What to pack for Basic Training (Army)

all right what to pack for basic training let's talk about it um so over making a few videos and reading you guys comments i've noticed that most of you guys are like leaving for basic training leaving for from basic training like just getting to ait things like that so um i just wanted to make like a quick thing for people leaving the basic training i think i might start making more videos about basic training and how that experience was for me um not a goal of my life but today in this video i wanted to uh i want to go over a packing list because whatever packing list you guys recruiter gave you guys throw it out is garbage i guarantee my recruiter told me to pack a bunch of stuff i didn't use any of it half the stuff i couldn't have half the stuff i didn't want it was it was dumb most of the stuff actually like didn't even last me wasn't my fault in my recruiter my recruiter was awesome but um it was the fault of whoever was telling them what we could have in basic training and what we couldn't so the first thing that i would suggest past packing is full-size shampoo and soap full size so when they told me to pack they were like yeah man you got to get the little travel bottles you're going to be fine with those they'll give you soap they'll give you all this stuff no dude especially like so they give you a little time when you leave reception to buy some stuff and then take it to basic training with you and i don't know if a lot of people are like me in this sense but i have kind of sensitive skin and like the soap and everything like that it was awful you're allowed to have a full-size thing of soap and i really wish i would have known that and shampoo as well and that was actually two of the first things that i got sent to me was soap and shampoo because i was like i can't do this crap like it was um a dial it was dial soap so i mean i guess if you use dial or like irish spring like you don't really have to bring anything but um there's that the second thing bring your phone bring your phone charger i know some people like i'll leave your phone at home whatever some recruiters will tell you that you're never able to use your phone um you're not it's not the same idea as like a lot of people have with basic is like oh i can never use my phone or i can use my phone all the time when i was in basic training we got like three phone calls but our phones were locked away for the most part and i'm glad i had my charger that's the one thing i'm really glad i had because had i not had that i mean obviously your phone's locked up in a case so it's not like the battery is just gonna stay on the whole time like it's gonna die out um so bring a phone bring a charger the third thing that i would suggest is q-tips q-tips were very useful um it was one of those things like i know you can buy like those little like 100 packs or thousand packs whatever a bunch of q-tips for uh just a couple bucks like cvs walgreens wherever you go buy them buy them and bring them because you're gonna be doing it for like for uh weapons cleaning and things like that you're gonna need them also you know who knows if your ears get clogged up i know they say don't use them but like they say a lot um the fourth thing is black socks you can bring black socks and you don't have to look like a dweeb at pt in the mornings like you don't have to wear these white high socks and everything like that bring some black socks uh it's actually funny my specific drill sergeant she she had like this long running thing i don't trust people who wear white socks so you know if you wanna if you want to look a little better bring some black socks um bring a watch because most people ended up buying like this dinky little watch at the px and when i say the px is not like a normal px it's literally like a basic training px and the thing the thing was garbage it's a little like us army watch whatever don't bring these don't bring an apple watch bring just a little watch something like a little casio something like that i could probably dig mine up and like show it in a future video but um i had it it worked great and uh it was nice the other thing bring deodorant full size deodorant um i would actually probably bring two or three deodorants um that's something that you know again you can buy the px they will let you buy that at the little px on px but um not a lot of options not great options a lot of the stuff people were getting it was chaffing their armpits it wasn't it wasn't fun to use so get deodorant that you've been using for a while that you can trust and everything like that and use that um toothbrush full-size toothpaste same thing don't bring a travel size toothbrush also don't bring like some big toothbrush that like needs to be plugged in and everything like that just bring a dinky little toothbrush that you can get at walmart walgreens cvs wherever you're at um bring that because it'll help out um this one is you can bring it you don't have to bring it but i'm a very spiritual person i'm a very religious person so i brought my bible that was an absolute blessing that i brought my bible that was something that i turned to every single day i was reading and if you forget it they will provide bibles but they're just not the same especially if you have a bible that that you care about um i wouldn't necessarily bring like your nicest bible or anything like that because you will be in the field but uh bring a bible especially if you're religious or a quran or whatever whatever religious text you have bring it because basic training can get very tough and that will give you some peace of mind you know you can go look at some scripture you can read some psalms you can read some romans like things like that and it'll really it'll ease your mind it'll ease your soul it'll help you get through um the next thing batteries probably d batteries because i don't know if you guys are anything like me you guys plan on writing a lot of letters you guys planning on um just sending everything to everybody