What is Boot Camp Like for Navy Recruits?

get off you guys last discipline today this job is it's very demand we train more than 35,000 recruits a year you work an 18 hour day and then you're back in the next day 0400 we put stress on them here yelling at them here 247 they'll understand that when they get to the fleet and something goes bad they'll be able to handle all that pressure and all that stress no first couple of the day yep it's time that's to my recruits you don't quit on us we won't quit on you you got to come in and give us 100% get louder it is 3:40 in the morning going to work able to wake the recruits up at 5: and get the day started I'm Chief Dev PA I am a recruit division Commander here at RTC Great Lakes I feel that recruits have this idea that just one day we woke up and we became rdc's as if we never had to go through a process um as if we never went through any of the hard times to get to where we're [Music] at [Music] [Music] word of advice when you do get orders here please get a jacket for Illinois don't bring one of your jackets back home uh the weather up here it's technically cold all year round so if you say it's going to be partly clouds today out of nowhere it just start snowing something like that my name is PED bti I'm a recruit division Commander here at recruit training I went through D Camp February 23rd 2011 uh I couldn't I couldn't March um I could I was good at PT but uh My RCS um they would always yell at me a lot not being able to march here now it is we 25 and I knew when I was a recruiting boot camp I wanted to be a [Music] RDC division 22 Fu P good morning white division 231 Rob security my instruction P who the chief operation chief operation waking up early in the morning it's the first thing that's on my mind did my staro watch make those correct deck law entries before I walked in the compartment you get over here I'm talking to you star watch go behind read this read it and try to again all P officer good afternoon peny officer sen recruit Thomas division 231 security watch waiting further instructions peny officer look does anything say here say wait and further instruction no P you're not looking man look I try it read it and look all petty officer good afternoon petty officer see recruit Thomas division 231 security watch stand by further instructions petty officer who is the chief of Naval operations it's 4:47 I'm on the way in to rev the division we wake up at 05:30 today so I'm a night person so it's it's difficult sometimes to wake up and get get yourself out of bed I'm Chief Justin Kel a recruit division Commander here at recruit training command [Music] [Music] 93 recording is that what it says recruit put your hand back up I Chief read it probing security send you my for instruction Chief start over from the top group kind of surreal being in charge of 88 recruits you don't know the feeling until you're you're in front of 88 recruits and you're leading them to a goal um staying energetic throughout the whole day uh takes mind power um you have to you have to keep telling yourself that you're doing it to motivate recruits and you're motivating other people um sometimes you pull that motivation from the recruits sometimes you have to uh find it within the the partners that you're pushing with sometimes you just got to find that inner Drive assigned to each division there are three rdc's typically one is going to be a chief or a lead which could be also a first class petty officer and then you will have two partners which would be a second class or another first [Music] class [Music] [Music] little bit of coffee uh a little bit of motivation from recruits and U motivation from your petty officers that you're pushing with or whoever your partners or you're pushing with to to help you get through the day uh sometimes the recruits will just do something that uh you wouldn't expect them to do especially this ear Le in training and they give you motivation to help help train them we work on average probably 14 to 16 hours a day the first couple of weeks uh just trying to get the recruits in that mindset that they're they're at boot camp and uh training them everything that they need to be trained on to make them successful while they're here at boot camp and then after that you can relax the hours a little bit but uh you still got to keep that drive come on you have to mark we're Mark pick your feet up you're not special so some of the biggest challenges that we Face uh I would say would be recruits coming here with the mindset that they they know everything and they they don't want to listen to what we're trying to teach them you have to train them into thinking the same way so they're all on the same page and they're all working as a team all right so did you guys look at your racks they're all jacked up right yes Chief why is that they set up right chief not set up right nobody wants to own up to anything they do right when was the last time you did an IT session to the some of the problems we have at first when we're training I would say is just they don't listen they don't pay attention to the the amount of detail that you want them to pay attention to attention to detail is Big here um because when they get to the fleet depending on what their job job is or what they're going to do for the Navy if we don't teach that gear they have the potential to to injure each other or themselves or somebody else or even get somebody else killed doing something else right but you guys don't want to do that you want to be on your own program you don't want to listen what we just did it for was because they can't pay attention in detail uh everything has a place and a way of