Never show weakness. She is not on your side.

TL;DR - Would you want someone that couldn't handle being cussed at in basic standing next to you while thousands of rounds are being fired at you?

First and foremost, the intensity and how you're treated in the military is dependent on the MOS, and it's easy to assume which roles are hit the hardest in basic. Infantry, either ground or mechanized which are specific to the Army and the USMC are going to be more intense. The entire goal is to break you down and rebuild you so that in a combat situation where 20 men are shooting at 5 of you, you don't freak out and run away leaving your battle buddies to fend for yourself. The rule of thumb is that we're trained to be able to overcome 4:1 odds. 1 guy vs 4 guys, 1 squad of 5 vs 20 guys, 1 platoon of 20 vs 80. And so on and so on. I joined in 98 and outside of combat MOS they had already started sensitizing the military. The first was no more insults or swearing at soldiers. I think that one started 3/4 of the way through basic for me. We all laughed and so did our drill SGTs and they ignored the order and continued on business as usual. As they should.

My graduating company out of basic training in Fort Benning was the last class to graduate without female trainees on base. It may seem like a small issue, but I'll get to that later.

There was more emphasis being put on soldiers feelings. And preventing suicides, which there are a lot of fake injuries to get out, and some suicides but not as many as the rumor mill would produce. Everyone started wanting to be treated as individuals, with feelings instead of actual soldiers.

Now. With that said, you might ask "well, what's so wrong with that".

In most MOS's and different branches of the military things work a little different. If you're in the rear filing paperwork or a cook or another MOS that rarely receives bullets or mortar fire, that's fine. I wouldn't expect them to be hardened soldiers ready for combat at a moments notice. But lets get back to where it hurts the most, I'll use the Army as an example since it is my personal experience but applies to the Marines as well as they are quite comparable.

I was an 11b. Combat infantry. Rangers are 11b's who were selected at their duty station to go to rangers school. Green Berets. 90% of the soldiers you see in the Army or the Marines in the news or in movies storming buildings, in HUMVEES, sitting in blackhawks being transported are combat infantrymen. They eat the bullets and do the killing. When we put "boots on the ground", that's who we're putting on the front line. 11m are infantry as well, they're heavy armor infantrymen. Same as 11b, only after basic their AIT moves on to tanks. They're the mechanized infantry. That is the core of the USMC and the Army. Every Army installation is named after a mechanized or ground infantry or air assault (infantry repelling from blackhawks or jumping out of planes) unit.

I'm not saying they are any more important than any other MOS, as they all serve a purpose to contribute to the final objective, however infantryman for the longest time carried out the prime directive.

There's approximately 1.2 million Army personnel currently. Roughly 15-20% of that is combat arms or infantry. That's a huge percentage when you take into account there are approximately 300 different MOS's in the Army, 4 of those attributed to combat MOS's.

Now, here's where the kinder gentler Army that started showing up at duty stations around 99 and beyond started to affect people like me and the military as a whole.

Knowing how imperative it is to have a well trained combat arms soldier, think of all the things he's going to encounter if he sees action. Murder, death, children being shot, mass graves, friends heads exploding a foot or less away from him. High levels of stress, anxiety, depression. You've seen the documentaries. You've seen the movies that hardly portray the atrocities of war. Combat MOS's see those up front and personal on a regular basis in wartime. They are the killers, and the "saviors". You don't want someone that had it "easy" in basic training coming to your unit to have your back. You want them hardened, and almost numb to everything around them. All those stories you hear about the Army and USMC boot camp, those are primarily stories from combat MOS's. Most of the drill sgt's have seen combat, so they're entire job, their purpose is to completely break you down to nothing then rebuild you so that when you're on the front line, he knows if he's next to you he can trust you have his back and he has yours later down the road.

Now some effects that I've seen or have realized after being in the military in a combat MOS. With the mentioning of women training @ Fort Benning which for almost 100 years has served as the home of the infantry, and trained nothing but infantry until the late 90's. As a trainee, I(we) were told to never look at or speak to any women on base. Women work there, soldiers and civilians, but they are no where near the training areas. Sometimes we'd see them. And after a month in basic, I can assure you... you can smell the perfume across the street. It's not anything derogatory, it's to take away that distraction. If you're talking and thinking about that hot chick in uniform you saw the other day, you're not listening to the drill instructor teaching you something that can save your life, your friends life, or the squads life. Now with women training in the next barracks over, how many distractions do you think there are? How many guys might see a chick at the PX when picking up soap and deodorant and tooth paste and they realize, hey, we're in barracks next door to each other and they sneak out and get down and dirty. There's a reason why you're allowed nothing in basic. No candy. No tobacco. Only what they issue you and feed you.

Another effect that I actually witness first hand, we do live fire exercises. Everything from small scale with a company which is roughly 90 personnel. To live fire exercises that involve entire units, and other branches of the military. I can't explain how awesome it was to be on the big island of Hawaii assaulting a trench with jets flying overhead and shooting rockets at the bunkers and helo's 30 meters above me with dual 50's laying suppressive fire and the brass raining down on my k-pot. It's exhilarating and scary at the same time as EVERYONE has live rounds. One mistake, and a platoon could eat a rocket from a F16. And this is just training. And with active duty, it's a regular cycle. Some people can't handle it. They didn't used to make it through basic. They'd either off themselves, or they'd get injured, or the drill instructors would notice they were off and have them pack their things. Now, they primarily breeze right through. These are the guys like one that I knew that during a live fire exercise freak out, and in the middle of the night take their canteen and walk 10 miles back to their house because they're stressed out. They're also the same guys, who when are actually seeing live action, throw grenades in their buddies tents just so they can "get out of there" because they've got no other option (a few news stories back when we went into Iraq were just that, friendly fire). I've been in training missions where we were falling back to meet up with the rest of the platoon, and my buddies rifle was so hot from firing so many rounds that they literally cooked off, 1 went off and hit between my legs, another went off to the right of my foot, and when he dropped the mag and emptied the chamber to stop it, a 3rd hit the ground and went off, who knows where that shot towards. Most "normal" civilians can't handle that kind of stress. They freak out. And that's just training. That's not complete chaos storming a building with 30 men shooting and firing rockets back at you. And yet, people still make it through, and freak out. Do you want those people there with you?

I wouldn't call basic "hard". If you're a survivor, don't take things personally, and are ok being without your family for long periods of time... it's really not that difficult. Unless you're an idiot, or a smartass like me. If I enjoyed having every aspect of my life controlled, and agreed with our military actions abroad, I could have easily been a lifer. I did my enlistment and noped the fuck out. Another reason was new recruits that seemed "softer". That expected life to be a vacation once they got to their duty station. It's not. You have more freedom than basic, but you're still in a combat MOS, and you still have to uphold higher standards than everyone else or they'll chew you up and spit you out. And those are the people I absolutely did NOT want to be in an actual combat situation with, because if I have to carry your weight during training cycles, odds are I'd have to in a combat situation which I wouldn't do for someone like that. I'd have their back, but if they didn't have mine because they couldn't hack it and breezed through in basic, I'm going to leave them behind. You hear about that shit all the time. The weak get eaten alive. And there's no place in combat for the weak. There's just not. Doesn't matter if you're male or female.

I know it's kind of all over the place, I'm shit at writing, but I hope it kind of answers your question. Take it for what it's worth, as it's my experience and mine alone. But when it comes to having new recruits entering a battlefield, you don't want iffy individuals out there with you.