When I went through Air Force Basic, fifth week was the so-called "Warrior Week", the one stretch of training where we got to go run around in the field, shoot guns, sleep in tents, eat MREs, basically play war. I understand BMT has changed drastically since then, and now there's a lot more time devoted to these wargames, and it's a much bigger part of BMT. So for those looking to enter bootcamp, take this article with a grain of salt. As for me, I'll never forget the days I spent sleep-deprived in the blistering heat. This is the story of my transformation from civilian to airman.
We bid a weeklong farewell to Wolfpack Squadron and to the usual posse of TIs who oversaw us. Our rucksacks packed with spare clothes, we boarded a bus which took us away from Lackland proper, to a camp somewhere off in the wilderness of San Antonio. My flight, and our female sister flight, weren't the only ones arriving: each of the training squadrons sent their fifthweek flights to this camp, and there was some amount of inter-squadron mingling. It was chaos when we first arrived. Our usual drill sergeants were replaced with new ones, who wasted no time barking orders at us to get everything pinned down. From the boys I'd shared a dorm with and endured plenty of abuse and training with for the past month, sixty warriors would be born.
EVERYDAY LIFE IN CAMP
Most of the usual routines of BMT were turned on their heads. The emphasis was no longer placed so much on tedious details-- we still had to make the beds (cots, actually), but it only took a minute and wasn't inspected very rigorously. Instead, we suffered under time constraints which made the previous weeks seem like leisurely strolls around Lackland.
Take showering, for example. Rather than our own shower right in our dorm, there were a handful of shower chambers, one of which our flight was assigned. There was no timeslot alloted specifically for showering, instead we had to figure that out on our own out of the tiny amount of freedom we had in the evenings. Consequently, some airmen really skimped here, showering only every other day, or taking other time-saving measures. Of course we weren't supposed to do that, but bathing was unsupervised so it was every man for himself.
About one-third of meals took place in a central chow tent, with ridiculous lines and a ridiculous rush to eat, and two-thirds were Meals Ready-to-Eat (MREs). An MRE is what the U.S. military issues to soldiers in the field. It's an extremely condensed meal. Each package has a main course and several sides. They're actually pretty good. You could eat the meal cold or hot. Needless to say, a combatant in the field doesn't enjoy the luxuries of any kind of kitchen. The way he heats his meal is rather interesting. There's a kind of "pocket" you insert the meal into. The boundaries of the pocket are full of some sort of chemical (the food doesn't actually come in contact with the chemical). You carefully add some water to the chemical, and a reaction makes it hot as hell. Voila, a hot meal, with no smoke to betray your position to enemy snipers. Modern warfare!
Besides giving us some practice chowing down like a warfighter, these packaged eats allowed us to pack a bunch more activity into Warrior Week, without having to constantly take breaks to divert the whole flight to dining facilities. That means the whole time was just that much more stressful.
In Lackland, we paid quite a bit of attention to keeping our uniforms clean and our boots shining. Not so much in Warrior Camp. The entire complex was covered in some kind of crunchy white gravel, and at the end of the day, everything from the knees down was covered in white dust. It was kind of funny seeing our shiny black boots turned white. And that's not even the dirtiest we'd be getting during our tenure there.
After passing fourth week, there was a noticeable shift in supervision. We were less supervised by drill sergeants, and more responsibility went into the hands of our own airmen leaders. See, each flight has an airman leader, one of our own who was chosen for that role (largely based on rank-- some men come in with higher rank as part of their enlistment contracts). Throughout the first four weeks, this didn't mean a whole heck of a lot. Starting in this white-gravel hell, though, the airmen leaders took tons more leadership and our TI's left us unsupervised far more often.
One of the biggest trials we faced here was sleep deprivation. There were fewer hours allotted for sleeping, and we still had to pull dorm guard duty (actually, tent guard duty now). To make things worse, if we had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, we were required to use a buddy system, since the latrines were in a separate building. And sleeping conditions were poorer, sleeping on a tiny cot in a giant tent. As if to taunt us, our TIs forbade us use the coffee packets included in our Meals Ready-to-Eat. We sorely, desperately longed for that coffee just to keep our weary eyes open!
Throughout this whole time, we were carrying around fake M16's, and there were lots of protocols about how you had to handle them. Basically always keep them pointed at the sky. Which leads us to the next topic...
