I dodged the draft and in partial atonement, I did some work with Operation Code, which is for vets and their spouses to learn to be techies. I did a podcast with them:<p><a href="https://operationcode.org/podcast" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://operationcode.org/podcast</a><p>These people are not in any way, shape, or form "dumb." A lot of them go to 4-year colleges on the GI Bill, but a few did code school. One works for Google now. Almost none of them actually saw any combat.<p>My favorite was Dick Sonderegger, who enlisted in the Marines during the Vietnam era. He said he wanted to fly close air support in 'Nam, and they said, "No, you're going to be a computer programmer." He never left the States.<p>They do yell at you in Basic Training, all of them said.
I used to love doing these fitness tests as they are very straight forward with no equipment, quick to do, and progress is easily measured.<p>If I remember correctly the Marines had a 3-mile run instead of 2 and the top target time was 18 min which I would always aim for
I've seen what the training is like for those who do direct commissions (e.g. Jags, doctors, high end computer specialists) and it looks like a god damn daycare compared to even regular officer school. I think their basic training is half as long and less than half as difficult. Also no one was yelling at them. Not saying that's a bad thing. Quite the opposite, it convinced me that even I could have a place somewhere in the military if necessary.<p>And don't even get me started on "state defense forces".
The 99th percentile for a two-mile run was 11:50 for 17–21 year old males. I managed to beat that exactly once in life and then never again.<p>These days I purposefully slow down when running if I find my heart beating too quickly. I wear a Garmin heart rate monitor. Even if I feel like I could push myself to a heart rate of 200+ per minute, it's best not to.
Oh gosh, the good old army and it's effective measurements techniques. I remember wanting to be a military officer after undergrad and getting disqualified at MEPS for a nonsense issue (which I'll omit for privacy) and the guy next to be getting green lit to continue processing with the Marines with a ...wait for it... 11/100 on the ASVAB.