set to cut down on the number of skills it teaches incoming Soldiers at boot camp and further constrain its "onerous" list of required training for all Joes across the force.

According to Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, the Army's chief of initial military training with Training and Doctrine Command, the service has recommended that the list of so-called "Warrior Tasks" be cut from a whopping 32 to 12 and that it further slash the "Battle Drills" required of all Soldiers from 11 to four.

"They've steadily grown over the years and become too onerous and too [specific] to an infantry Soldier instead of a basic Soldier," Hertling told Military.com during a Feb. 24 roundtable interview with military bloggers. "They were something that were not very well known in the force ... and they had become too lengthy."

The tasks that they plan to drop include .50cal firing and Claymore mine emplacement. The thing that's going to fire people up is the fact that this seems to be rolling back former COS Schoomaker's effort to turn every Soldier into a no-joke fighter right out of boot camp, a lesson learned from the Jessica Lynch incident and the growing fact that in Iraq, everyone from a Motor-T Joe, to a logisitician, to an MP might be required to kick in doors and call for a MEDEVAC.

I see where they're coming from -- it's a lot to "train" in early indoc, and we don't have the final lists. But I can also see how some would say it's important to at least have fired a .50cal -- you never know when the turret gunner might get injured in an ambush and you're going to have to step in and let 'er rip.

So be sure to read the rest of the story tomorrow AM...