but that was me like when i went into px i'm pretty sure i dropped like 200 bucks on paper and pens alone like i was writing every single day because uh basically can get very stressful and it will get very stressful and it will get very overwhelming um especially those two weeks i know covets calmed down a little bit but those first two weeks we were in a yellow phase and that was basically two weeks of quarantine before we started actual basic training so for that two weeks it's really just stuff like remembering the the soldiers creed the army song ranks things like that and um batteries i kind of i digress i went off point a little bit but uh batteries were good because when you're up at night you can clip your little flashlight up on the bunk and uh you can sit there and you can write all night obviously you're probably going to be too tired to do it but if you're really planning on staying up you really want to write people you really care about these people you're right bring some batteries so your flashlight doesn't die um some lotion i suggest bringing lotion if you got dry skin uh i didn't really have to worry about it too much but i know a lot of people were like stressing heavily over lotion um there will be an opportunity where you can buy some in the in the future but i mean once you get to basic you're probably not going to the px for like the first two weeks and you don't want to be out of any of this stuff like the the q-tips the shampoo the toothpaste stuff like that you don't want to be out of it and it's also something like if you can buy it cheap at home buy a cheap at home because once you're there it's not like you're at the px and it's not the most expensive thing in the world but if you can get it somewhere else for cheaper like you have more options you can get stuff like uh say you wanted a shampoo or a sew brand that like say you want to dove it's not like it's not like that's gonna be there for you so you want a specific scent of the that's probably not going to be there for you at the ps you got like two three options and that's it so um if you if you get ashy if you get itchy things like that bring some lotion man you'll be all right um another thing was a notebook i suggest honestly i would bring like two or three notebooks and i would bring some pens uh that the reason for that is obviously i said like i like to write um that will that will really help you i would also actually suggest bringing some envelopes maybe not like a like a 200 box like i did i literally bought a thing of envelopes that had 200 envelopes in it and uh i'm i'm not gonna lie to you they get crushed up when um you have to like put everything in your little laundry bags and run out and go to basic and all this other stuff from reception um keep in mind you are gonna be carrying all this you are gonna be carrying all this until you get to basic and then you can set it up in your locker and everything and um the thing with that is make it look nice make it look presentable you don't want you know if you if you have toothpaste and things like that you want something you can easily put there and it's going to look presentable um so notebooks pens and uh and envelopes that's something you can also keep in your personal drawer they're not going to check your personal drawers often if at all um one pair of civilian clothes so this is actually important so when you go to maps or whatever right you're gonna have maybe your recruiter is gonna tell you dress nice dress like real nice i'm talking like dress shirt pants like uh i can't think of what it's called blaze or like oh that's don't do that please don't do that um these are the clothes that you're going to be wearing when you leave basic so like well so we had buddy that we didn't have like a family day where our friends and family could come out and see us and everything like that because of coven so we have buddy day we could go walk off and do our thing um come to think of it actually we couldn't even wear our civilians for that but when we left we were able to wear our civilians and we only had one pair of civilians so whatever you go into meps with is what you're going to be wearing when you leave basic and given you can go to the px they're going to offer you a bunch of stuff when you're when you're at um basic training and they're going to offer oh you can get a battalion shirt a battalion sweatshirt stuff like that i don't know i hated basic training like i didn't want any of that i didn't want my name on my shirt i didn't want any of that so i had the clothes that i came in with and um i suggest you guys do the same and just a little trick with it so i know your your clothes are going to be sitting there in like a bag for two two months um they're gonna be sitting there in a bag and it might not smell the best when you get back so like what you need to do is take some dryer sheets and just put them in between the clothes and it'll keep them smelling fresh fold them nice make sure they're all right and uh and you'll be all right there um the other things that i definitely suggest you bringing are two locks i suggest you bring in two locks it doesn't really matter if they have a key on them or not um but if they do have a key keep that key on you at all times because if you don't keep that key on you not only you open yourself up for people to steal your stuff but you're opening yourself up to losing that key and then they're going to have to cut those locks off and you're not going to have a lock it's not going to be fun so i really do suggest a combo lock um maybe even something that you can just like you picked a little the the combo on it like instead of the twisting one you just like have the numbers or whatever do something like that um it's gonna it's gonna make everything a lot easier especially when when they rush you out maybe you're getting evicted or something like that and um they're like hey get everything out you got five minutes or you're getting smoke stuff like that it makes it a lot easier when you can