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Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15
Is basic hard to pass?
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The drop out rate is pretty low, I think they lose about 5% through basic attrition and most of that in the first couple of weeks. The tough thing is if you get injured and get pulled and have to repeat.
Is it hard. I can say for sure that the first week or so is confusing and you learned a whole new swear dictionary. The old military tradition was that you could weed out the week or not prepared very quickly.
Lack of sleep hard core scheduling learning kit maintenance and the basic stuff that you thought you had locked down lead to more frustration then anything else. Add to it instructors that seem to be incredibly picky and seem to want you to hate them.
The physical training isn't difficult if your in half way decent shape, but people that aren't in shape get drained in a hurry. On top of that when you start doing stuff like basic drill for hours each day your mind starts screaming out for something else to do, and if you lost focus for just a second you'd be nose to nose with a very unhappy instructor who inside is screaming "yes yes yes"
The biggest problem is that basic training seems to be incredibly long, you don't see that light at the end of the tunnel at the start. Its just endless drilling, cleaning, familiarization and very little free time.
The worst part is the class room training that we did in my day. Because you'd been on the move and doing a lot of very physical stuff, then they'd toss you into a overly hot (unintentional this isn't a Demi Moore movie)oxygen poor movie and your head would start bobbing. Plus the classes weren't that interesting. Rank and structures, hygene, radio usage, equipment care, basic moral stuff. small unit tactics etc. you just couldn't keep your eyes open.
But once you got about half way through. Those bumps and bruises and ruptured ear drums from yelling and the lack of sleep, suddenly you broke through it all because you could see the end and you were doing a lot more cool stuff. You got to play with more of the toys. Your instructors with the exception of PT time eased off about 10% which is a lot. You got to practice what you learned in the first parts. The correction was a bit more gentle and they started talking to you as an adult.
The pushups and running that you really struggled with in the first part, you could suddenly just do. Even the food which I classified as terrible started tasting better.
The other big thing is that those strangers surrounding you each night that were just as exhausted as you and snarky and wondering what the hell they were doing there just like you. A large percentage of them became closer then the best friends that you had before.
You got more freedoms then you had at the start which was a basic work day that went from 5:00 am til 11:00 pm by the time you finished getting ready for the next day. But man you learned time saving cheats too.
the other reason why the second half was easier, because you got to go out in the field and work on field craft, and it was bruising and tough and demanding but you finally felt like you were going to be a soldier and not a marionette.
By the time you get to that last week though, all this stuff is actually a lot of fun.
I look back on it, and I don't remember much of the first half, but I remember all of the second half, and I remember when I was getting ready to leave I was sent to work with a reserve basic training group and I groused about how much nicer we had to be to those people and how that swearing dictionary that I had built up for three years went almost completely unused.
I will say that in order to not complete basic training you have to be a complete mess of a human being with bad genes and a disgraceful temperament.
I can see someone not making it through infantry training, that was a tough tough course with next to no sleep, a ton of field work, but I got to play with all of the cool toys so while it was tough it was easier.
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