I’ve heard AIT is like college. Ivygirl is 23 and from what her letters say, is (finally) starting to grow up. She says she really enjoyed first aid training and is looking forward to AIT.
The place we usually did close-order drill was right next to the boundary fence, with a railroad just outside it. One of our CCs* was fond of pointing at the fence and saying “Any of you guys wants out of here, all you have to do is climb over that fence and jump a freight. But if you do, make sure you pack your seabag and take it with you, because I don’t want to have to do the paperwork!”
One of the lads from our sister company took off one night. Apparently he’d been listening to our CC, because he took everything with him. 
- Company Commanders. I think the Navy calls them “Recruit Division Commanders” or some such now.
Gawd Mom! When graduation finally happens, you will have a hard time recognizing and reconciling the young woman standing in front of you with the little girl you put on the plane just a short time ago
AIT is (or was) a LOT like college.
It depends. If you said that to someone in the Infantry they might hurt themselves laughing. With most Combat Arms MOS AIT and Basic are combined. Basic ends on Friday and AIT starts on Monday with the sames Drill Sergeants. It’s just another phase and usually not with that many more privileges. From what I hear Fort Sam is not like that. Guys like going there because there are a lot of women. I went to Fort Knox. Not so much.
Don’t know about Sam Houston, but the USAF base which trained all the docs & RNs (officers) and all the LPNs & techs (enlisted) was a VERY popular duty station for other specialties despite its terrible location.
I can’t recall the details now, and couldn’t even way back when, but I know I had some roarin’ good times in the club there. And for once it wasn’t a stag party. I wasn’t stationed there, but it was a common destination for training flights from my station. And the club & its patrons (patronettes actually) were the main draw.
Jeez, so she’s going to a party post?
I suspect the SPC actually checking weapons in and out and the NCOIC of that day at the armory were the ones who got really really reamed.
PV1 Howard did get to finish with us so whatever the heck was his official RBI 'splaination must have been damn good. Also, being 1985 our CinC Ronnie had set forth that we needed to build up numbers *fast * and we were close to end of fiscal year so not many more chances to make quota, so it pained TRADOC to let go of warm breathing bodies however knuckleheaded.
Back then you did not get to hang around with your weapon for long stretches of time except for overnight FTX and you weren’t even assured of getting the same one every time except during the actual BRM (shooting) phase. When we weren’t doing BRM they got sloppy and did not make us hand over our armory cards, just quickly glanced – still, one would think they’s notice a -1 variation in the number of assault rifles for Bravo 2 at the end of the day, wouldn’t you? At some point Howard had to go somewhere/do something where his weapon would encumber him and he was not sure he could secure it right so he had the bright idea of hiding it in one of the unused bunks at the vacant end of the barracks (can’t put it in his locker, the DS may look in!). Then he somehow missed the return time and I suppose he decided he’d somehow find a way to start the next day already armed (how the Hell he expected *that *to go unnoticed… it’s not like you can just slide a M16A1 down your trouser leg) and turn it back in at the end of that day as if nothing had happened. However then came the unexpected clean-up party and the discovery.
Can’t talk for Ft. Sam of the 20teens, in the late 20th Century it was one of the plum AIT locations and I don’t see how that may have changed: It’s smack dab right in San Antonio, just catch a transit bus and you’re downtown in no time (field training is at Camp Bullis out in the country). And the city is just surrounded and embedded with military posts. But really, combat medic AIT should keep her good and busy.
Makes sense. Big difference between a sequence of short-sighted basically innocent but bonehead decisions that painted the kid into a corner versus somebody with mental problems who hid the weapon with evil plans for later.
Long after training I got back from a live ammo TDY too late to turn my weapon in. The semi-peacetime USAF armory was 0800-1700 MF only. You couldn’t lock it in a POV or your quarters, so I had to babysit the damn thing on my back all weekend. PITA. But it was the conversation piece that broke the ice with the woman I’m still married to 33+ years later. So it was worth it. 
Not quite! Though, it is in a great city with an active downtown nightlife, and for a guy, it is the single best place to ever be assigned. But that’s from a male’s point of view. Ft Sam has a higher percentage of women than anywhere else in the Army, and they’re all young and away from home for the first time in their lives…
For a girl, I think theres no safer place. Strength in numbers, and all that.
She’s been told the first two weeks of AIT medic training are “Dead Week,” basically intense training. She won’t have time to write, and I guess there’s a lot of pressure to make sure you’re up to the task.
She’s still worried about the next peer evals, but she’s been keeping up with the ruck marches (the latest one she was in the front of the pack). Her exact words We got physically BRUTALIZED today. It was so much fun!
We got a letter from Ivygirl. She came down with pinkeye in both eyes, and ear infection, and bronchitis on the day before they were to go camping in field in the middle of a Missouri winter. The doctor transferred her to and from the field for an appointment so she wouldn’t miss anything (didn’t want it to develop into pneumonia) and she was able to keep up with a 12K ruck march. WITH BRONCHITIS.
That’s my girl.
Do they really call it camping in the US army? I would expect them to have some pompous technical term that pretty much means the same thing.
The word “camping” brings to mind roasting marshmallows and telling scary stories around a campfire.
Yes! The Army’s pompous, technical term is bivouac.
Look at you, fancy britches! We call it going to “the field”. We’re so technical.
It’s a Field Training Exercise, or FTX. She said they dug a foxhole, did some maneuvers, and got woken up by mortars and screaming booby trap sirens that mimicked incoming missiles.
Hated the road marches, but yeah, ftx was the most fun I had in basic. Mmmm the assault course and night maneuvers, that was a blast. Loud, wet, cold, and dark but it was FUN dammit!
“Bivouac” is a specific word for a short-term improvised camp. All bivouacs are field exercises, but not all field exercises are bivouacs.
As a guy who went through basic in the Finnish army, fun equals not being bored. Being on base is just so boring. Boring lectures about stuff that’s boring. Boring cleanup details. Boring maintenance. Baseball in the evening was fun. I suspect that Ivygirl and her compatriots are a lot more motivated than a bunch of conscripts.
On field exercises there was always something to do. Dig a foxhole into frozen ground. Dig a latrine into frozen ground. Just general digging into frozen ground. Shooting a heavy recoilless was fun: https://youtu.be/ApF342s8o9o
Digging a hole for it into frozen ground wasn’t.
Not being bored and doing something was a significant but small portion of the fun, yes, but oddly, crawling through the mud and muck, dodging the (fenced off) dynamite pits (for simulated mortar and artillery rounds) while low-crawling under the barbed-wire, following the assault course in the dark and the rain, all of it was actually brutally fun! I was in basic from april to may so no frozen digging for me:D
forgot to add, I was in Kentucky in the US and it was a mild winter that year so doubly no frozen anything for me