5 things every infantryman needs to be excellent at

Serving in the infantry means you wanted to challenge yourself beyond your known limits — and you scored pretty low on your ASVAB. We're only kidding. Everyone who has earned the MOS of a grunt must know how to shoot their weap…
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Serving in the infantry means you wanted to challenge yourself beyond your known limits — and you scored pretty low on your ASVAB.


We’re only kidding.

Everyone who has earned the MOS of a grunt must know how to shoot their weapon, take it apart, and put it back together blindfolded. Outside of all that, there are a few things infantrymen also need to be damn good at.

Related: 7 types of riflemen you’ll meet in your first platoon

1. Video games

Living in a small, studio-sized barracks room and not having a car means you’re going to spend a lot of weekend time playing video games on your massive TV.

Madden and Halo tournaments will break out and, if you’re not good, you’re going to lose and end up sitting out sooner rather than later.

U.S. service members kick back and play video games at a USO in Afghanistan, 2012.  (Photo credit USO)

2. PT

Being the slowest or the weakest grunt in the platoon won’t earn you any respect. If you need to hit the gym more often to show up your squadmates, consider it.

3. Holding your alcohol

Nobody likes a lousy drunk. So, if you can’t hold down a few beers or a couple shots without becoming a complete d*ck, you might wake up with a black eye or two.

It’s going to be a good night while the platoon sergeant is away.

4. Brushing sh*t off

A grunt has to put up with a lot of crap. If you can manage to laugh and brush off some of that crap, your career will thank you for it. So long as you don’t get fed up and end up decking a fellow troop, you should be fine.

Also Read: 4 simple rules every infantryman ‘in the suck’ should obey

5. Covering for each other

In the infantry, skating is a team effort. Not everyone has to go to field day formations on Thursday, right? When your boy’s name gets called out as you’re standing in an unstructured, massive school circle, yell out, “here!” on their behalf.

Here! All present and accounted for? (Photo by Lance Cpl. Michael S. Cifuentes)