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Preparing for Basic Training, tl;dr intro Anonymous
>>32855

>>Please tell me more about basic.

This may be a common question in here since I suspect some of you are /k/ expats looking to bulk up to join a particular branch of service. With that in mind, I will give you the benefit of my experience.

Presenting Old Geezer's guide to Army Fitness.

First, for full disclosure I joined the Army in 1998 when I was 18 (hence my tripcode) as a 13M, or MLRS Crewmember. I was then sent to Ft. Sill, OK for the initial processing. Then I transferred to Ft. Sill, OK for Basic Combat Training. From there, I was sent to Ft. Sill for Advanced Individual Training. Guess where I was put for a permanent duty station?

I managed to make it through BCT fine, but was discharged with a General Discharge under Other Than Honorable conditions. No crimes were committed besides me telling my Battery Commander that I wasn't going to do anything anymore and there was no point in keeping me in the Army. Keep in mind this was 1999, so there was no incentive for my BC to go through the hassle of punishment, aside from dragging his feet as long as possible on my discharge.
>> Old Geezer !YI1jEQivlM
No, none of my DS's ever looked like the OP. Also, if you want to catch a glimpse of Ft. Sill, watch In The Army Now with Paulie Shore. It's where they'd filmed the Basic Training scenes. I gave you my back story so you can see that I'm a stickler for honesty. I could have told you I'm currently a SEAL typing this from a hide in Iraq.

Basic Combat Training.

Keep in mind the three parts of the PT test: The push-up, the sit-up, and the two mile run. Almost all exercises in BCT related to those three tests. Occasionally there were some slightly different exercises, but very rarely.

For sit-ups there were mainly the sit-up, the crunch, and the flutter kick. You know what the sit-up and the crunch are, but let me explain the flutter kick for you. You lay on your back with your hands under your butt, raise your feet six inches or so off the ground, and scissor your legs up and down lifting your feet at least a foot and a half off the ground, keeping your feet more than six inches off the ground at all times. Occasionally the DS would have raise both feet together to a vertical position and hold it for a half a minute or less.

T-bones. This is a weirder one. You place your hands on the ground behind you, and your feet out slightly in front; as if you were about to crab walk. Then on a four count (everything is done on a four count, i.e. push-ups are down, 1, up, 2, down, 3, up, FOUR!!!), you kick your legs forward, out to either side, back to the middle, and back towards your body.
>> Push-ups; an aside about punishments Old Geezer !YI1jEQivlM
Push-ups. Well, we did push-ups.

EVERYDAY. Usually not out of any sort of training, but because somebody fucked up. Push-ups were the favorite Physical Correction device of the drill sergeants.

"Open ranks..."

(In ranks of four columns, this involved the first rank taking a step forward, the second rank staying in place, the third rank taking a step back, and the fourth rank taking two steps back. Also, a collective mental "FUCK.")

"...March! Half-right... Face! Front Leaning Rest Position...Move!"

The DS's usually tried not to smoke us too hard on days before a PT test (I think we had them every third week, I can't remember), but most often made up for it on the day afterwards.

Back to regular PT; for PU's we also did partner assisted military presses where someone would force down your hands as you tried to press upwards whilst sitting on the ground. We did four square push-ups (I think that's what they were called) as well. These were fun. You and three other people would go into the front leaning rest position in a square, then back up until everyone's ankles were resting on the back of the person behind them. We would then push-up in unison. Fun times.
>> Old Geezer !YI1jEQivlM
For running, we ran Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. PT consisted of running and occasional bouts of duck-walking (which they weren't allowed to do but did anyway). This consisted of squatting down and walking while in that position. VERY bad for your knees with no benefits; do not attempt.

Not much else to say about this except that since they ran different levels of running training. This meant on run days, the DS's would call out for the different groups based on our two-mile run times. Fast group, medium group, and fat bastards. I mean slow group. Although I could do the push-ups and the sit-ups fine I wasn't much of a runner, so I was in the slow group run time-wise for the whole of BCT.

The slow group did a simple three or four mile run at a nine minute or better pace. This was sufficient for us turtles to get a little better at our run times. However, the fast and medium groups apparently went through hell, so when the DS would call out for people with, say, 11:00 and under, the skinny guys with ripped legs would glance around nervously and whistle.

So the DS would raise the time. They'd raise it until the fuckers were guilt-ed into joining the run group. Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to simply go when they called a time higher than mine, which meant I ended up in the medium group once or twice, and in the fast group once. Nothing like hearing the DS say to keep up, that they were "only" doing a 7-minute mile pace for four miles when that was faster than what I did for the shorter two mile test.
>> Old Geezer !YI1jEQivlM
That's about all I can remember. Any other questions, just ask.