Basic Training is NOT What You Think

i'm a person that love lis um i cannot pronounce the t on that list [Music] anyway what's up guys it's michaela and welcome back to my channel so today's video as in the title says is about bmt not being as scary as you probably think and if there's other branches watching this i already know what you're probably gonna say the air forces is the air force is that i get it we're not as in physically intense but that is one of the reasons why i joined the air force anyway all right you've probably watched a lot of youtube videos i know i watched so many youtube videos before i went to basic because that was probably the scariest aspect for me was basic training that was actually one of the reasons i considered not joining is because i was terrified of basic training gas chamber what's the food gonna be like what's the bathroom situation there were so many unanswered questions so i really want to make this detailed video it's probably gonna run a little long just to give you guys some answers if you were wondering and i want to say i went to basic august of 2018 however that doesn't mean that this is not still relevant yes things have changed especially because of covid so if you know about that at all please feel free to comment below i'd love to know but a lot of this is still going to be exactly the same all right the first thing i want to mention is food first of all the food was so good honestly like there was brand names so golean crunch i remember like the really good bagels and philadelphia cream cheese and there was bacon and eggs and pancakes and waffles and all these different things you could eat there was a lot of fresh fruit even if you were vegetarian you'd be completely fine there were a lot of options and it was pretty good quality in my opinion so it's not like you're eating like freaking slop or something it's really good quality food they gotta keep you well fed because you are burning a lot of calories throughout the day second option is can you go to the bathroom whenever you want yes you can go whenever you want and if you are in class which i'm going to touch on how much class we have you don't have to raise your hand and interrupt everybody and be like oh can i go to the bathroom you're not in third grade you can literally just take a wingman and go to the bathroom you do have to take a wingman wherever you go and basic and really that is for your safety because unfortunately a few years back probably more than a few about 13 years ago now there was a big sexual assault scandal that happened in basic training there was unfortunately a lot of victims so they implemented this rule really just for your safety so you gotta bring a wingman wherever you go next thing sorry i'm taking notes i took notes for this three going back to the class there is a lot of class in basic training and that was something i was not really prepared for and there is a test that you have to take at the end so you really want to pay attention it's not a hard test by any means but if you're absolutely zoning out the entire time you do have the possibility of failing so you want to make sure that you know the information that's being taught to you which is pretty much air force history how to be an airman different things as far as like what are the air force core values what's the air force creed different things you're gonna learn through basic so try not to be overwhelmed right now if you don't know a single thing that's completely fine they're gonna teach you number four is you don't have to be super fit to join i talked about this in my bmt for females video that i did um and i want to touch on that again if you are somebody that really hasn't run at all you don't know how to do a push-up you don't know how to do a pull-up which is completely fine because you don't have to know how to do a pull-up to pass the pt test pull-ups aren't even a component on the pt test so they really make basic training for the lowest common denominator so really you do not have to know how to do that at all the program is set up you work out six times a week three days are cardio three days are strength and it's really about how much can you do so i think in the first week you only have to do maybe five push-ups and that's literally nothing they're going to teach you how to do it they will correct you if you're doing it wrong so don't worry if you're not physically fit they're going to get you fit as long as you're not past the weight limit which i think obviously there is one to be able to join in the first place as long as you're below the weight limit if you still don't know how to do a push-up you're good number five is will they take care of you if you have medical issues and the answer is yes i had a severe uti my first day in basic it was literally horrible it's one of the only time i cried maybe three times in basic and that was one of them so that was the first thing i told my mti was that i had this uti they sent me to medical the doctors took care of me they gave me the antibiotics i did not get med hold it i was literally back to bmt that same day but they took care of me made sure i was good now that isn't always going to be the case if you are somebody that has something severely wrong with you that they find out about you do have the possibility of either getting kicked out of basic or getting med holded which means you're basically moved to other dorms and put on hold until they figure out what's wrong with you and you're able to resume training that was an intense fear of mine because i did not want to be there longer than i needed to but don't sacrifice your health for the sake of just trying to push through if you broke your ankle obviously you're not going to be able to march run or do anything on a broken ankle they're going to have to take care of it and you're probably gonna have to sit some weeks out but that is fine also there are so many people on crutches at basic so even if you broke your ankle they probably would still let you graduate i don't know all the standards and rules literally it's per it's different for every person it's different for every mti and whoever doctor you get like it's all different but there was a lot of people on crutches for like what was it stress fractures and like shin splints they would legit give people crutches and so if you have something wrong with you don't be afraid to get it checked out if it's really really