How to Graduate from US Army Boot Camp

Hello, I'm Chris Caffey and I'm going to try something different today. I created a guide for how to get through boot camp successfully. If you're thinking about joining the military and you're wondering exactly what to expect from that giant rite of passage, this should help you out. If you guys like this style of video, we'll do more, and if you don't, Task and Purpose will fire me. The sooner you graduate basic training, the sooner you can start counting down the days till you're finally out of the military. Here's what we'll learn. Some boot camp myths, we'll find out which guy you are at boot camp, the do's and don'ts of basic training, and keep in mind, this guide will be from my perspective, so I went through Fort Benning Army basic training, so if you're joining the Marines, add plus five difficulty. If you're joining the Air Force, go ahead and subtract five difficulty, and if you're joining the Navy, divide by five. You might be wondering what makes me qualified to create this guide. I was told by all of my drill sergeants that I was easily in the top 50 percentile of most extremely average graduates they've ever seen, and I rate a sharpshooter badge, so I know what I'm talking about. You can trust me. Okay, so part one, boot camp myths. The drill sergeants want you to fail. That is a myth. The military paid a lot of money to have that doctor at MEPS give you a medical check. That plane or bus ticket to the base, all the clothing and food that they're paying for, they want you to succeed. It's in their interest, and they'll do everything they can to break you down, make it seem like they want you to fail, but really what they want is to mold you into something that they need you to be, which is more competent. If you go in with the attitude that the drill sergeants want you to fail, then it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you do end up failing, it's not because the drill sergeants set you up for that. It's probably because you wouldn't stop staring at everyone while they were sleeping like a creep. People don't like that for some reason. I don't get why either. Myth number two, stress cards. I've heard every variation of this myth before. These rumors that go around saying that you can pull out some kind of stress card to show your drill sergeants. Other ways of that boot camp has gone soft over the years. You hear this all the time, and I've seen no evidence of this. There's no orange or yellow cards that you can just pull out to show your drill sergeant if you're feeling stressed. If you make your own stress cards at home out of colored cardboard paper, and you bring them to boot camp like I did, I can tell you from experience that drill sergeants don't honor that. They don't like that, and it makes a terrible first impression. Myth number three, your drill sergeant can hit you. This is a myth. Your drill sergeant might want to hit you, and they might do everything they can to provoke you into hitting them. They'll find poetic ways of suggesting your girlfriend back home is enjoying her time with Jody. Jody is a catch-all phrase for the person back home that's serving your girlfriend while you're serving your country. You really want to keep a cool head throughout all the yelling and personal insults that drill sergeants will do. I really recommend practicing meditation before leaving for boot camp. This will help you keep that cool head and your wits about you. It will also help you develop what's called the thick skin, which will become a fully calloused skin by the time you ETS. Part two, find out which guy you are at boot camp. There are two types of soldiers or sailors, whatever you want to identify as, in every platoon. You're going to figure out which one you are as soon as possible. The first type is the lost-in-the-sauce recruit. The military is not coming naturally to you. Seeing all the pictures of your friends having fun at college has made you really start to wonder if your recruiter sold you a giant turd. Being the lost-in-the-sauce guy, the best thing you can do is stumble your way through red phase, which is the first and most difficult part of boot camp. Just don't quit. You hate being there, but you're too scared to quit because of the shame it will bring you and your family. Good. Use that shame through red phase because after the first few weeks, the drill sergeants will begin to become more helpful. So remember, never quit, even if you're like me and shame was the only thing holding you together. The best way to deal with that is to find the guy in the platoon who's the most squared away and ask for help. If they're really that squared away, then they're going to help you un-**** yourself, and they'll be happy to do it. The second type at boot camp is the leader, absolutely crushing everything that's given to you. You're at the top of your platoon. You've read every single FM-everything. If you're that soldier, which you're not, but if you are, then you want to spend your time helping others. The worst thing that a person at the top of the platoon, that stud, can do is to pick on the weak or to try to set your fellow recruits up for failure. Even if you find yourself to be the best at a single task, like you're great at shooting, but maybe you need help on your PT, is help each other out with the skills that they needed help on. The last part, the do's and don'ts of boot camp. Do have integrity. I've seen a lot of soldiers get recycled, meaning sent back to the beginning of boot camp because even though they were five or six weeks in, they got sent back to the beginning because they did something wrong when they thought no one was looking. The drill sergeants see everything. They hear everything. If you think you can get away with hiding a cell phone or hiding porno mags, you can't. Our drill sergeants found cell phones privates had hidden in the ceiling tiles. They've made us rock march in circles, do elevated pushups, all this for four hours in the middle of the night. Don't be an individual. If you see the entire platoon doing extra PT or studying, join them. If you see everyone doing a 15 mile rock march, but the bags are going to sick call that day, do what the rest of the platoon is doing. Basically, if you're a sheep and you follow the herd at boot camp, you'll do well. That's our guide. If you have any of your own advice on how to make it through boot camp, please comment below and remember to subscribe if you like the video. Task and Purpose out.