RIFLE TRAINING
I understand that in the new AF bootcamp, significantly more time is devoted to learning to shoot. When I went through, it took up less than a day, and very little of that consisted of actually firing anything. Most of our training consisted of endless safety lectures. We also spent tons of time going over the process of cleaning and loading a rifle. I'm not very good at doing precise things with my hands, and had a lot of difficulty here. I guess if I ever have to kill me some nazis, I'll just resort to some kung fu fighting ;)
We got quite a bit of lecturing about how, at the range, we were only to aim our rifles at the targets. They really emphasized how the sergeants working there were armed, and how if they shot any stupid airmen waving their rifles around, those sergeants would be rewarded and promoted. And if you took your hands off a loaded rifle for any reason, they'd be pretty pissed. Leaving a weapon loaded and unwatched was a cardinal sin.
Finally we got to the range and got to play marksman. Let's just say I'm not the world's premier sniper. I barely hit the target at all, much less the bullseye. If I were in the Army or Marines, I would've probably failed boot camp then and there. Good thing I was in the Air Force, signed up as a weather forecaster.
FIRST-AID TRAINING
We received seminars on a variety of topics, including combat first-aid. Of course, we being mostly recent high-school graduates, we weren't expected to be doing brain surgery. Mostly we were taught some basics to try and keep casualties alive until medics could arrive.
We got to take turns being casualties and take turns carrying each other. Rest assured, if you should get shot while reading Glowing Face Man, and enemies are closing in, I'll carry you to safety.
NBC WARFARE
NBC stands for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical. NBC training was our introduction to these horrors of modern warfare. It was an all-day activity, and one of the most interesting experiences at boot camp. Mainly it followed a seminar format, airmen sitting in bleachers receiving lectures about the theory and practice of combat in an NBC environment. But, with a twist. We had gas masks, and the lecturer would periodically shout, "GAS! GAS! GAS!" At that point, you had a few seconds to throw the mask on and secure it. A gas mask isn't easy to put on, at least not the monstrosities we had. Those of us with glasses had it worse, since we had to wear our special-issue "Spiderman Goggles", extremely uncomfortable glasses-goggles made for wearing beneath a gasmask. I still have the things somewhere at my parents' house.
Toward the end of the day, we dressed up in full-body protective gear. That basically means wearing a thick extra set of clothing over everything else. We did this in the sweltering Texas Summer heat. We had to make ourselves airtight, tucking the overpants into our boots, wearing gloves, the works. Add the gasmask and its built-in hood, and we were ready to dive into the trenches of World War I. Oh, and one other thing. That huge, thick extra layer of clothing we had to wear? Yeah, the insides were completely caked with charcoal.
I've never been dirtier than I was on that day of Chem Warfare training. See, charcoal is the one-size-fits-all countermeasure against all sorts of nasty stuff the enemy might pump into the air. By the time I got out of that bio warfare armor, the sweat my body was profusely pumping out would transform the charcoal into a nasty gray mud.
For the day's climax, we sealed our gasmasks and lined up to enter a room where they'd demonstrate the masks' efficacy. Inside that room, some fragrant incense was lit, and if you could smell it, it meant your mask was not secure. In a wartime situation, that would mean you were dead. Of course, none of us smelled the incense until it was our turn to take the mask off. Then, smelling the scent, we were assured of how the masks would have saved our lives if that room had been filled with mustard gas instead of incense.
As for me, my mask was secured, but it was somehow put on in a bad way. It was too tight, and was making it hard to even breathe. I was extremely relieved when I was finally able to take the mask off and rush back out into the free air. Good thing it wasn't a real chemical war zone.
After doing a day of NBC, that set of clothes was totally filthy, and wouldn't become wearable again until it got a vigorous treatment of dry cleaning.
WAR GAMES
On one of the later evenings of WarriorWeek, we actually played some short war games. The TI's were the enemies, and flashlights were weapons, and we ran around "shooting" each other. I took it pretty seriously and really got into it, but a lot of the airmen just used our "main base" tent as a rare opportunity to get a few more minutes of precious shuteye.
I don't remember many details about the game, but I remember the flight captains (airman leaders) went to a bunker and we were supposed to protect them. There was also some password we were supposed to keep the drill sergeants from learning, and warzone sound effects blared on some speakers. Overall, it was pretty cheesy.
The next day, we ran through some obstacle courses with lots of sound effects playing to make it sound like a battlefield. A kind of introduction to trench warfare. And we did a long march, complete with loaded backpacks, fake M16's, and occasionally hitting the dirt as someone shouted warnings. The latter ensured we got pretty dirty. To be honest, though, I was a little disappointed in the difficulty of the march and obstacle course. It was pretty easy. I understand they've beefed up the field portion of BMT a lot since then.