bothering you because you don't want to sacrifice your own health for the air force number six is the gas chamber this was the thing actually keeping me from joining because i was terrified of the gas chamber you might have seen the videos on youtube but it's intense i'm not going to lie to you and say that it didn't suck because it did i was an element leader which was a leadership position so we were the first ones to go into the gas chamber which was actually good because the gas was less potent in the air so if you get the chance to go in first go in first so for me it is different for every person i opened my eyes and i was completely fine but it just affected my breathing so you know they make you do your reporting statement which is like sir trainee whiteley reports his order and they make you say that in the gas chamber of course you're not gonna be able to say that whole sentence without coughing a lung up which happened to me it's a weird sensation you're literally in this room it smells like pepper like it literally smells like pepper and chemicals it's just really weird and the air is clear just like the room i'm in now and then they make you take off your mask and then i could feel like the top layer of my face burning and then they make you say it and immediately i just start choking there's no oxygen in the air it's intense and before you know it you're out of there it's really not long at all and you're gonna be so happy once you finish like [ __ ] yeah just gas chamber that's at least how i felt so they make you go out you walk out like this you can't touch your don't touch your eyes they'll tell you that you got a strip from all the chem gear that you're wearing to make sure that the gas doesn't get on anything and they're going to make you go through the whole wash cycle you're going to finish really fast so don't let the gas chamber freak you out to the point where you don't join because there are so many benefits of the military let me just say the military is not for everybody i'm not sitting on this channel being like oh the military is full of you know unicorns and rainbows no there are really bad parts of the military and i'm not re-enlisting which i'll probably make a video about that but let me tell you the air force has literally changed my life in ways that i couldn't have done without it so there are tons of benefits don't let the gas chamber scare you from joining number seven is beast week so beast week i went to basic training in august to october it was hot as [ __ ] in texas right beast week they take put you on a bus you're still on lachlan but it's on like the way other side of lackland a place like you can't march to we actually had to go off the base which is the first time you go off the base in six weeks and i know for the new basic training structure the timeline is kind of different but so you got to based and it's basically a deployment simulation and i know people who have deployed in the environment was a lot better than beast you know every deployment's different anyway in beast week the tents are air conditioned so that was nice um it's pretty much like a round cylinder it's not like a little tent you see on like camp laszlo it's literally like a cylinder um there's like tons of cots and they give you a sleeping bag and that's what you sleep in no pillow so we just took like our jacket or something and then just like use that as a pillow honestly i had no problem sleeping but i can pretty much sleep anywhere really fun parts of beast were getting to go to cadm which is where you get to shoot a real gun and that was super awesome i had some shooting experience because my dad owns a lot of guns and i've been to the shooting range before so i did get some practice before i joined however you don't have to know [ __ ] to be able to obviously join right so they're going to teach you everything even if you are someone that's super highly trained they're still going to teach you you're still going to have to sit through everything and they take it very seriously because obviously if you mess up someone can die you are shooting live rounds it's not a fake gun so it was super super fun i loved that part um you do eat mres for breakfast and lunch every day that you're there those are disgusting won't lie um i don't like processed foods like at all i don't even like eating things from cans as far as like soup i eat like beans from a can right but i just don't like the taste of processed foods i don't like that chemically it just does not taste good but i had to eat something and that was all that was provided for me for breakfast and lunch so mres you know got up super early it smelled really bad in the summer because it's right next to a landfill but the dinner at beast was the best meal of basic training because people were actually like growing and there was real gatorade because the gatorade that they give you in the dorms is like watered down gatorade it like doesn't taste like anything but this was a real gatorade with like all the sugar it was so good the portions they give you were legit they had like i think macaroni and like ribs one night like it was really good food at beast for dinner not breakfast and lunch dinner was amazing it was really dusty i remember that like obviously every time of year you go is going to be different because if you go in the winter you're going to have a different experience than i went in the you know dead heat of summer there's also different flag conditions so because it was so hot there were things we couldn't do um for our safety like we couldn't get into our whole mop gear because we probably would have all passed out and overheated and the obstacle course the obstacle course is fun if you're a person that likes stuff like that like i do i love being outside it was a lot of fun for me um and the parts that i was like not super looking forward to were digging your head in the sand and like crawling up a hill me and my best friend were just like screw it like we're only here once right bmt is the most fun you never want to have again so we just embraced everything like we volunteered for tank guard duty it felt like i was like chilling on a front porch of friday it was so it was literally so fun honestly like just reminiscing about it there's parts of me that miss it but like i said i would never want to do it again like i would never that was a one-time deal but it was really fun number eight is phone calls