recent bootcamp information oct 2014
 

I'm in A-school right now in Pensacola, Florida on Corry station. I graduated bootcamp about a week or two ago. There are a lot of things people seem to get a little fuzzy on this website. I'm going to recap from the day I arrived.

Bootcamp essentially starts at the Chicago O'Hare airport. After leaving the USO the whole group of you will meet up with a petty officer who will handle your transportation to bootcamp. just listen and you'll start off fine. You'll hop on a bus to RTC. On the way you'll watch a quick video on "The CO's top 6". Once you arrive, you hustle off the bus and line up inside the p-way. Your P-days start here! The first portion of the night will consist of you being issued your PT gear (your uniform for the next week) and shipping your civilian items back home. While you're in the process of shipping your items home youll decide what items you'll be keeping with you throughout bootcamp. If you have a bible, pictures, medallions, or anything that isn't considered contraband you will be putting it into a knit bag. A knit bag is about the size of a sheet of paper (maybe a tad bigger). The items you have will HAVE to fit into that bag if you wish to keep it. The rest of the night was pretty fuzzy for me, I was tired. Your basic military necessities will be issued to you and you'll be brought to your home for the next week. The people you see around you are your division. However, you will not meet your RDCs until you are out of P-days. P-days suck, a lot. Anyone you ask will tell you that they were the worst part of bootcamp. Its not that you're getting yelled at, for most its the fact that there life just changed in an instant. It doesn't take long to adjust to the lifestyle though. During these days you will learn the basics of folding and stowing your items, making your bunk, and developing your military bearing.

Everyone should know that the Navy is ALWAYS changing. What my bootcamp experience was like will more than likely be different than someone else's. For instance, When I arrived, when boots where issued you wore them for the remainder of the time you were in bootcamp (while in proper uniform of course). Now, Boots and sneakers are alternated because recruits kept complaining about the blisters.

Leadership rolls. When I left Navydep put me under the impression that leadership rolls were randomly selected. Maybe for the first few days for for the sake of having someone to lead the division, otherwise there are no random selections. High profile leadership rolls (RPOC, Yoeman, MA) require you to show your RDC's what you got and show that you want it. Volunteering can also get you a leadership position that is a little less high profile. If your locker and bunk look amazing all the time and they have nothing wrong with them there is the possibility of becoming a Section Leader. Your RDC will either go through everyone's bunks and pick some candidates for the positions or there will be a group that volunteers and their rack will be looked at. Mail, Head, and Laundry POs are the positions that get filled by volunteers. There are always pros and cons to being in any position. So keep your ears open for the opportunities.

A large portion of your time in bootcamp will be preparing for inspections. You will have inspections over your uniform, bunk, locker, and marching. These inspections determine how well your division matches up against all others in your training group (divisions graduating at the same time as you). Your score on your inspection among with everyone else's will be averaged, effecting your divisional score. The maximum score a division can get is 5.0. depending on your score, your division will earn titles such as "Battle Bug", "Battle E", "CNO", and "Hall of Fame". Scoring high enough to be counted among CNO or Hall of Fame is not easy. On a basic level, these flags show everyone how well you did in bootcamp. The only perk comes with being a Hall of Fame division. If you don't make Hall of Fame your division will stand watching during liberty after graduation. Hall of Fame divisions do not. Plus they get bragging rights. My division was CNO and I, unfortunately, had to stand watch right after graduation.

Please ask more questions. I have answers.

Would you say that boot camp was hard? Also what is the food like?

So RPOC is volunteer or you ask for it? Honestly I want that role.

I must point out that you acknowledged the fact that everything changes, and then immediately stated that leadership roles are done *this* way across the board. It's not true. Some RDCs will pick, some will take volunteers. Some will make the first person stick it out until the end, and some will fire people left and right.

If you want to lead, keep your mouth shut and follow directions perfectly. They'll notice, even if they don't put you in charge for it.

...also, who the hell volunteered to be Head PO? That position is custom-made to be handed out as punishment. We had a Toilet Paper PO, too.

There's a reason 9/10 of every question about RTC is answered with "It depends on your RDCs"... in the grand scheme of things, there's very little that's actually written down in an instruction. Individual RDCs choose how they want to accomplish said instructions.

Our rpoc established positions whose job was to check that x thing was on spot before we left the compartment. He called us gnomes. I was the pillow gnome.

How often did your division PT and how often/badly did you get beat? I've heard that it's gotten more relaxed in recent years (like letting you wear sneakers because your boots hurt your feet...)

You would've gotten laughed out of the compartment for that when I was there... Plus the only way you can wear those boots in is by wearing them. That's it.

/r
CTT1

We alternated boots and shoes for the first week.

When I went through, you wore boots unless you were in PT gear, or you had a chit from medical to wear sneakers.

"aircroomen"

^ I laugh at that every time :rofl:

That's crazy that the whole boot/tennis shoe alteration is actually being passed. I graduated 2 months ago and they just began to talk about that when I graduated. My division was one of the major blister divisions, we had alot of LLD's because of them. Crazy.

Maybe they should actually let Recruits buy insoles without having a medical chit, since all Recruits are afraid to goto medical. :juggle:

I also heard a rumor that they were going to replace the trainee guides with iPads. Did you hear anything about that?

What they need to do is stop letting those civilians tell Recruits what boot size to get... I went down 2 sizes when I bought a new pair in Pensacola and actually fit them properly! No blisters that time...

As far as iPads... I wouldn't hold your breath. The Army tested a program at Sill and Jackson issuing smartphones with material loaded... it didn't last.

It is true, It all depends on the RDC. From my experiance, keeping your mouth shut and behaving didnt get anyone any leadership roles. As for the PT, There are these things called "hard cards". It gets signed, initialed, and stamped and so on. On it it has a list of all the PT you are required to do throughout bootcamp and if you completed it. Up until the last few weeks of bootcamp you can count on PT 2 or 3 times a week.

It's called the eSailor Initiative, and it's undergoing test drives at RTC. Recruits won't be playing games or surfing the web, obviously, but they'll be able to to access all their study material via the tablet device. The MCPON's ultimate goal for the program is to equip all sailors in the fleet with some sort of tablet. Not sure how it is at other commands, but we have a whopping 4 computers to service the 30+ sailors in my building. If everyone had a tablet device, it would be MUCH easier to do training, study bibs, submit chits, schedule medical appointments, get on NKO/NSIPS/etc.

Look it up on Navy.mil.

They'll have to roll out yet another uniform with an integrated iPad pocket if they expect anyone to keep any kind of accountability on such a gimmick. I am not happy with this plan.

An iPad mini will fit in your NWU pocket. We used them on my last ship a lot.

It would be a good use of the Navy NeRD(http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=80920). What a stupid use of the Navy's money.
I can't wait for them to integrate a CAC card reader into it too, just like our toughbooks. Yes, let's go to the flight line and do maintenance, oh I'm used to leaving my ID behind when I de-FOD myself. Oh change of shift, now I have to logoff the laptop, let the new shift log in and hopefully they can find the current troubleshooting step I'm on. /endrant.

Just checking in

I'm sure it can go in your cargo pocket.

My son is at RTC right now. His division is a pilot division for the tennis shoes until swim test and then they wear their boots. He would have preferred to just wear his boots, that's what he's used to after being a Sea Cadet for forever. He wore the tennis shoes for a while, they were in P-Days for 14 days. Said tennis shoes with NWU's is the dumbest thing he's ever seen.

It definitely seems as though boot camp changes a lot. If you read older post and read up till now you can notice some of the differences.

That is exactly why we like people to start new threads rather than bumping threads more than a couple months old.