FROM TRAINEE TO AIRMAN
To finish off the festivities of the week, we bussed out to a big obstacle course area for a day of patriotic propaganda and indoctrination. The obstacle course was much larger than the fake-live fire one I mentioned above. It included all kinds of components: climbing, swinging across water, crawling through tunnels, and so on. Unfortunately it lost a lot of its intensity because if you couldn't pass an obstacle, you were allowed to skip it and there were no negative consequences. So it was basically just the honor system. There were drill sergeants scattered around, including our main sergeants from the previous weeks. It was interesting hearing Senior Airman Nichols shout something at me as I grabbed a rope and started climbing a vertical rise.
A lot of airmen got soaked falling into water when they failed to pass certain obstacles. Chalk up another point for the dry cleaners.
After the obstacle course came a long period of waiting around. After hours of sitting around waiting, our squadron commander showed up and we went through some very patriotic ceremonies. The climax was that we each got to march to the commander, exchange salutes, and receive an Airman's Coin from him.
The Airman's Coin is a coin every airman has, proving they got this far in BMT. When you get the coin, you officially change from a "trainee" to an "airman". From now on, when you address a Drill Sergeant, instead of saying "Sir, Trainee Face Man reports as ordered", you say "Sir, Airman Face Man reports as ordered." It doesn't sound like much, but it's a big psychological change. This signalled our entrance into the almost mythical final days that we'd all been waiting so long for. And that, my friend, is the next entry.
Air Force Boot Camp really toughened me up a lot. This is the story of my seven weeks of AETC Hell...
Zero Week
First Week
Second & Third Week
Fourth Week
Sixth Week
FURTHER READING
Here's a technique I wish I'd had back in basic training. The Sword-Neck Technique. It lets you push through fears and do what you need to do.
I've gone through other types of transformations in my life, mental instead of physical. Read about how I taught myself calculus.
One thing you can do to prepare for bootcamp is to get in good physical shape. I wasn't really in all that great shape when I shipped out. Now I'm in better shape, thanks to weight lifting. Read about Benchpress To Exhaustion, one technique for rapidly building muscle.
We bid a weeklong farewell to Wolfpack Squadron and to the usual posse of TIs who oversaw us. Our rucksacks packed with spare clothes, we boarded a bus which took us away from Lackland proper, to a camp somewhere off in the wilderness of San Antonio. My flight, and our female sister flight, weren't the only ones arriving: each of the training squadrons sent their fifthweek flights to this camp, and there was some amount of inter-squadron mingling. It was chaos when we first arrived. Our usual drill sergeants were replaced with new ones, who wasted no time barking orders at us to get everything pinned down. From the boys I'd shared a dorm with and endured plenty of abuse and training with for the past month, sixty warriors would be born.
EVERYDAY LIFE IN CAMP
Most of the usual routines of BMT were turned on their heads. The emphasis was no longer placed so much on tedious details-- we still had to make the beds (cots, actually), but it only took a minute and wasn't inspected very rigorously. Instead, we suffered under time constraints which made the previous weeks seem like leisurely strolls around Lackland.
Take showering, for example. Rather than our own shower right in our dorm, there were a handful of shower chambers, one of which our flight was assigned. There was no timeslot alloted specifically for showering, instead we had to figure that out on our own out of the tiny amount of freedom we had in the evenings. Consequently, some airmen really skimped here, showering only every other day, or taking other time-saving measures. Of course we weren't supposed to do that, but bathing was unsupervised so it was every man for himself.
About one-third of meals took place in a central chow tent, with ridiculous lines and a ridiculous rush to eat, and two-thirds were Meals Ready-to-Eat (MREs). An MRE is what the U.S. military issues to soldiers in the field. It's an extremely condensed meal. Each package has a main course and several sides. They're actually pretty good. You could eat the meal cold or hot. Needless to say, a combatant in the field doesn't enjoy the luxuries of any kind of kitchen. The way he heats his meal is rather interesting. There's a kind of "pocket" you insert the meal into. The boundaries of the pocket are full of some sort of chemical (the food doesn't actually come in contact with the chemical). You carefully add some water to the chemical, and a reaction makes it hot as hell. Voila, a hot meal, with no smoke to betray your position to enemy snipers. Modern warfare!
Besides giving us some practice chowing down like a warfighter, these packaged eats allowed us to pack a bunch more activity into Warrior Week, without having to constantly take breaks to divert the whole flight to dining facilities. That means the whole time was just that much more stressful.
