What to EXPECT from Navy Boot Camp in 2021

[Music] recruit training command is the quarter deck of the united states navy every enlisted sailor begins their naval career here and our mission is fairly simple it's to transform civilians into smartly disciplined physically fit sailors ready for follow-on training and service to the fleet while doing so to instill in them the highest values of honor courage and commitment our training environment is controlled chaos and while it may not seem like that to the recruits each and every event has meaning and purpose when the cno releases strategy for maintaining maritime superiority he instructed us to instill in our young sailors the four attributes of integrity initiative accountability and toughness toughness was something we really wanted to instill in our young sailors the million dollar question was how were we going to do that [Music] we all knew that yes we need tough sailors right we had incidences of missiles being fired at ships collisions and while we had a lot of very heroic sailors step up and do what they needed to do to get through that situation unfortunately we have a lot of instances of our sailors not being able to cope that stress level gets really high you know you have fight flight or freeze and we can't afford to have our sellers freeze the navy's top admiral has ordered a one-day worldwide safety review after a destroyer collided with a civilian oil tanker so while i was on board the uss johnson mccain i was we were in singapore we sustained a collision at sea i was immediately thrown from my chair while standing uh the electrical plant as a damage control man it's something that we trained for all the time never been in that kind of situation but i didn't has it did has i didn't hesitate it just i wanted to go straight to what was happening so that way we could figure out what was going on and fix the situation some people were unable to actually operate they just went to a corner and sat there and then when we were what are you doing we need your help they wouldn't move wouldn't operate what whatsoever some took a little bit of time to make their initial reactions eventually they were able to get into the fight and then there were the select few that actually there was no hesitation immediately just started doing what they know or knew what they had to do the emotions are one of the most important things that run wild during an intense situation like that having the ability to fall back on training and things like that is almost second nature when you're in a combat zone you know i understand that everything's chaotic it's unpredictable there's a million things going on but the one thing that you need to be able to control and have a grasp of is your own emotions because if you can't keep those in check you're going to become a liability for everyone around you [Music] with the way that the world is currently going and these heightened threats from greater world powers we need tougher sailors and it was very noticeable on the night of august 2017 during that collision at sea and so we figured where do we start well the best and most logical step is to start where our sailors first come in at the accession part and that's recruit training command so we that's the first place that we sought about instilling toughness was with our recruits your recruits then they start to commit to buying into the con this program at rtc first started when admiral bernanke at naval service training command locked a navy seal a chaplain and a clinical psychologist into a room and said hey figure it out get after toughness how do we create a program based on the body mind soul approach and that's what we've done we believe we've found toughness at the intersection of mental physical and spiritual strength if you haven't been doing the mindfulness exercises to strengthen that part of your brain that allows you to do it both mindfulness and performance psychology have a wealth of evidence supporting them they were shown to increase self-regulation and also increase performance mindfulness in particular has been shown to strengthen the part of our brain that is in charge of rational thinking slowing down our emotional process careful planning and problem solving what makes someone tough what are some of those characteristics i think toughness is the result of having a person of both character and competency we must know the skill sets required to complete our jobs regardless of designator or rating and we must be people of character who are rooted in honor courage and commitment and exhibit things like integrity toughness initiative and accountability and when we do that toughness is the end result and it's easier said than done in many cases but before you get into a potentially contentious engagement it brought a seal into warrior toughness because we're the main action arm in terms of boots on the ground where the folks our communities are the ones that have been facing combat for the last almost 20 years and so you know by bringing a seal in it maintains that credibility to say yes these are the things that we've used we've used performance psychology in our in our community we have adopted a warrior mindset so we we can speak to that so we can translate that and so when people say yeah there's a seal who's going to talk about what what it means to be a warrior people like yes he should know what he's talking about mental toughness is as important as physical toughness it's important to chief it's important to petty officer it's important to entire chain of command we've rolled out our first products and our first thing that came out was recruit toughness which came out early in the fall of 2017. feel overwhelmed while you're on watch while you're waiting for your turn to man the nozzle as you're about to combat a fire you'll do these techniques so that you're more focused on the here and the now instead of thinking about what could happen we know that these skills work from research from many different areas including other parts of the military in athletics particularly with elite athletes top ceos and large corporations also use these skills what we needed to know is are these skills going to work here at recruit training command and so we did our own research we did three different pilots where we had divisions who got the training and divisions who did not get the training the divisions that didn't get the training were essentially told to be quiet for about 10 minutes because we wanted to be sure that we were measuring the effects of the program and not just 10 minutes removed from training as it is for the first time in the classroom component we are learning the attributes of initiative integrity toughness and accountability through didactic through conversation through the use of sea stories and through reflection welcome to toughness training this is lesson one i'm chaplain anderson i was introduced to the toughness program right when we moved to our ship ship six uh it was the first week and uh we had our chaplain come in sat us all down and just kind of introduced himself let it let us know his role and at first i was thinking i was like like dang like why do we have to do this like how am i really gonna have to apply this to anything that we're