Posted: 4/15/2010 12:53:15 AM EDT
My son is on his way to FT Benning. Anyone care to offer some advice that mignt help him through the next 8 weeks? Thanx in advance and also for your service. 
ETA He is a 2nd Looey. I think he is skipping Basic. Thats why only 8 weeks of IT. Then onto Ranger School. Thanks again all. |
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I think it is longer than 8 weeks. I remember it being more like 12 total not counting 30th AG. Basic is awesome... if he is into guns and the outdoors. Everyday you wake up and learn some new military weapon or skill. The only hard part of basic is being away from home and not being able to call. Just tell him to keep his head down and try not to let the DS learn his name.
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14 weeks when I went in '03. Mouth shut, ears open, do better than you're best. It's not hard at all. Doesn't mean he won't want to quit though! Nah, they hand out lollipops and high 5's now. Hell, even if he gets a negative counseling statement the conclude the cession with a hug and I love you! |
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14 weeks when I went in '03. Mouth shut, ears open, do better than you're best. It's not hard at all. Doesn't mean he won't want to quit though! Nah, they hand out lollipops and high 5's now. Hell, even if he gets a negative counseling statement the conclude the cession with a hug and I love you! The drills are required to give foot massages after every PT session. |
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Quoted: My son is on his way to FT Benning. Anyone care to offer some advice that mignt help him through the next 8 weeks? Thanx in advance and also for your service. 30th AG sucks, get in, get out, and get downrange ASAP. Well when he gets to his BCT company expect a BS 30 second phone call. It's scripted and it's get on get off. Aside from that, have fun while you're there. Catholic confession and mass are two separate services he can attend at different times on Sunday which will eat up the most time away from the bay. Jewish services give out doughnuts afterwards. Write letters, they're worth 100000 more than phone calls. Include news clippings, I wanted to know all about the news and weather. If he ends up at D 1/50 shoot me an IM. |
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Don't send him anything but letters.
If you send cookies, brownies, etc., he MAY get to eat them, but he will pay dearly for them. Most likely he won't get them and will still pay dearly for them, LOL. If you are handling his mail and such, you might check his account and make sure he's getting paid. My pay was messed up simply because the routing number was 1 digit off. |
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all of the above and also... don't let the Drill Sgt know your name. I was roster number 303 my whole 13 weeks. Those poor souls who the DS knew their name suffered for it. The DS only got to know your name if you were a screw up. And never let them give you a nickname.... whoa The poor guy who was nicknamed "thunderbolt" took it in the shorts all the time. This guy shaved two lighting bolts into his crew cut the first day and man oh man..... LOL! |
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Thanx again everyone. I found out yesterday, he will be keeping his phone so we'll be able to keep in touch. what the fuck? No offense, but is this US Army Infantry training? Yes, but with Hugs and high 5's. Mickey Mouse is the Master Fitness NCO. |
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Thanx again everyone. I found out yesterday, he will be keeping his phone so we'll be able to keep in touch. Keeping his phone? Must be nice. Goes to show the difference between O and E. For our first 8 weeks before AIT, we didn't even get to keep our watches or vitamin supplements or anything besides what was issued. |
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Don't send him anything but letters. If you send cookies, brownies, etc., he MAY get to eat them, but he will pay dearly for them. Most likely he won't get them and will still pay dearly for them, LOL. If you are handling his mail and such, you might check his account and make sure he's getting paid. My pay was messed up simply because the routing number was 1 digit off. Make sure to spray the letters with perfume or body spray before you send them. 
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| I'm in the course right now. What questions does he have specifically? It's basically like a graduate school course. As long as he's a 280/300 PTer and knows that his butterbar doesn't mean crap just yet, he'll do fine. It's a 16 week period of instruction, it's challenging but not impossible. over half the time is in the field M-F, the rest of the time in garrison days usually go from 0545 to around 1800. Let me know what else he wants to know. |
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IBOLC is longer than OSUT. Add in BCT/OCS/IBOLC/Ranger and you've got a pipeline that includes 46 weeks of training. How many 11Bs spend that much time in training? That's because we don't need our hands held for 46 weeks to get the idea.  OH SNAP! 
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Pretty sure you aren't learning the same things... Whatever. You're absolutely right. Enlisted learn common sense, initiative, and how to succeed. Officers learn.......... well, I'm sure they learn something, anyway. Riiight Been both, the best way to solve the "I can do it better than my Lts syndrome" is to let them run the show for a while. It is shocking how many times those who say the Lt cannot do something, cannot do it either. |
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Pretty sure you aren't learning the same things... Whatever. You're absolutely right. Enlisted learn common sense, initiative, and how to succeed. Officers learn.......... well, I'm sure they learn something, anyway. Riiight Been both, the best way to solve the "I can do it better than my Lts syndrome" is to let them run the show for a while. It is shocking how many times those who say the Lt cannot do something, cannot do it either. Did this once. Ran my NCOs through a dismounted land-nav course (we were mech.) Never heard shit about "Lost LT" again. Also, we were deploying to Bosnia in 96 with the initial push. Missed the turn to our ROM site and had to turn 45 vehicles around. Heard the grumbling on the net. I broke squelch and calmly said, "Anybody who thinks they can move this convoy through a snow storm in a country we ain't ever been before is free to take the lead." Quiet radio after that. |
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Pretty sure you aren't learning the same things... Whatever. You're absolutely right. Enlisted learn common sense, initiative, and how to succeed. Officers learn.......... well, I'm sure they learn something, anyway. Alright I've been pretty quiet until now. I get it, ha ha, butterbar, officers suck. But if you really want to know what it's like instead of just getting your jabs in I can tell you right now that the standards at IBOLC are inarguably tougher than AIT. I went to basic. I spent my time as a Private. I watched as guys got to try and hit 23 targets their 5th time at the range and everybody looked the other way while Drill Sergeants tossed them a few extra rounds. I watched guys struggle to make 60 points in all the categories of the PT test. I held about 4 other privates' hands through the land nav course so they could pass. I did the whole PG for all of BCT, high BRM, honor platoon, honor grad thing; and I'm telling you right now the standards are higher here. I'm not trying to brag, I know I suck at a lot of stuff. You should have seen me trying to zero my PEQ15 without any training, I was a fucking soup sandwich until an E5 fresh back from Iraq came over and fixed me. The point I'm trying to make is that both Officers and Enlisted need each other for the Army to function properly. If you want to do your thing and poke fun at the zeroes, hey that's fine. If you really think officers can't learn common sense, initiative, and how to succeed then you ought to try and fix that by taking the first step and to heading to OCS. Maybe you'll kick some ass, or maybe you'll be like a good percentage of my classmates and either decide for yourself or have the Army decide for you that you're better suited as enlisted. You'll never know until you try. |