How can I excel in Basic Training?

Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. BCT is not the place to excel, just do as your told and move on. You are no more or less important than the person next to you at BCT and in a few months you’ll be gone and the next group of nuggets will arrive. Excel at your first unit, where it actually matters and your leaders will care. In Basic, remember that the nail that sticks out gets hammered.

Travis Leutbecher Best way to excel is to do as instructed, learn your Army Values, Chain of Command, Soldier Creed, and keep your head on a swivel. Nope, you are needs of the Army going to Basic. You go were the Army sends you. Best of luck, and enjoy your time don't go in with a negative attitude.

You cannot choose your BCT location.
Be at the right place, right time and right uniform. Everything is team focused.

The only places you really want to stand out at basic training are PT and weapons qualification. If you are standing out to the DSs for any other reason, it's probably not a good thing.

Score high on the ACFT or APFT, Weapons Qualification and set a good example for your platoon or company. Be seen and not heard. Motivate others and be a good team player, not a Blue Falcon or Spotlight Ranger.

There is no excelling in basic other than PT and Marksmanship... even then, they only care if you pass or not. You want to do what your told, when your told and get a first time go on everything. Best thing you can do, is do personal PT so you are physically fit when you arrive. The whole process is planned, every minute of it is by design. Take care of your battle buddies, don't start shit and give it 100% everytime and you will do great! Best of luck!

Do not be selfish, especially at the cost of those around you.

In the bigger picture of life two months really isn’t a long time. It’s not even a fiscal quarter.

Yesterday is irrelevant. Focus on passing the next GO/No-Go evaluated task. Those are the only things that matter. If you want out of the crappy situation you are in the absolute fastest way past it is passing all the evaluated tasks.

Some say never volunteer for anything. I remember volunteers would go and do mundane tasks out of the eyes of drill SGT’s while back at barracks the entire company went through a smoke session. It happened enough I made it a point to volunteer. You just never know.

One way to hedge your bets with regards to Sill is to stay away from artillery mos's

I recently graduated from Fort Sill, so I'm greener than my OCPs, but BCT is fresh in my mind. Hopefully these help:
- DRINK WATER. LOTS OF WATER. Keep your Camelbak topped off at all times. We had an insane amount of trainees drop from heat and dehydration during the Anvil, one kid even had a seizure. Drink water, salt your food. Eat carbs.
- Avoid milk on hot days. You will barf.
- Pack Ziplock bags. They're quite useful for staying organized. Also, keep track of your shit. I lost my eyepro during some lovely midnight low crawls, and that set me back around 50-60 bucks.
- When you go to the PX, get a couple of those write-in-the-rain notebooks. If you're going to Sill, or really anywhere in the summer, you're gonna sweat right through your OCPs and jack up your notes. Learned this the hard way.
- Pay attention! Take notes on everything. Really, really detailed notes.
- If in doubt, don't look a drill sergeant in the eye. They'll let you know if you're supposed to.
- STUDY STUDY STUDY
- Make sure you're in some kind of shape before you ship! It'll give you a leg up and save you lots of sadness. Bust out a set of 10-20 push-ups or sit-ups if you're just standing around at home. Look up HIIT workouts on YouTube. If you've got a place to do it, go for some runs, especially with some interval sprints mixed in.
- If you have any free time in the bay, exercise. If you're completely out of shape, morning PT isn't gonna cure you, you gotta put in some extra effort. I couldn't do a single hand-release push-up when I got to BCT. On the final ACFT I cranked out 30. I'm up to 50 right now, and hoping to max 'em on the next test.
- If a drill sergeant asks why you're doing something you're not supposed to(fidgeting in formation, etc.) and you have no good reason to be doing so, a good response is "No excuse, drill sergeant!" You're still probably gonna get chewed out, but it'll be slightly less bad than if you try to scramble for some half-assed excuse for your actions.
- You need friends in BCT. Be nice to everyone, help each other out, do your part.
- Always remember most of your exhaustion is in your head. Even when you feel completely dead, you've always got something left in you.
- The drill sergeants are supposed to be mean to you. It's their job. So try to use what they say to better yourself. If a drill sergeant called me out for doing something stupid, I wasn't liable to repeat my mistake! They can also be REALLY funny(try not to laugh, drill sergeants usually don't like that very much), and even motivational. My senior drill sergeant gave me life advice that I'm never gonna forget and really helped me out. Forever indebted to him. By the end of BCT, I genuinely liked and respected every drill sergeant in the battery. Hopefully you will too.
- It's gonna be the best worst ten weeks ever! I honestly had the time of my life at BCT(my favorite parts were probably the COC and NIC). Obstacle courses, marksmanship, camping out...it's like a summer camp on steroids where the counselors try to make you cry(at least during red phase). So enjoy it while it lasts, and good luck!

Byron Skinner. Today BCT is a piece of cake.66 years ago it was a lot different, a ll Frill instructors I think had a size 10 boot, witch they never hesitated to kick a Trainee in the six when he though that the Trainee was not properly motivated and slacking off. The there was the at least once a week when a Drill Sgt. came back to the4 barracks, note the Drill Sgt’s lived in the Barracks with his platoon. From having a little to to drink and tipped over the beds turned over the foot lockers trainees didn’t have any wall lockers back then. The physical part (PT) you had very little you could do. If you didn’t do well you were slacking, if you did well your were slacking and could have done better. Disciplinary push ups you could figure on a hundred or so a day in either 20 or 25 at a time. Pull up’s, figure at two out of three meals a day, the pull Bar was andy the entry to the mess Hall. In the Company area it was double time every time you stepped out of a building. This is where the Size 10 boot came in to play.