Well I specifically only touched on grenades. Which is the original topic. I didn't say anything about rifle training. The point is, people should be able to throw a grenade a good distance. Maybe not everyone will ever come across a grenade, or even fire a gun in combat, but they are still in the military, and the military needs all of its people to be capable, because if the military were to ever suffer massive losses, it will need people to pick up the slack, and you don't want that guy picking up the slack to be a guy who couldn't even throw a grenade 10 meters.

The guy filing papers needs to be as reasonably capable as the rest, because if war breaks out and they're under attack, he's no longer just the guy filing papers. He's the guy who has to pick up a gun and fight too, or the guy who replaces the guy who died fighting. The better integrity we have at all levels, the better they will be at taking over duties of the fallen when losses mount up. Otherwise, once you lose a lot of your front line cream of the crop soldiers (with not all of them being soo much cream of the crop, which makes losing easier), all you're left to rely on are the ones who are essentially civilians with a military rank.

There's no excuse to not have a volunteer military be higher quality. if a brutal global war breaks out and a draft comes along, quality requirements are going to drop fast anyways. But the better our military is at that juncture, the better we will fare as a country in the initial conflicts.

If the US is ever invaded and we're down to trench warfare to hold lines, you don't want the guy next to you who can barely throw a grenade with 2 seconds left on the fuse. Grenades have a fragmentation range of about 10 meters. How far do you think a grenade thrown by a weakling will travel in under 2 seconds? Not very far. The farther the better.

And they're not even doing this obstructed. They're doing it in a controlled environment. Person is standing, ready to throw. Now imagine how far you can throw if you're on your knees or laying on the ground. Even the guy who did 30 meters in training, won't do that under those conditions. But that's the point. The people who perform well in training, will likely perform somewhat worse in the real world due to circumstances on the battlefield. So the people who performed poorly, will perform even more poorly in real world situations. So the guy who could barely throw a grenade in training, could actually end up doing more harm than good, whether he's throwing them or dealing with incoming enemy grenades.

Imagine the guy who could barely throw a grenade, lands next to him, he tosses it, only it's such a weak pitch that surprise, he killed 10 people because he's now increased its effectiveness because it airbursts right above friendlies. Or he throws a grenade, doesn't throw it far enough, and not only wastes it, not only gives away his position and others, but maybe also either kills friendlies or at the very least, sets off a big boom next to friendlies.

And grenade throwing says a lot about ability. The guy who can't throw a grenade as far, also probably can't carry a gun and other equipment for as long. Lacking in capability in one area, can indicate lacking in many other areas.

You definitely don't want these people dealing with grenades when you're standing next to them: https://youtu.be/Eh8QYoD0n2s?t=143

And you wouldn't even want them in the military in the first place.