As someone who was not in the Corps but still greatly appreciates them, please explain more about why this is bad and what it will do.

That will kill the Corps for sure. Oh well was a good run while it lasted.

Need a Corps person to explain this better to the rest of us. What is happening and why is it a problem?

According to my son, a BQ ('17), the outfit should be the fundamental unit. They appear to be shifting the primary identity to the major unit and away from the outfit. The whole point of the Corps is the outfit, according to him. He used the example of Easy Company versus the 506 PIR from Band of Brothers.

He's basically trying to make it easier on freshman. They want to get to 3000 and believe this will lead to fewer kids punching. I'm class of '99, my son is currently a freshman. What I went through as a fish was alot harder than what he does. This has been the trend for a long long time. It will probably get the desired results. Being a fish will still suck just not as much.

There are outstanding outfits that have leaders all over campus. There are the jock outfits who are known to be good at athletics. There is E2 who is known for Reveille. All outfits have a culture that is passed down from class to class and that is bred through the interaction from Seniors to fish.

Why are outfits that were good 10 or 20 years ago, still the best outfits?

Why are bad outfits that were not good 10-20 years ago, still not great outfits?

Outfit culture.

Some outfits recruit and breed outfit culture, while other outfits don't care.

An outfit is setup to train fish in how they should act, fit in, and operate. Some outfits are great at this, some are not.

By removing the fish from the outfits, you are taking the main reason for an outfit to exist away.

A pissheads job is to train fish. No Fish, what are they gonna do?
Why would a pisshead want to go train a group of fish that he will not see the benefit of training?

How are fish gonna learn outfit culture, when they are not a part of an outfit, but in fact separated from the outfit?

Why would Jrs and Srs in the Corps care to stay engaged when they don't know the fish, they don't see the fish, and don't get the benefit of seeing the fish grow.

Picard said:

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As someone who was not in the Corps but still greatly appreciates them, please explain more about why this is bad and what it will do.

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The greatness of the Corps experience is the bonding of the fish class in a specific outfit.

My dad is C Armor class of 58, and he still tells stories about his buddies and the common experiences they went through.

I'm Aggie Band/A Battery class of 87.
When we met for our class reunion we laughed and told stories about fish antics and experiences on the drill field, games, trips etc.

Just another example of socialism and a race to the lowest denominator. Don't incentive excellence, toughness, pride and hardwork. To them equity = equal outcomes. Not equal opportunity.

Worst thing about it is the commandant is a former CT, but is career military, so this is what you get...

Eliminating the Corps of Cadets has always been a goal.

It is one of the things the leftists in the administration hate the most because they see it as one of the things which makes A&M different from the rest of the universities in the country.

They want A&M to be Berkeley on the Brazos.

And as much as he is disliked, the person everyone should be contacting is John Sharp. Screwing up A&M history/traditions is the one thing he does not like and so far has managed to keep at bay.

Was not a CT, but from reading the first responses, and can agree that this is a terrible idea.

Bonds are created through suffering together. It is a simple matter of human nature.

Those are the ones that last a lifetime. It sounds like the leadership is ****ing up something that isn't broken.

aggiez03 said:

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There are outstanding outfits that have leaders all over campus. There are the jock outfits who are known to be good at athletics. There is E2 who is known for Reveille. All outfits have a culture that is passed down from class to class and that is bred through the interaction from Seniors to fish.

Why are outfits that were good 10 or 20 years ago, still the best outfits?

What are bad outfits that were not good 10-20 years ago, still not great outfits?

Outfit culture.

Some outfits recruit and breed outfit culture, while other outfits don't care.

An outfit is setup to train fish in how they should act, fit in, and operate. Some outfits are great at this, some are not.

By removing the fish from the outfits, you are taking the main reason for an outfit to exist away.

A pissheads job is to train fish. No Fish, what are they gonna do?
Why would a pisshead want to go train a group of fish that he will not see the benefit of training?

How are fish gonna learn outfit culture, when they are not a part of an outfit, but in fact separated from the outfit?

Why would Jrs and Srs in the Corps care to stay engaged when they don't know the fish, they don't see the fish, and don't get the benefit of seeing the fish grow.

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All good points. The way I see it, they are just pushing the calendar back a few months. In today's Corp the fish go through the most intense part of their training in the fall and earn their brass at the end of the fall semester. With this new approach, the spring becomes the intense part of the experience where you build your culture. The fall is basically a giant FOW to let kids get acclimated to the corps in hopes they don't quit. Then in the spring when it gets more intense it won't be quite the shock to their system. It might work, it might not. They've changed alot of stuff over the years and some of it has been good. I can see this working out.

