Colonel David Hackworth (USA-Retired) reports on the sissifying of the elite Army Rangers.

While the rest of the U.S. Army has lowered its standards to the point where seasoned war vets find today's combat training a joke and the crusty salts who fought at Anzio, Osan and Dak To refer to what passes for most training as "an invitation to get killed," Rangers have fought lowering the training bar and have consistently turned out hardened studs whom commanders in the field would fight to get.

That is until Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, the guy who runs Fort Benning today, was told by a few recent Ranger graduates that they were turned off by Ranger School because some of their RIs were meanies and actually yelled and cursed at them and even made them do pushups when they goofed up. Others complained in writing that they'd been sleep-deprived and that the training was too difficult.

For the record, the RIs--hardened vets who know what it takes to win and walk away alive--were merely following the battle-tested Darby practices of creating maximum stress, teaching attention to detail and passing on the proven tactics and techniques that have worked so splendidly for our Rangers in a bunch of bad scraps. Just for the record, applying for and attending Ranger School is strictly a volunteer activity, just like joining the Army itself. If you're not being physically abused or racially slandered, what are you complaining about? The old rumination on heat and the kitchen comes to mind. One can only hope that Eaton is retired--er, retires, soon, before he gets any of our boys killed due to ill preparation and training.