just go oh one two three four versus like oh i gotta turn turn turn and like you know what i mean um so i suggest a lock like that it'll save you time um the next thing i suggest 50 bucks bring 50 bucks in cash if you can um if you can it's definitely not a necessity but i definitely suggest having cash um obviously there's things like people bring stuff in and like sell things which you're not supposed to do and i i don't condone that but it is a thing um the other thing with that is when you go to the px you're gonna have 50 bucks on you and when you originally go there you're not there's a chance that you're not going to be getting paid properly there's always that chance that you're not going to be getting paid properly and to really go get paid properly it's not an easy thing to do because when you get to basic training they have every single thing you do scheduled out like they know when you're eating they know when you're sleeping they know when you're going to to rock when you're going to pt they know everything and you're really not going to deviate too far from that schedule so what you need to do is you need to make sure you have some cash on you so just in case my my pay isn't going through right just in case i'm getting paid too little or like i guess you're not really going to complain if you get too much but in case you're getting paid too little something like that you can't afford things like hey ran out of soap but i'm not getting paid so what do i do now have the 50 in cash i would definitely suggest keeping it in your personal bag i would suggest keeping it locked up so that people can't just come steal it i wouldn't suggest telling anybody that you have it but i would have it um the next thing i'm actually not sure how this is going to work out so they let us have it in basic training like we could get it from the px we could get it sent to us things like that but it was one of those things that they looked for when we went into reception and they were like hey if you guys have this chuck it and um that's icy hot and vic's vapor rub um a lot of people for whatever reason they i mean you're there for you're there for 10 weeks so there there is an opportunity for you guys to get sick there is an opportunity for you guys muscles to cramp up and everything like that and most likely your muscles will cramp up but having some icy hot having some fixed vapor rub it will help um and you know another thing is these things will help keep you up i'm not gonna lie like say you're pulling fire garden it's three in the morning you gotta be up at five and like you're you're sitting there on fire guard and these people are about to walk in and and they're about to make sure everything's good and you can't get caught being asleep honestly man you can just sit there with some icy hodges sniffing real fast whoo all right woke the senses up i'm up i'm good to go let's go it helps in a lot of different ways um the next thing i would suggest drinking or drinking the next thing i would suggest bringing is stamps dude stamps bring stamps um it's one of those things that when you have stamps you get some letters when you don't have stamps you can send them letters simple as that they again sell them at the px but all of this stuff is on their pricing so you gotta understand that it's not like you have multiple stores to go to it's not like you have multiple ways of getting stamps i mean you can get some sent to you but how are you gonna get some sent to you if you didn't have stamps to begin with so nobody knows you need sams i would definitely suggest bringing stamps just keep it with your little notebook with your little pens or whatever bring them though um the last thing and this is for people like me i got a little bit of a sweet tooth right um so with that i love getting sugar-free cough drops the thing about it is you have to make sure they're sugar-free if they are not sugar-free you cannot have them but it's one of those things you know like when you're in basic you're not allowed to have candy you're not allowed to smoke you're not allowed to drink there's things like that so on a rough march man you're tired you're bored whatever it is boom you have a cough drop it's a sugar free calf drop it tastes good it brings a little bit of happiness in your life because your life ain't gonna be too happy when you're there and um at least that wasn't the case for me i know a lot of people do have an amazing experience at basic and i don't want to downplay that it can be very fun at tops but that's definitely something i would suggest bringing um if you guys think anything else let me know in the comments uh obviously like the video show more people this video if you can um but those are definitely things that you should bring to basic training and yeah that's it i mean if you're going off in in a couple months you're going off in a couple weeks let me know if you guys have any questions if you guys want me to go over anything in future videos let me know i'm here to help you guys man this is uh this is the future these are the people coming into the army i want to make sure you guys are comfortable coming in and a lot of this stuff can can go both ways like air force marines all that stuff it can go both ways but this specifically for the army these are amazing things to have especially at basic training all right i'll catch you guys on the next video

Channel: Dominic Cancilla

Views: 3,399

Rating: 4.955801 out of 5

Keywords: army basic training, basic training, basic training packing list, army, bct, DC army, DC, camp casey korea, fort jackson, fort jackson basic training, basic training army, prt army, prt army blc, active army, active vs national guard, reserves, army reserves, army reserves basic training, national guard, national guard basic training, army blue book, army blc, army boot camp, yellow phase army, 42a mos, 42a national guard, human resources, 42a human resources specialist, bts

Id: atoF2k35w34

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Mon May 10 2021