US Army Training & Doctrine Command
US Army Training & Doctrine Command
Posted on Sep 26, 2025
If a recruit wants to enlist as a 12B and lives right outside of Fort Leonard Wood, can they just drive themselves there?
5.54K
37
18
8
8
0
Let's say a recruit wants to enlist as a 12B and lives right outside of Fort Leonard Wood in St. Robert. Can they just drive themselves there? Or would they still have to go to the USO in St Louis Airport to get picked up? Just wondering how that would work because I know some cadets who lived close to Fort Knox drove themselves to CST.
DTS
Recruiter
12B: Combat Engineer
Basic Training
Posted 2 mo ago
Responses: 10
No (USMEPCOM Regulation 601-23*, para 9-6).
There are also two things to consider:
• Soldiers will report to the MEPS station on their ship date for a final physical (you didn't break anything? You're not pregnant? Etc.) and to be administered the oath of office. Once they are sworn in, they belong to the Army (so to speak).
• Recruits are not to even ride in POVs during the first three phases of IET* (TRADOC Regulation 350-6, Table 2-2) and they wouldn't have access to their POV for a couple of months.
Even if they were allowed to drive in their POV to BCT (which, again, they aren't), and assuming they could find someplace to dump it for the period prior to AIT (since 12B is OSUT and has BCT and AIT combined), not many people would want to risk their car being in the same shape after parking it somewhere, for that length of time, without someone being responsible for it's security.
--------------------------------------------
* USMEPCOM Regulation 601-23 - https://www.mepcom.army.mil/portals/112/documents/pubsforms/regs/r-0601-023.pdf
* TRADOC Regulation 350-6 - https://adminpubs.tradoc.army.mil/regulations/TR350-6.pdf
There are also two things to consider:
• Soldiers will report to the MEPS station on their ship date for a final physical (you didn't break anything? You're not pregnant? Etc.) and to be administered the oath of office. Once they are sworn in, they belong to the Army (so to speak).
• Recruits are not to even ride in POVs during the first three phases of IET* (TRADOC Regulation 350-6, Table 2-2) and they wouldn't have access to their POV for a couple of months.
Even if they were allowed to drive in their POV to BCT (which, again, they aren't), and assuming they could find someplace to dump it for the period prior to AIT (since 12B is OSUT and has BCT and AIT combined), not many people would want to risk their car being in the same shape after parking it somewhere, for that length of time, without someone being responsible for it's security.
--------------------------------------------
* USMEPCOM Regulation 601-23 - https://www.mepcom.army.mil/portals/112/documents/pubsforms/regs/r-0601-023.pdf
* TRADOC Regulation 350-6 - https://adminpubs.tradoc.army.mil/regulations/TR350-6.pdf
(7)
(0)
5
5
0
You can’t just drive to Fort Leonard Wood and enlist. You’ll need to go through a recruiter and MEPS first. Once you’re in, the Army will give you reporting instructions for training
(5)
(0)
1stSgt (Join to see)
SSgt (Join to see) Correct, that’s the way I read it as well. The enlistment process always goes through a recruiter and MEPS before a recruit receives orders to report to training
(1)
(0)
Recruiter would probably have to drop them off to reception. But that's just a guess.
(4)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google