Want to know what to expect from BCT (Basic Combat Training)?

In-processing at 30th AG

• I arrived at the reception battalion on the evening of May 6th. There I enjoyed relatively lenient and lax conditions while everyone was processed, briefed, and issued basic gear.
• It's worth mentioning that the staff (both civilian and Army) at 30th AG treat the recruits like complete crap. Like we're almost subhuman, and not worthy to be shown any amount of respect. Don't worry, it's only like that during processing in 30th AG. Once you get to your actual training company, the DS's treat you like grown men and respect you (unless you really screw up). They're there to work with you and train you. The staff and DS's at 30th AG are basically just crowd control, and extremely pissed off about it.
  
• Bottom line about 30th: it's all about waiting in lines. You wait to get gear, haircuts, paperwork processed, shots, blood drawn. Sometimes you wait standing up, sometimes they let you wait sitting down. It's boring, and you endure about a week of it.
  

The company

• There are about 230 guys in C Company split into 4 platoons.
• There are 3 DS's assigned to the platoon. They all seem like decent guys. They know when to baby us and when to scream at us and make us exercise. They are all quite dangerous if they even THINK anyone has crossed them, which, so far (week 2 or 3), has been 15-20 times per day. Someone is ALWAYS screwing up.
• All the DSs acknowledge and work with the fact that not only are we all human, but a lot of us are out-of-shape humans.
• CQ is a company-level task that has to be manned by 2 soldiers (almost always recruits) 24/7. They sit at the company's desk and keep an eye on the phone/help recruits sign in and out of the battalion area for church services and sick call and such. CQ is usually done in 1 hour blocks. I sit behind a desk and don't have to do anything unless the phone rings.

Life at BCT

• More about the day we arrived at actual BCT, by the way. It was exactly like I expected. We were dumped off the buses and had to sprint across a sandy PT area and then stand in a formation, carrying a 40 pound duffel and a huge laundry bag.
• We're given roughly 2-4 minutes from the time we sit down with a plate full of food (I mean tray) to the time we're expected to get up and leave. They get about 30 minutes to get the whole company fed.
• If you need to get stuff done, you take away from your sleep schedule. However, we are allotted 7.5 hours of sleep, so that's not too bad.
• A typical smoking during week 1 consists of 5-10 pushups, since some people in the platoon can't even handle that much
• Sunday, wake up is at 6:30, and we don't have normal training or PT.
• Sunday is the one day that you can go to sick call without missing training and possibly having to restart basic.
• The whole company went to the PX once during week 3 to refresh our haircuts (it had been about 2-1/2 weeks). The PX is like an indoor strip mall. Has a barber shop, a store, a cafeteria, an internet cafe thing, an ice cream shop, a phone place, and arcade games. We can only use the sections we're told to, when we're told to. However we see recruits who've been here much longer chilling, eating ice cream, and surfing online. Needless to say, we can't WAIT for the point that we get that kind of freedom.
• I was woken up at 1:15 AM one morning by persistent blaring sirens and white lights flashing in the bay. I thought there was really a fire for a second. The entire company evacuated and formed up 100 m away from the building. They counted us. The Department came up and turned off the sirens (not the lights). We were put back to bed with the whole bay being lit up every second from the white alarm lights. One guy said "We can rave the rest of the night!" and started dancing in time with the flashes. I fell asleep in minutes, even though I'm on a top bunk of the bay wall; the siren/light is mounted 3 feet from my head. We still don't know or care if it was a preplanned drill or an actual screw-up. If it WAS a drill, that is totally the way to do it.

PT

• They alternate running and regular exercise as our PT every morning. Actually, knowing what I do about exercise, I understand what they're doing. All of the PT schedules they keep us on are systems that maximize development in as little time as possible.
• Our PT one morning was a company-sized jog, about 2 miles.
• After any meal, everyone in 4th Platoon (58 men) is required to do 5 dips, 5 pullups, and 10 pushups, then fall into our designated formation area. None of the other platoons appear to have a PT assignment after chow like that.

Gear

• Everyone in the company was issued an M16 rifle the day we arrived; we pretty much take them everywhere we go. Except on Sundays, when they stay locked up all day.
  
• We lay our rifles across our fingers while we're exercised, at least during pushups.

Training

• At first I was worried about how I'd carry water and stay hydrated during BCT, however, that isn't a concern any more. One of the very first items I was issued in reception was a camo camelback. It is considered part of the uniform, basically only to take off when you sleep. Having an empty/low camelback is grounds for instant, severe punishment.
• We had a 60 minute long bayonet drill, which consisted of wandering back and forth on the sandy PT track, wearing full body armor/combat gear and swinging our rifles.
• At least one guy from C Company gets emergency treatment for heat injury every day, and several ambulances speed by to other BCT companies every day.
• Tear gas: That was the most unpleasant experience of my life. I never want to experience tear gas again.
• We did a confidence-building obstacle course and started first aid training.
  
• We stick each other; we have to set up a saline lock, flush it, and use it to start an IV.
• The obstacle course was all I hoped for. We did a belly crawl for 20 feet, ran, climbed a 15-foot rope, slid down, ran to monkey bars (jumping a 3-foot gap on the way), did them, balanced over a log, ran foot by foot through a line of laying-down tires, jumped down a couple of 3-foot drops (staying low), pulled ourselves across a 15-foot length of rope, secured about 8 feet high at both ends with a lot of slack, crawled under barbed wire for 25 feet (and the ground under the wire wasn't just muddy, it had 4 inches of standing water), vaulted over a fence segment (keeping a low profile), bear-walked (on all 4s) to a wall segment, crab-walked to a short pipe and crawled through it. The whole platoon did it, then the top 6 from each platoon ran against each other to determine who won the event. My platoon's top 6 blew.
• One day we mainly did a course on moving injured people. Improvised and intended stretchers, drag methods ... And the fireman's carry. My partner for the fireman's carry cheerfully threw me over his shoulders and sprinted the required distance. Then it was my turn. I'm 145, he was 220. I still did it, both in full combat gear and carrying rifles.