folding it so now we're going to go through step by step fold everything in the lock apartment again get the lock apartment set [Music] up hey everybody gather around come behind the clan barrel with your training guy let's go hey turn up the motivation eyes on the weapon yes this is very important you have to understand that when an enemy is on the ship or near for by you have to know how to use these weapons you understand it yeah okay what's going on um I failed the swim test today okay and I don't know what they what they were okay so you were swimming on your face instead of trying to float on your back yeah I was trying to swim because I know I can swim okay okay so you got off the off the Bridge that's the hardest part getting that jump most people don't want to do that so if you can get into oh that happens every day uh we'll have especially now that we've turned up the heat we started being a little bit more intense out there on the on the deck and uh so we're probably going to see that at least once a day for the next couple of days or a couple of weeks good morning I'm instructor isacon first thing that we're gonna go my name is uh pen officer isacon and I work over at recruit training command as a water survival instructor uh typical day is uh I I'll come in and then 0800 is the first uh Evolution which is uh amsi remediation uh swimming right here right now we're trying to screen these guys one more time because they're all stepping today lay back go so these all these swimmers right here are coming from one one day their first day um of the initial training they came here they failed to swim they got some remediation they couldn't pass it pass or fail you guys can't dig down yourselves all right remember the goal that I that I wanted today was to make sure that you come out of here just a little bit better cross your arms and listen to the uh chief on Deck that's up there all right everyone face for example like 80 people in a division will uh will come in for one one day and usually we'll get about probably like 15 of those that will say that they can't swim so then they'll get like kind of swim lessons there so roughly about each division we can you'll have from like five to 10 that won't be able to do the swim one of the big factors is like where you grew up so a lot of like the inner cities don't have swimming pools so kids that are coming from like inner cities never really get that experience on um swimming so we got first recruit right here coming up um you'll every now and then you'll get like like like reactions from these recruits CU I've been here a while how long have you been here um this is my second or third week one train okay so yeah so you got third week of train right now I think the biggest ones that really get me that pass the swim test are the ones that are on their week five week six like graduation is like right around the corner and you'll get them and they they'll just say they'll say thank you they were like you saved me from um getting removed from my division or calling home and letting my parents know that I'm not going to graduate on time and that's like one of the best feelings in the world so what's your name Sims SE recruit Sims so you got sem recruit Sims right here um she just passed this one today and she just passed it just in time next week next Friday is when her division would have left her and she would have got left behind um how do you feel right now I told you it was easy yeah I'm glad I hit my head on that wall That's feeling thank you sir you're welcome I know that they're not just passing the test I know that I'm sending them out to a fleet where if they needed to I'm giving them the proper skills on how to abandon ship how to recover from that and then swim to the rescue boat or just stay there and survive until someone comes get you so just knowing that them taking the skills that I taught them like I feel confident and I feel confident in in my teaching that that I'm helping the in case something ever did happen if they did have to AB bandish I gave you everything that I can teach you guys on how s it's up to you guys if you guys are going to pass them why quit why quit on your one one day of training so what I need you guys to do you step from that Tower use what I taught you get the composure relax but at the same time you guys need to get pumped up about this one you're one one day in booing you guys haven't got kicked out of your division yet you guys haven't got set back you're not going to because you guys are going to pass today right so far right now we have everybody that went to level two is going to pass so that that's the reasons why like I like like being an instructor being like a coach whatever you want to call me here um I know that I help somebody through boo game is it's one of the best feelings and like and that's why I like coming to work every single [Music] day let's go hurry up we're at the pool picking up uh my recruits um they just finished their initial swim qualification so um we're going to get them ready uh get him out on the grinder and March them back to the ship stand at attention hands closed I think some of the misconceptions that recruits have about rdc's is that that they're here just to be be mean to them uh and that's not really the case at all they're we're here to to mold them into into Sailors who thinks they did go H speak speak who thinks they did bad yeah why do you think you did bad what didn't you didn't push hard enough what's up you kept telling yourself give up what did I tell you in the beginning don't give up right tell yourself you can do it right what happens when you're on that ship you've been awake for 24 