Basic Training Tips

Basic Training 101

This is mainly geared for people with spouses leaving for Army Basic/AIT. 

My name is Britny Chapman. I have been an Army Wife for 1 year and 10 months now. 5 months of those my husband was gone to his combined basic/AIT, also known as OSUT. I sort of ran a basic training FB page where I engaged the family members from my husband's unit in different questions weekly or daily. Just to try to let up some of the sadness we were ALL feeling.

Let's start with the never-ending acronyms of the military.

MOS- the soldier's job in the Army

AIT- training for their specific job

OSUT-one station unit training- completing all of basic and AIT at the same base.

BCT- basic/basic training

BAH-  support for rent/mortgage , is based off of ZIP code

CAC- soldier's military ID

DFAC- dining hall

DEERS- information portal of all spousal, dependent information

OPSEC- security portocal, basically what you can and can't put on social media, or make public

PCS- changing duty stations (or moving bases)

Now that we got that covered let's discuss things to do/know prior to your soldier leaving:

1. His/her social- you'll need to MEMORIZE that. That is your key to using Tricare, the military's insurance and just about everything else.
2. Their MOS or job in the military- this is so you can find FB groups or pages for your future soldier.
3. The obvious--which base they will be going to for training
4. Will they be going to different base for AIT or staying for OSUT?

Here's how the process went for my experience:

July 31- Hubby left from his RSP unit headed to St. Louis airport.

That night at about 8:30 I got a 7 SECOND phone call where he said "I have arrived at ___. I am safe. I will call when I can. Goodbye." There was NOOO time for me to say anything. So I just hung up and cried. I texted his momma and sister and told them he was there.

The next few days were HARD. After living with your husband and then he is "wisked" away for 5 months. It kinda freaks you out. 

August 5th I received my first letter from him. It was just a letter saying how much he missed me. Of course I cried.

August 8th was the day he called with his company, platoon, and address. Make sure to ask for the platoon! Because I had done research and knew between 2 companies he would be with, I already had most of the address written out. In 1 minute, he was able to tell me his whole address. I wasn't able to ask anything during that call unless he could respond "Yes" or "No" to it. I think our call was him just saying the address over and over again. 

Once they are out of reception and move into basic, they will probably not receive mail for 3 weeks or so. Do not be alarmed if you do not receive anything from them for about 4 weeks. The post office is getting used to the new company and getting everything switched and ready. Plus, this is the direct start of basic and they are training. 

I think about week 4, I found out on the Facebook group that their were platoons getting phone calls on Sundays. I believe my husband's platoon missed that Sunday call because they had done something wrong. That next week on Sunday I did receive a call and it was for about a minute. So basically a "Hi" and "Bye" conversation. But MUCH needed for both of us! From there he got his called pretty regularly on Sundays but did miss one other one. The call times varied from 1 minute then once they hit AIT it was up to about 30 minutes. One time the DS lost track of time and I think it was a 45-50 minute phone call. That was nice! They had an "off" day on Veteran's Day so we talked and texted all of that day as well. We were pretty blessed with lots of communication even if it was only once a week (besides letters of course).

We had a graduation date on August 8th. However, they did move his up a couple days so it wasn't so close to Christmas. I booked the hotel on August 8th but luckily I was able to change the date around when we found out the graduation date moved.

My husband was away for Thanksgiving. He did have his phone the whole day so we Facetimed, talked, and texted. 

He had Family Day the day before graduation where family could come take him out to eat and just hang out that day. We spent our family day in the barber shop waiting on a haircut for him haha. We also went and saw the new Star Wars movie a little ways away from the base. 

Graduation Day finally came and I finally got to bring my husband home!! 

My Tips:

• THE BIG ONE-My soldier only wrote mostly me. So what I did was send him a BUNCH of peel and stick envelopes with my address, his LONG address, and a stamp on them. I sent that in a "report card" size manila envelope. He got them with no problem. He would tell me when his supply was low and I'd send him more. I did about 30-50 at a time. We were able to write just about daily. I'd send out a letter each day on my lunch. My soldier said this helped him out greatly because he didn't have to write anything but the letter and press and send!
• WRITE! They need to hear from home and what's going on. It may seem weird to say just the simple things but it's worth it. A tip I always saw was "Never write bad things". It was hard to write "bad things" when all we thought about was missing each other.
• PHONES-The moment they are shipped out, never let your phone out of your sight. Sounds silly but it's so true. Your soldier may call needing additional paperwork like mine did. I had to email over a copy of our marriage license to the personnel at reception.
• RESEARCH- The moment my husband left I googled his base and searched for their graduation dates. At that point I was able to guess that he was either going to be in Delta or Echo Company. It turned out I was right, DELTA!
• WAIT- Approximately, 5 days after getting to reception I got my first letter UNADDRESSED from my husband. They can write while they are in reception just they will NOT have an address for you to send mail back yet. So just read the mail, write back, and keep the letter until you get their address. I kept about 6 days worth of mail until I got his address. Once they are accepted by a company you should be notified either by a phone call or a letter with their new address and where you will send mail for the remainder of basic training.
• PACKAGES- Each company and commander is different with how they accept packages and what they will and will not accept. The biggest package I sent my husband was I think just envelopes, an extra cell phone charger, ear buds, and he asked for me to send his razor blades. NO FOOD, NO CHEW, NO MAGAZINES! Many people in my husband's company were sending care packages of like shaving cream, lotion, band aids, laundry pods, etc. My husband told me not to bother because everything at the PX was way cheaper than me buying it and shipping it there. I did send pictures and I don't think there ever was an issue of him getting those either. 
• FACEBOOK- Check to see if his company has a FB Page. They will post live videos of the training they do. My husband was gone during Thanksgiving so they went around to all the tables with the soldiers eating their nice dinner. Most said hey to their family back home. It was pretty cool. My husband's company also had a private FB group we could join which was family (moms, dads, sisters, brothers, spouses, cousins, etc.) of the SAME company as your husband. So you could see if they were getting phone calls or which platoon wasn't and you could see when people got letters. Thank God for technology!
• USPS INFORMED DELIVERY- Sign up your address for Informed Delivery. Every morning you will get an email if you have any mail/packages coming to your house that day. It was helpful because I would run home on lunch if I had letters waiting on me :) 
• COUNTDOWN- I posted this tip on the Army Wives group and many said they hate counting down. I personally loved it. It showed me just how many days we had left. It was nice seeing when the "Days Left" jar had less than the "Days Down". I also loved when we had only 100 days left too. Here's the start of the jars I made: 

Any questions, just comment! :)