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What is basic training really like?

Updated: 10/10/2023
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Gerda O'Conner

Lvl 10
4y ago

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Also known as "boot camp," basic training teaches the traditions and tactics necessary for military service. In films and television, basic training is often shown as extremely difficult and physically demanding; however, the actual experience differs significantly from portrayals in movies like Full Metal Jacket.

While the physical components of basic training plans can be difficult, the goal of most camps is to get the recruit into the proper mindset for military service. This means teaching them to work as a unit, follow orders, and put the needs of their country, unit, and military branch ahead of their individual needs.

Drill sergeants do sometimes yell at recruits—and some of them yell a lot—but they tend to address groups rather than individuals. They are not allowed to physically touch recruits, and their gruff behavior always has a specific intent behind it.

"I think the biggest misconception about drill sergeants is that we are paid (to be) mean—which completely isn't true," said Staff Sergeant Stephanie Rodriguez, a drill sergeant from Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in a piece on the United States Army’s website. "It's more of a tough love-type story. There is a time for discipline and a time for praise, and where I am from, everyone gets both."

During boot camp, recruits are generally unable to contact civilians, except via handwritten letters and extremely limited phone time. This is to compel recruits to focus completely on their training.

Different branches of the United States military have different basic training camps, and the exact experience of boot camp varies for individual military personnel. Here’s an overview:

Navy

In 2018, Navy leaders increased boot camp difficulty, focusing on the "gritty fundamentals of physical fitness, standing watch, and waging war at sea,": per Navy Times. Trainers cut down on computer-based training and set a new, loftier physical fitness standard. Since implementing the changes, "2 percent more recruits were shown the door."

"I’m okay with that," Rear Admiral Mike Bernacchi told Navy Times. "Not everybody can be a sailor."

"If it doesn’t have to do with firefighting, damage control, seamanship, force protection or watch standing, we flushed it," he said of the changes to the program. "We flushed over two weeks of curriculum."

While physical training makes up a significant part of Navy boot camp, recruits also learn essential skills to protect their eventual vessels. If they fail at their tasks, they’re fined real money. Recruit division commanders will also wake recruits in the middle of the night to test whether they’re able to respond to emergency situations (for instance, a man overboard).

At the end of training, recruits visit the USS Trayer, a building with a mock-up of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Recruits must pass overnight exercise requirements in order to graduate.

Length of boot camp: Seven weeks (plus one difficult, but unofficial, processing week)

Army

Like the Navy, the Army increased graduation requirements for basic training in 2018. The new philosophy: Test soldiers under pressure. The focus shifted from learning concepts just once in a classroom to applying that knowledge in the field.

"You’ll touch a training event such as first aid, and you’ll continue to see that," Command Sergeant Major Lamont Christian told Army Times. "You’ll see it all day the next day, you’ll see it again the following day—even though you’re on the range."

Recruits learn shooting, radio communications, Army history, grooming standards, proper dress, the Seven Core Army Values, and the U.S. Soldier’s Creed. Aspiring soldiers may have to perform difficult tasks while sleep deprived.

Length of boot camp: 10 weeks

Marine Corps

Compared to other basic training programs, Marine boot camp is intense.

"Generally, no one argues that Marines’ boot camp is, by far, the hardest of U.S. military indoctrinatory exercises and is famous/infamous for its training tactics," wrote Marine sergeant Jon Davis.

Recruits learn basic marksmanship, military history, first aid, combat water survival, proper dress, Marine Corps Core Values, and other essentials. They must master an 11-station obstacle course, which requires significant upper body strength.

"Physical training takes many forms, but generally centers on building instant obedience to orders over actual exercise," Davis wrote. "Most of the time, it centers on listen and do what you are told, get through the exercise, and get out of the situation before you are yelled at."

At the end of their training, recruits participate in the Crucible, a 54-hour exercise filled with tough physical activities. Recruits get about eight hours of sleep during the entire exercise and walk over 40 miles.

"Some [recruits] come from middle-class homes where everything has been handed to them," drill sergeant Roger Summers told Military.com. "Others come from poorer homes where nothing was ever expected of them. If they finish the Crucible, they have accomplished something."

Length of boot camp: 12 weeks (plus four days of processing)

Air Force

The basic training program for the Air Force begins in San Antonio, Texas. Air Force boot camp has a reputation for emphasizing history, the honor code, and self-discipline—not so much on physical training.