hours and you want to quit right but somebody comes and attacks the ship what are you going to do are you going to quit no are you going to quit no what better not when the time comes you need to put out you need to fight you need to fight through that pain we don't quit ever one team we one team you out there ping especially they these recruits get in their own heads and they say oh I I just want to quit I don't I don't want to do this anymore I don't want to I don't want to run it hurts and sometimes you just got to got to yell yell yell to get them motivated and then at the end sit them down and explain why why you're yelling why you're out there motivating them to be better because you want them you want to see them succeed we're not here to see people fail we're here to see people 16 so a lot of them it takes a minute for them to understand that it's not about me it's about the 88 other recruits that are next to me it's about everybody else besides me but I tell my recruit you don't quit on us we won't quit on you you got to come in and give us 100% every day whatever it is we're training whatever it is we're doing just know we're doing it for a reason not just to tell you to do [Music] it so I found a recruit here she has a headband around her arm this is in accordance with regulations especially after this recruit just took test one so I'm about to give her some mighty motivational tool so she knows not to do this again you know what you know why I'm about to give you some motivational why after you just took test one twice War failure we went over this you do not wear it unless it is a what religious so you knew this was wrong so I'm strict on my recruits um because I don't want them to lose military band one two three move fast one two three one two three let's go down up down up get your body alignment straight that's your last one you touch the Dig again you will feel it I will document your hard card do you understand that go now oh get your help straight last warning about body alignment you will fa alone due to body alignment down P sure with part don't stop you know if I would have not have cotton this and if you have got caught walking out on the streets or fqa would have came in here the division would have got a demerit because of you so you're not a team player I apologize the team needs each other to grab uate people make mistakes I today you made one of those mistakes yes P from here on now this should be training a training opportunity for you yes P to explain to anybody does regardless of gender this is not authorized all right we're human we make mistakes yes this is a stupid mistake yes and it should never happen again I don't want it to happen again I don't need p and then they're like family towards the end because uh you build a bond you got them for 8 weeks 8 to n weeks so you can't possibly any RC on this base can't tell me over this amount of time that these recruits become family to you because they got your B just like you got theirs let's go so coming here to RTC you you think that you're you're just going to push non-stop so you're going to be here uh 16 18 hours a day for 3 years and that that's really not the case you're here uh you do a push get at least a week off and then um before you go back onto another push and then uh after you've done a year of pushing you'll get a year of uh recruit training period so that's where you're going to do just random jobs throughout the base to help train the recruits but you're not actively on push so you're getting that family time and then the last year that you're here you're you're going back on push training your last couple of few divisions I'm petty officer Keegan Dyer I'm a recruit division Commander at recruit training command so right now I am on what we call RTP which is recruit training period it's the year in between your two uh push periods I currently work at Fleet quality assurance or fqa we go out and we assess the recruits we do Personnel inspections we do drill inspections we go into compartments for compartment Readiness quality assurance basically everybody calls us the police they try to avoid us the best they can they don't normally like to see us walk in when we have the briefcase hey what are you doing why are you running in a row why are you not on a sidewalk yeah you who's staring at me in the middle of the parking lot what are you doing why are you in the middle of the street get over here now why would you walk into a parking lot lot when do you ever walk in a parking lot as a recruit when there's a part there's a sidewalk right in front of you does that make any sense no any officer we assess recruits ability to do something but we're also keeping an eye on the rdc's that they're training how they're supposed to Hall we are about to do a phase three drill inspections for two divisions [Music] Chief you ready every score every hit or unsa is a0 one off their score so they took five that so they got a 4.5 so it's not a training deficiency it's just recruits doing making mistakes which everybody makes mistakes so instead of getting a training deficiencies for the rdc's it's just an unsat for their inspection so with that being said you took five unsets at a score of 4.5 Chief any questions nope than go you have two minutes to hydrate go go I better not see nobody walking you will hydrate you will hydrate you will hydrate 1 2 3 4 16 1 2 3 why are you here why are you here how are you supposed to win the war well you guys lack discipline today you absolutely lack discipline and this is why you fail tell making mistakes when you're not supposed to make mistakes it's how people get killed 6 weeks of you count you're getting