My favorite grumpy Vietnam vet John T Reed reaches a similar conclusion based on personal experience.
Here are some visual aids regarding the danger of airborne training.
I jumped out of a plane once for fun as a civilian, which is just more proof that it's not that big of a deal. For the record, I was scared of heights for most of my life.
One of the reasons why US Army jumps are so dangerous is that they insist on carrying so much equipment with them. Here is what a D-Day paratrooper carried:
The Soviets were smarter. They put all the gear in containers that landed separately. You can see them land near the 50 second mark of the video below and being opened around the 1:35 mark in the Red Dawn clip.
It's good the military tries to attract and cultivate courage, but it often does it badly. For the kinds of wars the US is likely to fight in the future, individual intelligence is more important than bravery.
Long story short, enlisted promotions should be based on ASVAB scores. That is efficient and fair.
Things like firewalking are better for building courage because they seem dangerous but actually aren't.
They are also relatively cheap. Probably the cheapest option would be to show recruits video of actual violence. Realistic war movies could be an intermediate step.
Firewalking is not dangerous because hot coals are poor heat conductors. It's sort of like if you have a cake in an oven at 400 degrees, the cake, pan, and air inside are all 400 degrees, but the only thing that will burn you if you touch it is the pan because metal is a good heat conductor.
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