Outlaw 8, class of 2003.

This may be a bad thing, but you probably need to keep in perspective that the Corps' raison d'etre is training future military officers, not being a repository for all the things you think are good bull.

Will this more effectively train and prepare future 2lts and ensigns? Maybe. Maybe not. Being a fish is still going to suck, though.

I'm going to withhold judgment until I hear from the Commandant, who is class of '93. There was lots of bellyaching when Gen Ramirez spearheaded many reforms, but IMO most of them were necessary and positive.

JB99 said:

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aggiez03 said:

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There are outstanding outfits that have leaders all over campus. There are the jock outfits who are known to be good at athletics. There is E2 who is known for Reveille. All outfits have a culture that is passed down from class to class and that is bred through the interaction from Seniors to fish.

Why are outfits that were good 10 or 20 years ago, still the best outfits?

What are bad outfits that were not good 10-20 years ago, still not great outfits?

Outfit culture.

Some outfits recruit and breed outfit culture, while other outfits don't care.

An outfit is setup to train fish in how they should act, fit in, and operate. Some outfits are great at this, some are not.

By removing the fish from the outfits, you are taking the main reason for an outfit to exist away.

A pissheads job is to train fish. No Fish, what are they gonna do?
Why would a pisshead want to go train a group of fish that he will not see the benefit of training?

How are fish gonna learn outfit culture, when they are not a part of an outfit, but in fact separated from the outfit?

Why would Jrs and Srs in the Corps care to stay engaged when they don't know the fish, they don't see the fish, and don't get the benefit of seeing the fish grow.

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All good points. The way I see it, they are just pushing the calendar back a few months. In today's Corp the fish go through the most intense part of their training in the fall and earn their brass at the end of the fall semester. With this new approach, the spring becomes the intense part of the experience where you build your culture. The fall is basically a giant FOW to let kids get acclimated to the corps in hopes they don't quit. Then in the spring when it gets more intense it won't be quite the shock to their system. It might work, it might not. They've changed alot of stuff over the years and some of it has been good. I can see this working out.

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The problem with this approach is that you now are starting the clock in the spring instead of the fall, so that the upper classmen are going to be completely disconnected from the fish. The Srs in 2nd semester are pretty much dead anyway or close to it. They will have ZERO connection with the fish class.

I remember when the zips would come in and give us much needed relief, comic relief, etc throughout the fall semester. They would have us hang out in their rooms occasionally on the weekends and get to know us, etc.

All that time the Seniors invested in the fish class will now not exist.

The First Sergeant, who's job it was to train the fish, now will probably be just a group trainer that fish will barely know.

Pissheads.. Imagine 80 fish in a major unit first semester. How many pissheads will they need maybe 10-20? So you have 60 pissheads with zero purpose. They aren't white belts, so they have little privleges. They aren't fish so they don't need lots of training by upper classmen. What is their purpose now?

Jrs - Butts First Sergeant would probably be part of cadre training the fish. Maybe one to two other Jrs involved (Academics / Chaplain). What is the purpose of the other 10-15 Jrs? They are not around any fish. They just go to class, line up for formation, and go eat at chow, then go study, go to bed and repeat.

Srs - Zips No fish around to interact with. By the time the fish are in the outfit the seniors have senioritis and have a girlfriend or a job. There is ZERO connection between the seniors and fish and most likely they will barely know each others names.

All the upperclassmen in the Corps will move on to other pursuits with all their free time whether that be a frat, a girl or a job and no longer contribute to rowing the boat forward and helping to instill those values that are important to the outfit. Why would they? They don't even know who these fish are? They have no relationship and by the time the fish get there, they will have their Corps brass and will basically be little training left to do. Why engage at all ?

When the upperclassmen disengage, then standards drop, things get lax, and now you have nothing left to be proud of, just a group of kids thrown into a group that barely know each other.

I don't think this will kill only incoming recruiting, I think you will have high dissatisfaction with the upper classman leading to Sophs and Jrs quitting...

Old Army Metal said:

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Outlaw 8, class of 2003.

This may be a bad thing, but you probably need to keep in perspective that the Corps' raison d'etre is training future military officers, not being a repository for all the things you think are good bull.

Will this more effectively train and prepare future 2lts and ensigns? Maybe. Maybe not. Being a fish is still going to suck, though.

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All things good bull didn't hurt training and preparing those Aggies of the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, nor did it hurt my Aggie Band classmate who is currently a 4 star Marine Corps General.