complacent you still got two more weeks until Battle Stations how are you going to make it if you're complacent already if you want to graduate you have to do it as a team all these assessments require teamwork all when I came to boot camp it was I'm going to do four years I'm going to get my GI Bill I'm going to go to college I'm going to get out then I came to boot camp I third RDC at the time was ctr1 bulock she is now Senior Chief so she set like a really good solid foundation of my Naval career and I wanted to give that back great four here we go we going try something new C130 rolling down the STP division 2 32 is going to take a little trip you don't be like oh okay hey here's your rope go out there and train these CS it doesn't work that way out in the fleet you'll often hear people talk about recruit training command or RDC Duty being arduous which it is arduous it's hard uh however you also hear that you know you don't get time off you're eight weeks straight seven days a week no time off whatsoever where you're pretty much just sleeping here at the barracks which none of that is true and you have three partners that nobody ever wants to talk about they think that you're pushing one division by yourself without any help so the biggest myth was absolutely the stress cards we always used to hear about stress cards that recruits got stress cards and they could just pull them out of their pockets and they got to be excused from any Evolution that they were doing I've heard some misconceptions about boot camp they say that um it's not rewarding or the atmosphere just isn't good here at recruit training command but that wasn't the case at all uh one of the rumors that I actually heard when I got up here was right before I started SE school that se school was a mini boot well not a mini boot camp actually a longer boot camp because it's 13 weeks I was terrified that does that mean I had to sleep in a compartment like do I not get to go home at night um and then they said the same thing about when you're on push like that you would sleep in the ships so that was obviously untrue we got to go home every night and sleep unless you have your midwatch of course you have to stay in your mid watches these hours are long but I think that a lot of the times they go by faster than you would imagine because of how busy you are with the recruits I think coming here the hour are worth it because there's always that one recuit that you find in pday that you never think they're going to make it through and then one day it clicks for them and that's that to me is when all the hard work is worth it you don't get to do all the fun things that you would typically do on a normal short Duty um but the reward in the end and the leadership experience and the the people experience that you get you'll never get at any other command here and it makes you far off better victory victory that's our Battle Cry you're going to have the best time at this Commander you're going have the worst time with this command it is what you make it to be in the end the hard days the hard days are really hard uh you're the days where you're you work at 18 hour day you come in at 04 and you leave at 2200 and then you're back in the next day 0400 uh you and you do that for a week a week at a time and it it starts to suck cuz this job is is very demanding there are most definitely days where you'll wake up and you do not want to come into work you don't want to do it but knowing that you you are here for 3 years and doing what you're doing you come here you open up that door your your watch standard sounds off so loud and so proud and they're calling you petty officer they're calling you Chief and then you realize that you have a red on your shoulder and you are doing something that a lot of people will never want to do or even think about doing and I was one of them where I was like absolutely not I graduated boot camp and that was it I'm not coming back and to think about it now it's it's mindblowing to think of all the the good things that I'm putting into these these recruits that are going to be Sailors and they're going to go out and do great things when they get the graduation they walk across they're about to become Navy sailors it's uh it makes you want to strike a te here you get really emotional it's like dang I did that like for 8 to n weeks me and the other two rdc's on this push we did that and then they introduce you to their families whoever comes to graduation and then they thank you as well too um so it definitely makes you more emotional because you don't know how much it means to the other families that come out that you took care of their their kids I like being in RDC like I said I refer to my recruit recruits as my kids I'm like I'm I'm very proud to be an RDC so if you think you don't have what it takes you you probably do come here and and let the people that are here mold you into into a better leader there there's some fantastic leaders here that just help to to make you better uh and when you're surrounded by that Excellence you become part of that Excellence as well come here come here and be an RDC come see what it's like I've been at work oh for 16 hours it's a easy day 16 hours go home probably get a bite to eat and um get a couple hours of sleep be back here at 05

Channel: IMD Aviation Channel

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Keywords: world war 2, holiday eryri, f-15 jet fighter, polandball animation, france, wwii history, polandball history, wwii reenactor, countryball history, boot camp, russia invasion, navy

Id: wPdUyWHbCfU

Length: 29min 33sec (1773 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2024