“Anybody’s Son Will Do”

This 1983 documentary by Gwynne Dyer takes us through basic military training. Though the film focuses on the United States Marine Corps, the process is fundamentally the same in all branches of the service in every country. For 10 weeks, Dyer and his film crew accompanied a platoon of recruits from Day 1 through their training through graduation. This is how the military transforms a bunch of rag-tag, teenage recruits, into a trained, highly disciplined unit.

Dyer is a Veteran of service in three navies with a Ph.D. in military and Middle Eastern history and an appointment at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Oxford University. He tells us “All soldiers are born civilians. The method for turning young men into soldiers, people who kill other people, is basic training.”

The pace is swift, harsh and physically demanding. But perhaps most difficult is the intense mental and psychological pressure placed upon the recruits. Under the constant eyes of their drill instructors (DIs), nothing they do is right, even the simplest of tasks is an ordeal. The DIs are never satisfied, and the recruits are held accountable to incredibly high standards. Dyer pulls no punches when he says, “If you want to change people quickly and radically, what you do is put them in a place where the only right way to think or behave is the way you want them to. You isolate them. And then you apply enormous physical and mental pressure.”

We see the recruits learning to march and obey orders instantly. We accompany them to the rifle range, where they master their weapon. They undergo daily inspections where there is always something to be corrected. Dyer tells us the bar is set low enough in Basic Training that most successfully complete the course. But we see the failures, which serve to strengthen the bonds among those remaining, as they begin to coalesce into a team.

The DIs training the recruits are mostly Vietnam combat Veterans. Their experiences reenforce the necessity of the rigorous training the recruits undergo. We see those who have succeeded in the profession of war passing on the folklore, traditions and history of military service. This indoctrination enhances recruits’ belief that they are special, they are a brotherhood of elite warriors. One of their instructors admits, “In a way, we brainwash them a little bit.”

The footage shot by Dyer and his crew was certainly edited to eliminate profanity and some of the more brutal realities recruits often endure. But that aside, this is an honest examination of the basic training psychology universal to all militaries. Dyer sums up the experience perfectly by telling us, “Young men are not natural soldiers any more than they’re natural carpenters or accountants, but it’s a trade that almost anybody can learn. Soldiering takes up a much bigger part of your life than most jobs, but it doesn’t take a special kind of person. Anybody’s son will do.”

To view the documentary, click here.