Under the relaxed new standards, trainees wear gym shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers. Instead of running in formation, they run on their own. At Army bases, bayonet practice may be called off if the weather is too hot. In Marine training at Quantico, a visitor noticed a footstool placed in front of an 8-foot wall so that no trainee would fail to get over it. Gen X warriors.
Social change plays a role, too.
Today's recruits are unaccustomed to discipline and authority, easily shocked by strong words, and deeply concerned with their own feelings and self-esteem. To attract and keep volunteers in an army with a high dropout rate in basic training, the training is being adapted to generation X expectations. But the chief reason for the change is the return of mixed-gender training, which the Army tried for five years, abandoned as a failure in 1982, and reinstalled under feminist political pressure in 1994. Army trainees perform many drills in sneakers mostly because women were suffering high rates of injury in boots. A 1988 Army study of 124 men and 186 women during basic training showed that women were almost twice as likely as men to get injured and spent 481 days on limited duty due to injury, compared with 99 days for the men.