In Lackland, we paid quite a bit of attention to keeping our uniforms clean and our boots shining. Not so much in Warrior Camp. The entire complex was covered in some kind of crunchy white gravel, and at the end of the day, everything from the knees down was covered in white dust. It was kind of funny seeing our shiny black boots turned white. And that's not even the dirtiest we'd be getting during our tenure there.
After passing fourth week, there was a noticeable shift in supervision. We were less supervised by drill sergeants, and more responsibility went into the hands of our own airmen leaders. See, each flight has an airman leader, one of our own who was chosen for that role (largely based on rank-- some men come in with higher rank as part of their enlistment contracts). Throughout the first four weeks, this didn't mean a whole heck of a lot. Starting in this white-gravel hell, though, the airmen leaders took tons more leadership and our TI's left us unsupervised far more often.
One of the biggest trials we faced here was sleep deprivation. There were fewer hours allotted for sleeping, and we still had to pull dorm guard duty (actually, tent guard duty now). To make things worse, if we had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, we were required to use a buddy system, since the latrines were in a separate building. And sleeping conditions were poorer, sleeping on a tiny cot in a giant tent. As if to taunt us, our TIs forbade us use the coffee packets included in our Meals Ready-to-Eat. We sorely, desperately longed for that coffee just to keep our weary eyes open!
Throughout this whole time, we were carrying around fake M16's, and there were lots of protocols about how you had to handle them. Basically always keep them pointed at the sky. Which leads us to the next topic...
RIFLE TRAINING
I understand that in the new AF bootcamp, significantly more time is devoted to learning to shoot. When I went through, it took up less than a day, and very little of that consisted of actually firing anything. Most of our training consisted of endless safety lectures. We also spent tons of time going over the process of cleaning and loading a rifle. I'm not very good at doing precise things with my hands, and had a lot of difficulty here. I guess if I ever have to kill me some nazis, I'll just resort to some kung fu fighting ;)
We got quite a bit of lecturing about how, at the range, we were only to aim our rifles at the targets. They really emphasized how the sergeants working there were armed, and how if they shot any stupid airmen waving their rifles around, those sergeants would be rewarded and promoted. And if you took your hands off a loaded rifle for any reason, they'd be pretty pissed. Leaving a weapon loaded and unwatched was a cardinal sin.
Finally we got to the range and got to play marksman. Let's just say I'm not the world's premier sniper. I barely hit the target at all, much less the bullseye. If I were in the Army or Marines, I would've probably failed boot camp then and there. Good thing I was in the Air Force, signed up as a weather forecaster.
FIRST-AID TRAINING
We received seminars on a variety of topics, including combat first-aid. Of course, we being mostly recent high-school graduates, we weren't expected to be doing brain surgery. Mostly we were taught some basics to try and keep casualties alive until medics could arrive.
We got to take turns being casualties and take turns carrying each other. Rest assured, if you should get shot while reading Glowing Face Man, and enemies are closing in, I'll carry you to safety.
NBC WARFARE
NBC stands for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical. NBC training was our introduction to these horrors of modern warfare. It was an all-day activity, and one of the most interesting experiences at boot camp. Mainly it followed a seminar format, airmen sitting in bleachers receiving lectures about the theory and practice of combat in an NBC environment. But, with a twist. We had gas masks, and the lecturer would periodically shout, "GAS! GAS! GAS!" At that point, you had a few seconds to throw the mask on and secure it. A gas mask isn't easy to put on, at least not the monstrosities we had. Those of us with glasses had it worse, since we had to wear our special-issue "Spiderman Goggles", extremely uncomfortable glasses-goggles made for wearing beneath a gasmask. I still have the things somewhere at my parents' house.
Toward the end of the day, we dressed up in full-body protective gear. That basically means wearing a thick extra set of clothing over everything else. We did this in the sweltering Texas Summer heat. We had to make ourselves airtight, tucking the overpants into our boots, wearing gloves, the works. Add the gasmask and its built-in hood, and we were ready to dive into the trenches of World War I. Oh, and one other thing. That huge, thick extra layer of clothing we had to wear? Yeah, the insides were completely caked with charcoal.
I've never been dirtier than I was on that day of Chem Warfare training. See, charcoal is the one-size-fits-all countermeasure against all sorts of nasty stuff the enemy might pump into the air. By the time I got out of that bio warfare armor, the sweat my body was profusely pumping out would transform the charcoal into a nasty gray mud.
