I am done with the army Initial Entry Training . I thought I would put down some of my thoughts. I found basic to be in many ways not as difficult as I expected. The most difficult part was perhaps reception processing, where we are in-processed into the army. This is where we get out shoots,our uniforms and all ofthe other administrative necessities the Armny demands before basic can begin. Normally basic is about a week, but for some reason mine took two. Reception is truly quite boring. We get up in the morning and normally we do some portion of the initial in-processing such as the issue of uniforms and boots and immunization. In many cases recruits that got through this process will do more than one of these things in one day, my group had the dubious benefit of doing of of these steps in daily thus prolonging our reception to two weeks rather than the normal one week. At least the food was good.
Once reception was done, we marched over to our basic training company. Our training began almost immediately. The first thing we did when we walked into our room and found our beds was to get our first "smoking" or P.T. basic training style. We began by holding our duffel bags, full of reception issue items, over our heads for what seemed like an eternity. I was sore for a week after that weekend. For the next nine weeks we went through the basic training process. From an older man, who is out of shape coming into basic was hard but rewarding. There is a sense of pride that comes from graduating basic along with kids young enought to be my children.
The AIT process is similar in some ways but vastly different in others. AIT is where we are trained in what will be our jobs in the big army. Going through AIT entails standing in endless formations but also going to classes that are very interesting and informative. The challenge is often staying awake as one has to go on what is often less than recuperative sleep. But again now at the end of the process I feel a little like I did in basic, I made it through the entire IET process along with people half my age. Now I look forward to spending time with my wifes and kids. I also look forward to going back to national guard unit and being productive with them. I also look forward to putting what I have learned to use in the civilian word, one of the perks of being a weekend warrior. I hope this nine month ride has been worth it.
