Week 0: ReceptionSoldiers complete administrative actions required to become part of the Army. Simple things such as medical examinations, setting up pay, and initial issue of equipment is completed. This process typically takes between two and three days but can take over a week in some cases.
Weeks 1-3: Red PhaseWelcome to BCT! Soldiers meet their Drill Sergeants and begin training. While often considered a difficult week for Soldiers due to the adjustments, it is actually pretty easy compared to later weeks. Most classroom-type training occurs in this period where Soldiers learn about:
- Ballistics and Rifle Marksmanship Fundamentals
- Personal financial management
- Law of Land Warfare
- Uniform Code of Military Justice (Military Law)
- Dismounted Land Navigation (using a map and compass)
- Fundamentals of Physical Readiness
- Nutrition
- Rappelling and navigating rope bridges
- Drill and Ceremonies (marching)
- Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) Defense (often referred to as the Gas Chamber)
- Fieldcraft
- Patrolling
Weeks 4-5: White PhaseThis phase is sometimes referred to the rifleman phase, qualification phase, shoot phase, and some other names. Whatever the term, the training focus is the same...how to identify, track, target, and effectively engage targets with a rifle. In a word, Soldiers learn "Marksmanship". The training is progressive and becomes more difficult as the training progresses:
- Fundamentals of Rifle Marksmanship are reinforced
- Zero a rifle (align the rifle sites to hit targets at different distances)
- Engage targets at various distances
- Engage targets at various distances using three different positions
- Prone supported (laying down with a brace to hold the weapon steady)
- Prone unsupported (laying down using only your hands to hold the weapon steady)
- Kneeling unsupported (one knee on the ground, resting the weapon on the other knee)
- Engage targets at various distances with limited time
- Prioritize and engage multiple simultaneous targets at various distances with limited time
- Engage targets at various distances, with limited and variable amounts of time, with a changing number of simultaneous targets available at any particular time...passing this requirement is also known as Rifle Qualification.
Weeks 6-9: Blue PhaseThe culminating phase of BCT, Soldiers combine the skills they learned in earlier phases of training to complete advanced combat tasks.
- Advanced Rifle Marksmanship (close combat and use of aiming tools such as lasers)
- Patrol and attack as a squad
- Maneuver and engage targets as part of a team
- Employ "crew-served" and more powerful weapons
- M240B Machine Gun
- AT4 Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher
- M203 40mm Grenade Launcher
- Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT - Fighting in a city)
- Convoy Defense
- Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Defeat
- Long-distance Road Marching with combat load
- Foward Operating Base (FOB) operations
- Control Point operations
Week 10: GraduationThe final week of BCT is all about you and your Family. After completing the final training events to include a week of field training and a 15km march under load back into the main part of the post, Soldiers are given a day with their Families to catch up and share their experiences. On the following day, Soldiers graduate and are sent to the next phase of their training that in almost all cases is Advanced Individual Training (AIT).
In other news:
-I've ditched the training plan I was on and started P90X for the remaining weeks I've got before basic, supplementing it with running a few times a week. I was starting to plateau and needed a new challenge.
-I've memorized the 3 General Orders, Army Values, and the Soldier's Creed. Thanks to YouTube for the soldier's creed videos- that definitely helped speed up the memorization process.
-My last RSP drill is this weekend. Blue Phase- sounds like mostly paperwork. Look for an update shortly.
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