In recent years, that has changed somewhat. In 2018, the Air Force added another week to basic training, and there’s now more physical fitness training (44 sessions, as opposed to 31 prior to the changes).

"There are a lot of health benefits that go along with being physically fit," Master Sergeant Robert Kaufman told Air Force Times. "We want them to go to their first base ready to roll, and pass that fitness test, and make that a lifestyle."

The new program also includes more weapons training and classes on Air Force heroes. Recruits must pass the Basic Military Physical Fitness Test, which includes one minute of push-ups, one minute of sit-ups, and a timed 1.5-mile run.

Length of boot camp: 8.5 weeks

Coast Guard

Although the Coast Guard is the smallest of the services, its basic training is nothing to sneeze at. In addition to physical requirements like being able to complete a swim circuit, Coast Guard recruits learn about military justice, customs, ethics, and Coast Guard history at their basic training in Cape May, New Jersey.

Length of boot camp: Eight weeks

Again, these are overviews—no two recruits have identical experiences, and some programs (for instance, the Navy SEALs) have far different requirements than what we’ve outlined above. Most basic training programs have similar goals: To form recruits into military professionals. That’s typically a difficult process from the recruit’s perspective, but not insurmountable.

"Normal people can’t do the things warriors are asked to do," Davis wrote. "They can’t imagine it and shouldn’t be forced to. But there are those that do. For these people, though, there must be a transition from ‘civilian’ to ‘warrior.’ Boot camp is the means of that evolution, and every part of it is necessary."

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Kevin Stringer

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4y ago
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13y ago

It varies among the different training sites. Typically it consists of Red Phase, White Phase, and Blue Phase. Each phase is about 3 weeks long and each phase has different priorities for training as well as the level of treatment from the Drill Sergeants.

In the first phase you'll find yourself not talking very much. Socializing is almost taboo and if it is not, it will feel that way to you. You are expecting to hear someone scream at you at any moment. It puts you on edge and quickly makes you realize you need to drastically change your attitude if you are going to get through this phase. This phase is generally when the Confidence Tower is done... climbing and sometimes repelling from a 40-60 foot high wall.

In White Phase this is generally when rifle marksmanship takes place. You will shoot many many rounds throughout BCT. The drill sgts may have eased up by now but do not make the mistake of thinking they are your friends.

Blue Phase is the "Sr" phase. 2 out of 3 of your drill sgts are most likely very relaxed compared to the other one.

It is very difficult to give an answer to this question because so many BCTs are drastically different, and they are changing rapidly as it becomes more and more soft. The bottom line is this: BCT is easy. It is pushups and listening to someone scream. The screaming is slowly going away even. I would do it every summer for fun if I could. Just go there with a positive attitude and do everything they tell you and you will be fine.

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Eric Hayman

Lvl 3
3y ago

In the British army in the 1950s basic training lasted about two months. The first part was ‘square bashing’, with rifle and Bren gun handling. Live weapons handling and firing range practice took place next. Then came the passing out parade before going on to trade training and then a permanent posting.

A typical ‘square bashing’ day would start with reveille usually at 0600 hrs, with the hut NCO (usually a lance-corporal who thought he was GOD) putting the lights on and striding the length of the hut shouting some venomous threat.

With some twenty beds in a hut – ten a side – he’d walk down one side, perhaps rattling a stick against the steel bed ends, and back up the other, to disappear again into his own room in the hut.

At the camp where I did the first part of my basic training – in November/December 1958 at Cove barracks, Farnborough, Hampshire, England – the wooden huts were arranged in ‘Spiders’: a central corridor had six or eight huts off at right angles each side, with one of them the ablution block.

Between getting up and going for breakfast, the recruits had to make their way to the ablutions to wash and shave, get dressed in either serge battle dress blouses and trousers or denim overalls (the usual workwear) with boots and gaiters, and make the bedding up into a bedpack (one blanket left on the bed, others and the sheets folded to form the filling of a ‘sandwich’ wrapped in another blanket. In addition, other kit might have to be laid out on the bed in a tightly controlled pattern.

The hut would most likely have to be swept and everything arranged tidily.

On returning from breakfast, the recruits would have to stand by their beds, to be inspected by the hut NCO. Then the day’s duties would begin.

There might be a parade outside the hut, for the troop to be marched to the square for marching practice. Or physical training outdoors or indoors. There might be a march or run with small packs

and ammo pouches.