so you do use your own cell phone so there's no pay phones anymore this isn't 1980. um you they keep all your phones in like this box like a plastic box that is cut down stairs it's locked away you don't even know where it is obviously right so they let you use your own phone everything's turned off so they're going to give you time to power it on before they start your call time and if you have bills or anything you need to pay that is the time you can do it if you talk to your mtis more often than not they will let you have extra time to be able to um you know pay your bills and check your bank accounts and do all of that at least mine did please don't get caught going on things you you're not supposed to don't go on snapchat don't go on facebook i know it's gonna be hella tempting because at least for me my phone was blowing up when i turned that [ __ ] on like i had so many notifications because you haven't checked your phone in like four weeks we did get a lot of calls and let me say please open up to your mti's i know that they can be scary and they're going to yell at you and their whole purpose is to build you as an airman and break you down all of that but please open up to them because if you have a family crisis say you get a letter and someone tells you that your mom is really sick or something happened communicate with them about that because that happened to a girl on my flight and they let her call home make sure everything was okay when a hurricane hit florida they let us call our families to make sure they were all set so really you just want to be open with them because like i said they can be really scary but their whole purpose there is to build you as an airman and they can and they will support you the best that they can so even if they scare you try to be as open number nine is you get to go shopping for the things that you need so don't feel like you need to bring eight and a half weeks worth of stuff in your bags because you get the opportunity to go shopping quite a bit um and if you're a girl that's you know like tampons and all of that and you know for guys to you know shampoo body wash all that so you do have the opportunity and you can bring your own skincare products i brought my own moisturizer and face wash because i had a specific type that i liked and that is 100 okay you can still wash your face you still have time to shave your legs like there's some misconceptions about basic like you have absolutely no freedom and while yeah you lose a lot of it because you're in a training environment you still get to do basic things right you're not going to go eight and a half weeks without shaving your legs if you're a girl or if you're a guy and you like that you know you'll get to shave your legs number 10 is about free time so you do get free time believe it or not and you don't have those outside distractions like phones or a good book so there's not a lot of things to do so i spent my free time writing letters and making lists i'm a person that love lists um i cannot pronounce the t on that list anyway i spent a lot of time writing letters um i received a lot of letters from my family my friends so that is the time i spent writing letters also volunteer for ec duty at night to backtrack ec is entry controller duty basically you and another person are going to be standing at the door with your fake gun that they issue you and you're basically making sure that whoever you let in the door has a reason to enter there you're gonna they're gonna show you their id there's this whole process that you have to go through well somebody in your flight will be assigned ec monitor which means they're going to create the schedule you only do ec like when you're not in class or at official appointments so whenever you're just in the dorm someone's going to be on ec at night when everybody's sleeping somebody's gonna be on easy however they're only one hour shifts so it's really not that bad i always volunteered for night because that was the only quiet time that i got in eight and a half weeks and i'm a person where i really need my me time so i volunteered for night it'd be like 2 a.m somebody wakes you up and you get up you grab your gun out of locker and then you guard the door it's literally what you do and when it's at night you don't have to worry about anybody testing you on the procedures nobody's getting up and walking around i literally just got to write letters and have some quiet time number 11. if you're scared about basic and that's the only thing stopping you from joining please just join right basic is not that bad i hope this video kind of made you realize that and answered some of those questions and addressed some of those concerns because i promise you you're going to be so proud of yourself when you graduate i know i was the first time you know you see your family i remember marching out and i had to try not to cry when i first made contact made eye contact with my mom because it was such a powerful moment right like i left just you know this girl that you know had no real responsibility and i was you know chilling with my friends and doing everything an 18 year old does and then now they're seeing me in a uniform as an airman so it was super awesome i was super proud of myself and not to mention the check i never had money like that i worked at chick-fil-a i made like 8.50 an hour and worked like four hours a week legit so seeing that kind of money in my account for the first time was awesome there's a lot of positives so i would just recommend that if this is the only thing stopping you from joining just do it okay if there's other other reasons i'm not here to try and convince you to join because got to make your own choices but if the only thing stopping you is your fear of basic please don't let that stop you and if you have any questions that i did not answer please feel free to comment below it can legit be anything there are no limits i don't care what it is i will respond um but i hope you guys enjoyed and if you like more videos like this and you want me to make other videos about the air force please let me know i really just started this channel so feedback is great and thank you guys for watching you

Channel: Mikayla Rose

Views: 143,329

Rating: 4.9428573 out of 5

Keywords: basic training, Air Force basic training, bmt, Air Force bmt

Id: 65FBDEPaxT8

Length: 19min 55sec (1195 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020