Might be worse in some regards. Learning the upperclassmen in your unit and eventually major unit was bad enough. How many leaders will the fish be expected to keep track of under the new system?

I don't see how this would work at all in the Aggie Band. All the fish train as part of the full unit anyways.

Old Army Metal said:

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Outlaw 8, class of 2003.

This may be a bad thing, but you probably need to keep in perspective that the Corps' raison d'etre is training future military officers, not being a repository for all the things you think are good bull.

Will this more effectively train and prepare future 2lts and ensigns? Maybe. Maybe not. Being a fish is still going to suck, though.

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Maybe they think they will train officers better, but the Corps is still close to 50% non-contract.

Are they aiming to get rid of those cadets? Cause that is exactly what they are going to do...

Devils advocate:

This isn't anywhere near as terrible as projected. Essentially, instead of being randomly placed by random, the fish will actually have the ability to chose an outfit and earn their logo. This means that recruiting the unit will be significantly less random, and outfit culture and reputation amongst the corps will have a bigger impact.

My immediate reaction was "this is a big change and is probably terrible". My undeveloped and uninformed thoughts are leading me to think that this might actually solve some major problems the corps is facing (drastic change in lifestyle).

I'd need more information on what the outfit selection process will be. If the fish get to choose in the spring after earning their corps brass, then this pushes outfit culture to the forefront. The military academies have low outfit loyalty because they swap out after sophomore year. I see 3.5 years as being way stronger loyalty - as the recruitment is way longer and the outfit selection is more of a mutual agreement than a random selection.

New Army going to heck since 1877.

Quote:

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Essentially, instead of being randomly placed by random, the fish will actually have the ability to chose an outfit and earn their logo. This means that recruiting the unit will be significantly less random, and outfit culture and reputation amongst the corps will have a bigger impact.

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Sounds like frat recruiting.

Not a CT, but this sounds eerily familiar to what they did in the College of Engineering. You don't get to pick what engineering discipline you want when you're a freshman. They dump all engineering fish in pre-engineering classes, and you pick (apply) a discipline after a couple of semesters. Supposedly the goal was to improve retention, consolidate some redundancy in classes, etc. I have not seen any stats if it works or not. I will say, though, that my experience was in AGEN (now BAEN). We were a small department, and were put on team projects our first semester. Getting to know those people was one of the best parts of my A&M experience. Almost 40 years later, some of them are still my best friends.

Anything you can do for fish to make them feel like part of a team is a positive. Throwing all of them into one big vat, I am not so sure about.

Well, they gutted non-reg dorm culture over the past 20 years (not building more dorms, closing several, making the rest co-ed, etc.). Not to mention Bonfire. It was bound to happen to the CoC.

Dawnguard said:

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Devils advocate:

This isn't anywhere near as terrible as projected. Essentially, instead of being randomly placed by random, the fish will actually have the ability to chose an outfit and earn their logo. This means that recruiting the unit will be significantly less random, and outfit culture and reputation amongst the corps will have a bigger impact.

My immediate reaction was "this is a big change and is probably terrible". My undeveloped and uninformed thoughts are leading me to think that this might actually solve some major problems the corps is facing (drastic change in lifestyle).

I'd need more information on what the outfit selection process will be. If the fish get to choose in the spring after earning their corps brass, then this pushes outfit culture to the forefront. The military academies have low outfit loyalty because they swap out after sophomore year. I see 3.5 years as being way stronger loyalty - as the recruitment is way longer and the outfit selection is more of a mutual agreement than a random selection.

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This is not how it works.

Every Corps outfit has a recruiting chain and are actively recruiting Spend the Nighters starting in September till the end of the Spring. Each outfit brings in a ton of kids, determines if the kids fit what they are looking for and if the outfit and the kid both like each other, then they can put the kid on their reserved list and the kid can put down that outfit as their first choice.

Some outfits have OVER a HUNDRED kids that want to be in their outfit. Other outfits have to get kids given to them because they are so bad at recruiting.

By the spring there will be no culture of the outfit. This will kill outfit culture. Which I actually think is the goal in all of this.

I can understand why they are thinking this would be a good thing. Like the armed forces, all recruits go through basic training before being assigned to their first unit. However, the bonds of brotherhood between a unit's fish is created in those first few months of the fall semester where it was them against their pissheads! That's when kids of every kind put aside their differences and merge into a united force to survive that first year. Even now, any of my fish buds would drop everything to go and help another one out if needed. I could see having a regimented training program that the units have to follow, but it's the interaction between the fish and their unit upperclassmen that can make or break a fish class.