doing in boot camp my initial reaction is i was very confused i didn't expect that to be part of the toughness program i thought that toughness would be like physical toughness and then the chaplain started explaining it to us and i was like okay this might be this is getting a little interesting i'm gonna be open-minded about it but the first time that we actually tried it we sat down and our chaplain had us hold our breath and then about a minute or so in no but everybody stopped holding their breath because they couldn't do it anymore and then he told us to do it again but he said this time don't let your mind wander focus on the different parts of your body that are hurting and just focus try to focus on a simple thing once you're finished with it you take that deep breath of fresh air and you feel your entire body get completely relieved of that pain and you feel good about it and he was just saying that you're going to go through stuff that hurts and you're going to push through it but once you complete it then you're going to have that sense of relief once we were done doing the breathing motions the inhale hold exhale i felt very good about it i thought it was such a smart thing to do i didn't expect it at all and it helped so many people which i also didn't expect the most successful recruits today will be the ones that prepared not just their body but their mind what warrior toughness does is it allows sailors to use mental reps and sets to be prepared to perform specific tasks that they may be competent at but deal under extreme circumstances and stressful situations if you sit back before your actual event the evolution for example the pool and you picture everything that you're going to do you try to gather all your senses try to try to get that image as closely to what you're going to be practicing today it's going to make it 10 times easier you're going through these mental reps and sets on a daily basis to ensure that you fully understand it it's very low stress and it just focuses on going over the same evolution over and over again just in time is before i walk in the room so i'm starting to feel the stress level elevate a little bit i do some just in time exercises so that i can confirm that i'm ready to go execute that task whenever you feel like you need to recalibrate you will do so you don't have to ask permission you could be standing on the toe line awaiting further instruction and you can do your recalibrate exercise right there one of the things i rely on the most with the toughness program is the recalibration technique and it's really a bridge between the physical manifestation of stress where your your breathing gets elevated and you start getting excited about something and the ability to focus so it's not taking a time out or it's not exiting the situation to gather your thoughts and come back in but it's ability it's the ability to real time be able to bring back the focus and get through an adverse situation without any time lost recalibrating is something i think everyone should do i it's really helped me it's really helped my fellow shipmates it's not something that i'm always thinking about it's something that's kind of in the back of my head it just allows me to slow my breathing and focus on the task at hand so i'm not my mind's not wandering everywhere and i'm not just like drawing a blank or i'm not just super nervous or super anxious in making mistakes that shouldn't be made when you get to the fleet and i'm sending you to this recruit and he makes that slight pause let him recalibrate let him find his center let her find her center know that that's what we're teaching we're teaching them to recalibrate find themselves look and look inside themselves and know that okay this is a stressful situation they taught me that this is an alpha fire but this is a natural apple fight i know that mom right now my heart is racing my hands are clenching and i'm scared i'm going to recalibrate i understand the feelings that i'm going through then i'm going to go ahead and attack the situation the recruits are now asking can we do an exercise the day prior to the prtn you see them breathing you see everybody's bought in while it may not seem beneficial at first to some people it's another outlet it's another way to deal with those issues it's another way to deal with being mindful and understanding what that means this toughness and these exercises this one that we're going to be doing is called pmr plus mental scan the best way that i can equate this program to a tangible resource is we're bottling and synthesizing experience so from the recruit standpoint or the junior sailor standpoint or just somebody that's young in life we're able to provide them techniques to be able to get through situations and persevere and come out on the other end with better after action reflection and the ability to move on and learn through a process so i've been stationed at recruit training command for almost three years now after graduating c-school i've been able to be here for all the changes that rihanna baracki put through [Music] and seeing the different type of recruits that we had in the beginning to how we have now to see that they're actually utilizing it it's a whole nother recruit from what we had two or three years ago right after that we established our first recruit division commander quality of life survey and what that revealed was that our rdcs were under a huge level of stress they'd work almost 100 hours a week and go home and try to be effective parents and and spouses in the home and that created a lot of stress and so we said you know what these rdcs they need these tools as well okay because maybe there's not you know they're not being shot at and they're not in a high-stakes uh situation in a tactical sense but they're facing a lot of stress and they need these tools as well so we developed rdc c-school curriculum a few months later as the name toughness first came out i was a little bit concerned that we're actually heading in that direction because it's an immediate turn off well if i'm engaging in development and toughness then i must not be tough enough i thought anecdotally it was just going to be another navy initiative that progressed through and people just talked about but there was really no substance behind it first thing that went through my mind is this is crazy it's ridiculous it's just another thing that the navy is trying to do maybe part of 2025. i was the adversary i was completely against it um but you know what now i'm a believer so when those thoughts come in your head i'm tired think of it more as i have a feeling that i may be tired i have a thought of fatigue because you're stepping out and you're focusing as it became more involved in it i saw the results in other people particularly in my life the goal setting aspect and being able to stay on target through a sustained period of time being able to to take that hit and keep going and focus on the day in and day out grind that was incredibly important to me shortly after i started using all the tools that we were giving through these classes in order to apply warrior toughness to my personal life and at work as well i am now 26 weeks pregnant and i use warrior toughness all the time i recalibrate and