For the day's climax, we sealed our gasmasks and lined up to enter a room where they'd demonstrate the masks' efficacy. Inside that room, some fragrant incense was lit, and if you could smell it, it meant your mask was not secure. In a wartime situation, that would mean you were dead. Of course, none of us smelled the incense until it was our turn to take the mask off. Then, smelling the scent, we were assured of how the masks would have saved our lives if that room had been filled with mustard gas instead of incense.
As for me, my mask was secured, but it was somehow put on in a bad way. It was too tight, and was making it hard to even breathe. I was extremely relieved when I was finally able to take the mask off and rush back out into the free air. Good thing it wasn't a real chemical war zone.
After doing a day of NBC, that set of clothes was totally filthy, and wouldn't become wearable again until it got a vigorous treatment of dry cleaning.
WAR GAMES
On one of the later evenings of WarriorWeek, we actually played some short war games. The TI's were the enemies, and flashlights were weapons, and we ran around "shooting" each other. I took it pretty seriously and really got into it, but a lot of the airmen just used our "main base" tent as a rare opportunity to get a few more minutes of precious shuteye.
I don't remember many details about the game, but I remember the flight captains (airman leaders) went to a bunker and we were supposed to protect them. There was also some password we were supposed to keep the drill sergeants from learning, and warzone sound effects blared on some speakers. Overall, it was pretty cheesy.
The next day, we ran through some obstacle courses with lots of sound effects playing to make it sound like a battlefield. A kind of introduction to trench warfare. And we did a long march, complete with loaded backpacks, fake M16's, and occasionally hitting the dirt as someone shouted warnings. The latter ensured we got pretty dirty. To be honest, though, I was a little disappointed in the difficulty of the march and obstacle course. It was pretty easy. I understand they've beefed up the field portion of BMT a lot since then.
FROM TRAINEE TO AIRMAN
To finish off the festivities of the week, we bussed out to a big obstacle course area for a day of patriotic propaganda and indoctrination. The obstacle course was much larger than the fake-live fire one I mentioned above. It included all kinds of components: climbing, swinging across water, crawling through tunnels, and so on. Unfortunately it lost a lot of its intensity because if you couldn't pass an obstacle, you were allowed to skip it and there were no negative consequences. So it was basically just the honor system. There were drill sergeants scattered around, including our main sergeants from the previous weeks. It was interesting hearing Senior Airman Nichols shout something at me as I grabbed a rope and started climbing a vertical rise.
A lot of airmen got soaked falling into water when they failed to pass certain obstacles. Chalk up another point for the dry cleaners.
After the obstacle course came a long period of waiting around. After hours of sitting around waiting, our squadron commander showed up and we went through some very patriotic ceremonies. The climax was that we each got to march to the commander, exchange salutes, and receive an Airman's Coin from him.
The Airman's Coin is a coin every airman has, proving they got this far in BMT. When you get the coin, you officially change from a "trainee" to an "airman". From now on, when you address a Drill Sergeant, instead of saying "Sir, Trainee Face Man reports as ordered", you say "Sir, Airman Face Man reports as ordered." It doesn't sound like much, but it's a big psychological change. This signalled our entrance into the almost mythical final days that we'd all been waiting so long for. And that, my friend, is the next entry.
Air Force Boot Camp really toughened me up a lot. This is the story of my seven weeks of AETC Hell...
Zero Week
First Week
Second & Third Week
Fourth Week
Sixth Week
FURTHER READING
Here's a technique I wish I'd had back in basic training. The Sword-Neck Technique. It lets you push through fears and do what you need to do.
I've gone through other types of transformations in my life, mental instead of physical. Read about how I taught myself calculus.
One thing you can do to prepare for bootcamp is to get in good physical shape. I wasn't really in all that great shape when I shipped out. Now I'm in better shape, thanks to weight lifting. Read about Benchpress To Exhaustion, one technique for rapidly building muscle.
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2 comments:
As the father of a newly enlisted son into the Air Force, I found this to be interesting. Sometimes I sit at home wondering what he is up against......Now I see!......It only makes me more proud of the boy that I dropped off at the recruiters office. If he makes it through basic training, that boy will truely be a Man!
This was so helpful to me! My son left for Lackland on May 25th and I received the "20 second" phone call with his address but have not heard any more since. I am missing him terribly and wonder how he is doing. Oddly enough, my son's last name is Alexander...how is that for irony?? Thanks for posting the blog Sam. Best wishes to you.
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