Training films – of troops performing different tasks – showed how they should be done. And there was the warning one about getting VD.

Every army camp – training or otherwise – had its ‘fatigues’ duties: such as dish-washing in the cookhouses, delivering coke from the fuel yard to the various messes, cookhouses and barrack rooms for heating purposes. Also sweeping up leaves, painting what needed to be painted (I never painted coal or coke white!), and any other labouring or domestic jobs that fitted recruits’ abilities.

Bulling kit was a major part of basic training. All the brasswork of belts and straps had to be smoothed to a fine degree and polished to shine brightly. Hence the liberal use of Brasso and Bluebell liquids. Solvol Autosol – a toothpaste like polish – was more expensive yet supposedly better at producing the best result. We had two belts: one as best which had to be immaculate.

The webbing of the belt and straps and the packs and ammo pouches had to be scrubbed, then given a deep brushing of green ‘blanco’, before being polished to a shine.

We were issued with two pairs of Boots, Black, Ankle. One pair for general use, the other as ‘best’.

As issued, the boots had heavy dimples. The best pair had to have the dimples removed, and the toecaps and heels given a perfect mirror finish. Some keen recruits did both pairs.

To do this, a dessert spoon would be heated over a candle flame and rubbed firmly over the toecap or heal, thus softening the leather; or the candle flame applied direct and the leather rubbed by the spoon. A Poker heated in the barrack room ‘Tortoise’ (Slow But Sure was the motto on its lid) stove – or a clothes iron (heated on the stove or an electric one) – would do the same thing. Once the leather had been smoothed then came the very real ‘spit and polish’: a dab of boot polish on the cloth, a spit onto the boot and more rubbing. Using liquid shoe polish was seen as not the done thing.

Aluminium mess tins received the same rub and shine treatment.

COCLUDED . . . . . . .

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Eric Hayman

Lvl 3
3y ago

CONCLUDED:

With a mid-morning NAAFI break, lunch and perhaps another in the afternoon, the working day ended with tea, a lighter meal than lunch and sometimes barely enough. Then the recruits were at the mercy of the hut NCO again.

One evening, ours spent the best part of four hours, from 1800 hrs to 2200 hrs, having us standing by our beds while he inspected our kit, tore us to pieces and generally acted the Little Hitler.

It was also during the evening that more bulling of kit went on, along with pressing battle dress uniforms using an iron and brown paper to make sure there was no singeing of the serge. There might have been a short visit to the NAAFI, for a mug of tea and a Wagon Wheel, but with lights out at about 2200 hrs time was limited. There was the camp cinema of the Army Kinema Corporation – which showed quite up to date films.

‘Barrack room conservancy’ featured strongly. The wooden floor was expected to have a bright shine thanks to the thick gooey Kleepol (spelling) polish and the ‘bumper’, a cloth-covered heavy weight with a pivoting long handle. Dollops of polish would be dropped along the floor and the bumper swung backwards and forwards until a shine was obtained. The steel hut dustbin was NEVER used for rubbish; instead it was treated as an altar piece, being polished until it shone inside and out. The Tortoise stove was blacked all over, and the brick surround made pristine. It was after such efforts that the hut NCO would do his worst. The insides of lockers were minutely inspected, the tops received a wiping finger hoping to find specks of dust. Kit laid out on the beds would be picked up piece by piece, again looking for any minute fault.

Each recruit saw the Personnel Selection Officer, for a decision on what trade course he would take.

There would be a medical examination as well. We were all given jabs against tetanus and typhoid types A & B, a total of four that included another disease. They were deliberately given on a Friday, with the weekend ahead in case of any adverse reactions.

Shortly before Christmas I was posted to a camp at Malvern, Worcestershire, for live rifle and Bren gun practice. I recall the twinkling lights of the houses on the Malvern hills as we went for breakfast still in the dark. The rifle and Bren gun ranges had a covering of snow, which meant lying on groundsheets that soon became soaked with snow melt.

I had leave over Christmas and New Year, and by mid January had completed my basic training. I passed out successfully and was posted to Longmoor Camp in Hampshire to start my trade training.

It’s worth pointing out that regular soldiers could buy themselves out of the army for the sum of £20 at any time during those first eight weeks (my weekly pay then was £4-75p). I did not hear of any that did during my basic training. But I often thought “things can only get better”.

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8y ago

Basic training consists of learning the fundamentals of a job.

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