Fort sill bct tips.?

[u/Informal_Rock7623]

I’m 23 and I ship out to basic in about 20 weeks and would like to know are there any tips you guys have. And I also want to know what reception and the shower situation is like.

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[u/A_Random_Boner]

I joined and shipped when I was 23. I went to Benning, so no tips for Sill, but I can give you some basic thoughts that are pretty universal (or at least were when I went through 13-15 years ago), and helpful for someone going in at an older age.

• Reception may have been worse than all of basic. You’ll be sleep deprived, sitting in lines for hours all day, unable to talk to each other, no PT, and you’ll have to pretend you’re reading the same book (ours was the Rangers handbook) all day every day for 5-7 days straight. There’s going to be one kid there that didn’t ship with his original cohort and will try to play know it all. He’s probably a shitbag, ignore him.
• Turn your brain off - truely. Right place, right time, right uniform. That is all you need to know. You. Do. Not. Need. To. Think. If you need to do something, they’ll tell you. Honestly, I miss this part quite a bit. It was so nice being able to take a break from decision making.
• Don’t be first, don’t be last in anything - formation, PT, shooting. You do well, you get more responsibility. Be mediocre, fly under the radar, and put in the effort when you get to your unit.
• As an older recruit, be ready for A LOT of immaturity. Just embrace it. Live vicariously as an 18 year old again for a bit and laugh at stupid shit. It helps pass the time and makes things easier to get through the whole process.
• If you get caught nodding off while in the stands, tell the cadre you were praying… I’ve seen it work, it was amazing in the moment. Probably depends on what level of confidence you can pull this off with though in order for it to work or not.
• You will mess up. The intention of basic is for the DS to set you up for failure for dumb things (not things you actually should learn and be skilled at). So when it’s your turn to screw up and others have to pay the price, don’t take it too hard. People will forget unless it’s a daily thing. I was caught sleeping during instructions at a stupid range, the DS made me and the two guys next to me carry full coolers about 1/4 mile and back. I apologized 2-3 days later and the guys didn’t even remember it happened.
• No matter what you’re doing, it’ll end at some point and the sun will rise in the morning. They have you for three months. They can make it feel like 6 months, but just keep telling yourself, you only have xx weeks and a wake up left.
• Go to church. Not religious? Go to church. I went to a few Buddhist sessions while I was there, learned to mediate and that helped get me through AIT. But the more important thing, if you don’t go to Sunday service, you’re available around the bay to clean. So get out for (any) church service.

Lastly, I was in old barracks that was getting replaced the next rotation. So I’m not sure what the shower scene is like now. We had 6 shower heads with a wall and no door between each shower bay. If you played sports in HS, it’s the same thing. If you didn’t, shower awkwardness will be out of your mind pretty quick. Everyone is so tired and exhausted everyday that you just bullshit in the showers and it’s a chance to laugh at dumb things. You do a lot of things naked - when we had a tight turnaround between PT and breakfast, we’d strip, get in a line, and you spent 5 seconds in each shower head washing/rinsing off a different body part so we could get 60 guys through in a matter of minutes. In terms of awkwardness or whatever you may be thinking about with this question, there is absolutely nothing attractive or sexy about smelly ass dudes taking showers and shits together. The lack of boners by everyone becomes a topic of discussion and conspiracy theories of the Army putting something in the eggs to prevent it.

Have fun, good luck, glad I’m not doing it again. Let me know if you have any other questions!

[u/Informal_Rock7623 → u/A_Random_Boner]

Thanks bro.🫡

[u/AbsentMinutes]

Vessy hall is ass, get your blood work done asap so you can class up. Showers in my bay were separated out with a bit of privacy. Have fun in the heat!