i'm able to take a hit and keep on going without hindrance of having to dwell in the situation when i'm when i'm tired when i'm frustrated and i've been trying to train these recruits for almost 18 hours it really takes a lot out of me personally there are going to be times where you kind of feel like you're at the end of your rope you're you're past that point you're you're physically and mentally exhausted but what i always use as a training tool for me are you know some of the basics of recalibration you know i take that second and i stand back and i think about what i did versus how i'm going to train that recruit i would say that it's worked for a lot of rdcs and it's worked for a lot of recruits it's worked for us and being an rdc is a very stressful job we work a lot of hours but at the same time we have to ensure that we're that we're healthy and that we're able to continue going and that's where taking a hit and being able to keep on going kind of comes into play from when i pushed my first five divisions to when warrior toughness was introduced to myself being able to be mindful knowing when i'm getting upset knowing that i have a decision to make and being able to make that right decision or now i just got out of a meeting and i'm completely upset about what's going on and as chiefs this is what we do but how do i take that and not snap on my sailors how do i filter that down these being mindful and all these things that we're learning right now it definitely helps with that just being able to identify physically what you're going through when you're actually in that moment just to understand physically what the recruit or your wife or your son might be physically going through just to understand that and be able to take a step back and then reengage just that that little moment where okay this is not general quarters this is a chili fire let me secure the power for one minute right now when you get out to the fleet we need you to be able to do your jobs while under pressure we need you to be able to do your jobs while you've got a ton of different distractors coming at you from 100 different directions one of the things i hear the most out of the skeptics is well it's good for the recruits well the fact is it's good for you too if if you're going to be training something to your people you need to be bought in 100 because they're looking to you for guidance and direction and if it's something that you believe in they're going to believe in it too and all you're doing is helping and driving that force home a little bit better [Music] after we conducted our first several classes of the rdc school curriculum we immediately started creating pilots that we could have studying control groups to measure the the data and statistics because without that then we really haven't proven that anything works so the research showed us that we were able to find statistically significant differences meaning that this was not by chance and it had to do with our training that the recruits that got the warrior toughness training were able to do better on their pfa they were able to do better on inspections they were able to do better on their firefighting assessment and they also took less time to train which meant that they get to the fleet faster we have taken assets and people organic to our command and we have applied that to the whole person mind body and soul so what we have is a program that addresses what hits we will take mentally physically and spiritually and then understanding and being aware of what our resources are of strength and resilience to get through that warrior toughness is not a resiliency program it is a toughness program we are ahead of the ahead of the curve ahead of the incident so we are being more proactive and building ourselves into tougher people and the resilience piece is what happens after the hit similarly it does the navy no good if these techniques are only helpful in boot camp so we're also tracking the sailors who participated in these studies throughout their first enlistment toughness and finding ways that you can manage your energy performance psychology sports psychology character development these have all been proven hundreds thousands of years but now we've taken it and put into a package that we have proven through statistics that we actually have developed something that works and what we need now is obviously to figure out that formula for exportation into the fleet as this begins to evolve again we've piloted this really well in it recruit training command and we've seen great success thus far the next big step that deliberate approach to warrior toughness and rolling this out and not getting ahead of ourselves not creating cynics by getting it out there too far too fast and not really understanding what it is that the program is and what it entails the next step is really to take it into that a school c school pipeline of training so that sailors are continuously exposed to what they've first already gotten in rtc and then once we get it out there i think the next logical step would be to include it as a part of the chief petty officer development pipeline and then eventually we'll get this to the point hopefully in the farther future where in all of our ships stations squadrons and units it's even taught and reinforced at the unit level in the year i've been here as the command master chief at recruit training command i've seen warrior toughness not only affect recruits but affect our sailors and our staff in positive ways morale and performance has improved it works we're building people of competence and character at all pay grades as a chief petty officer senior chief master chief you kind of think you got it figured out what i love about warrior toughness is it's opened my eyes to a new way of doing business and shown us a better way of building winning teams we spent the first part of world war ii learning these lessons how to deal with acute stress how to manage you know losing some of your crew as a ship encounters the enemy and to push through that to get to success to bring that ship either to victory sending the other ship to the bottom or bringing that crew home or both so learning those lessons now having our pearl harbor moment without having a pearl harbor by getting ahead of this training and using the things we know about character and about stress and the psychology and how all these things play together to ensure that our sailors are prepared we need this because this will keep sailors alive this will keep crews together this will keep ships and squadrons and units functioning and it will lead us to victory you

Channel: Military Video Archive

Views: 158,507

Keywords: technology news, military technology 2020, navy boot camp 2020, navy boot camp training, navy bootcamp graduation, Recruit Training Command, RTC, recruit training, us navy seals, us navy ships, us navy boot camp, us navy, navy, boot camp, boot camp navy, bootcamp, navy boot camp, destroyer, frigate, sailing, navy bootcamp, enlisted, nick bare, jtsuits, space force, lizard king, rtc, great lakes, space force boot camp, navy boot camp 2021, navy bootcamp 2021, navy meps, greenside

Id: 84HyuCZc9cY

Length: 23min 34sec (1414 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 16 2020