What is the longest you have heard of someone lingering around in Basic training?

When I was in boot camp we had this one guy in our company who got a Dear John letter and wanted to go home immediately,he went to see the clergy to make his plea to go home to no avail and took matters into his own hands by jumping down a flight of stairs landing on his knee breaking it instantly.He was put on medical hold and was being processed out the military,on graduation day as we were marching to our company ceremonies we saw him with a few other medical holds policing the streets and sidewalks for cigarette butts.
I heard that he went home 6mos later and his girlfriend dumped him for another military man,isn't Life a Bitch!!!!!!!

When I was drafted, (1969), if a trainee exceeded a certain weight for his height, he went to the rehab platoon, aka the fat man farm. He was put on a restricted diet and took the PT test every other day, and wasn't assigned to a basic training company till he passed PT. There were two guys in "the farm" when I got to Ft. Knox that were still there when I left for AIT 10 weeks later.

SPC - I'm amazed ! I'm going to have to read all these posts after seeing your mention of nearly 2 years, and the LTC that mentions someone being in his unit for over 27 months. When I got drafted in Oct '66 it was "understood" that the LAST thing you wanted to do was get "recycled". I was at Fort Campbell, KY, and the most I ever overheard from the DIs was 3 chances at basic training and then you got kicked out. Very different times during the draft/enlistment period of Viet Nam/Cold War. But, I actually don't know what the "standard" was then for basic and AIT time periods, was too darn busy minding my own business and aiming for all the courses I could take. Worked out for me, as I became an Armor Officer less than 10 months after getting drafted !

In my time, they didn't have lingering. I worked reception at Benning, also worked at a TMC. if you weren't fit for active duty, you were given a bus ticket home.

I was a DS at Ft. Benning and, during one of the "summer surges", in 89 or 90 and I had about 6 or 7 Soldiers in the psych ward at Martin. They were carried on my roster for the cycle and I never knew what happened to them. They went in various times (red, white and blue).

When I went to basic at Sill there was a private who was already there, that was being used sort of as a mentor. Over time it went to his head and he wound up in trouble with the DS's because he started bending and breaking the rules (like he thought he was exempt). I didn't understand in the beginning how he knew everything ahead of time, until later. Turns out he was part of their previous training but had fractured his leg, less than a week before graduation; he had to do it all over again. As far as your situation is concerned I honestly don't know enough about it. I just know the reason for our guy.

Not boot camp, but while I was at The Basic School in Quantico, there was a first lieutenant who was running around there and had been for several years. All we knew was that he hadn't graduated TBS yet and so couldn't proceed to his MOS school. No one knew the reason for his status, but the rumor mill was that it had something to do with a body found out in one of the training area.

I have no idea if there was any truth to that or if that was a result of someone's overactive imagination, but the lieutnant was still there after we graduated and still there after those of us who went infantry graduated from IOC.

When I was at Fort Leonard Wood, they had basic trainees sitting in the Hold-Under barracks (waiting to start basic), some of them had been there over a year. This was in 2000.

When I went to Basic in Ft Know, there was a guy who had been booted for Fraudulent enlistment, then recycled twice due to injuries, then got dropped again. Or so he said.
I think he was a plant, but I could be wrong.

Noone I know in basic, but I was with a guy in AIT who had been there for about a year before finally getting kicked out for medical reasons. He had been recycled about four times too many..

i hate to say i fell from the repel tower a short ways and injured my back .. i spent 8 months at Ft Knox till i recovered. while i was there another SM had already been in the PTRP unit a year and a half before i got there not including my 8 months .. last i heard when i got out of AIT (another 5 months at APG due to reinjuring my back) he was still in the PTRP company with a duty station patch on ... i absolutely hated the fact that i had to stay longer than than i was supposed to