Skip to Content

Hardest Parts of Army Basic Training

Maybe you’re going to be joining the army at some point in time and you’re a little bit nervous about basic training. Well, this probably doesn’t help to fix that. But let’s talk about some of the hardest parts of that initial training. What’s up, my friends? Welcome to an all new video. Let’s talk about some of the hardest parts of basic training. It’s something that people stress about, people are worried about, and they want to know what to expect before they show up. So I’m going to try to talk about some of the things that a lot of people consider to be maybe the hardest parts. Now, there are hard parts, of course, because it’s not supposed to be easy. If it was easy, everybody’d be in the military or in the army or whatever the case was. So there are some parts of it that are harder than others. Some parts are fairly easy. Some parts are mediocre, and then there’s some parts that some soldiers feel like that was the toughest parts of basic training. So give me a little bit of heads up before you go into it. Let’s dive right into it and let’s talk about one of the first things.

Now, the first thing we’ll talk about is the first three weeks of basic training, otherwise known as the red phase. This is when drill sergeants are the most strictest. This is when everything is just intense. They’re yelling at you. This is when they used to have the shark attack. Now it’s the 100 yards. You’re just getting smoked all the time. You’re getting yelled at. You have the most restrictions that you possibly could have in basic training. Not that you get any free time later on, but definitely during this phase, it is when it’s the most strictest. Things do lighten up a little bit later. I’m not to the point where you guys are saying Kumbaya or anything crazy like that, but this first three weeks is when it’s the most intense. This is also when you might see people that are trying to quit, people that just can’t hack it and just realize that maybe they made a mistake. It is really intense and that’s what they’re trying to figure out is they’re trying to figure out who can handle the pressure and who can’t. This is often the weeks that you find out which people cannot handle the pressure.

Now, another thing that is very difficult and most of this happens also during that first three weeks during red phase, getting smoked. Sure, there might be some times where that smoke session was super easy or whatever, but then there’s some other times where it just goes on and it seems like forever and you’re exhausted and you’re worn out and you’re just so relieved when it finally ends. I remember some times where we got woken up in the middle of the night and got smoked for no reason. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t happen. Everybody has different little stories usually about their time in basic training or OSHA about something that happened and they got smoked for it. It’s usually different stories than the other person. One veteran or one soldier might have a different smoke session story compared to someone else. But I remember being woken up, I think it was like maybe like 1 o’clock in the morning or something like that, woken up in the middle of the night out of sleep and being yelled at and being smoked for probably an hour or so. I don’t know, it seemed like forever, but it might have only been like half hour, hour, whatever the case was.

And then finally it ended and they told us to go back to bed just to wake us back up in a few more hours to do physical fitness. Probably the intention of that was to get us used to having little sleep and being able to function off of that. So it’s a lot of times for the better of you to make you a better soldier, to prepare you for something, to get you in better shape, whatever the case is, make sure you handle the pressure and all that stuff. But it definitely, definitely sucks. Before we move into the next thing, this video is sponsored by The Ridge Wallet. The Ridge Wallet is super sleek and slim and very modern style. It’s definitely, definitely something you should switch to if you are rocking one of those old school foldable wallets to go in your back pocket. The Ridge Wallet can hold up to 12 cards with RFID blocking technology and also has either a money clip or a strap on the back to put cash. I currently have the amazing 18 carat gold one. I love this thing. It is awesome. This could be a perfect Christmas gift coming up.

I mean, it’s probably crunch time for you to get some Christmas presents. This might be the gift to get somebody or, hell, maybe even just get yourself, whatever the case is. But even if you don’t want something as flashy as maybe gold, maybe black, maybe carbon fiber, maybe a TK eeth theme, they have a bunch of different choices to choose from on their website. One of the things I really love about the Ridge Wallet is it is backed by a 45 day guarantee. If you don’t love the wallet, they’ll take it back, they will pay for the shipping and they’ll give you your money back. And if you decide to keep it, well, it’s backed by a lifetime guarantee. This thing is made out of very durable material, but hey, if something happens to it, it gets damaged, gets worn out, you can get it replaced for free. One wallet for the rest of your life or maybe even someone you care about for an upcoming Christmas gift or yourself. Treat yourself. I’m hurrying up. Holidays are coming up soon, so visit the link down in the description box below. Visit ridge. Com chaos army and even at checkout when you use the promo code chaos army, get 10 % off.

What’s free shipping. Moving right along now, another thing that is one of the worst things about basic training or OSUT or that initial training is just the unknown, not knowing what is going to happen. Not knowing if you’re going to get smoked, not knowing if you’re going to have to do this or that or how much sleep you’re going to get or whatever the case is. There’s a lot of unknown factors in basic training. I try to do my best to provide you with some of that information, but some of it is unpredictable. Some of it you are not going to predict. I don’t know what time they are going to wake you up in the morning. Sometimes that’s 4 o’clock in the morning. Sometimes that’s 3 o’clock in the morning. Sometimes it’s 5 o’clock in the morning. I don’t know when they’re going to smoke you. Sometimes it’s once a day. Sometimes it’s 500 times a day. I don’t know. 500 may be a little excessive. I don’t know if that’s actually possible, but you don’t know how often that smoke session is going to be, how long it’s going to be for, what you’re going to do, or what else is possibly right around the corner.

That can be a little bit nerve racking, right? Not knowing what’s going to happen, right? What’s going to go down, right? You’ll know some things, right? You might know about, Hey, what we’re doing for training today, but some of the things in between, you just don’t know how things are going to go, and you have to go with the flow and hope for the best and just tough it out, right? Tough through it. Now, I mentioned that you don’t know what time they’re going to wake you up, so that’s a known factor. If they’re going to wake you up at three o’clock in the morning, five o’clock in the morning, whatever. And that goes along with another thing that is one of the worst things about basic training, and that is the lack of sleep. You’re going to be exhausted. You’re working out in the morning. You’re doing training. You’re doing all sorts of things. You probably got woken up at super early in the morning and then went to bed maybe late at night because you were doing training. Whatever the case is, lack of sleep is a tough part. But they’re trying to test you to make sure you can function off that because sometimes that’s a real life situation you have to deal with.

As someone who has deployed to a combat zone, I can say that is the real thing. There are times where you have very little sleep because there is so many missions going down or so much happening that you just have to make the best of it and work off of very little sleep. That’s not to say all the time. Sometimes there’s times where maybe you get a bunch of sleep, but there are also times where you get very little sleep. One key one that comes to my mind of actually being in a combat zone was doing a mission all night until the morning, coming back from that mission, and then there was stuff to do in the motor pool on the Fob, and everybody else was already out on a day mission. So the people that came back from the night mission really was available to accomplish this mission. So we had to stay awake and continue running through the day as well. So that’s where they’re preparing you for, right? It’s maybe possible situations like that in basic training, in a training environment to see how you can handle. What can you accomplish on little sleep?

Can you still function off of getting very little sleep? And it gets very difficult at times. But that definitely varies, right? There are some nights where you might go to bed at 10 o’clock and then not get woken up until 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. But there are also some times where maybe you don’t go to bed until midnight, and then you’re waking up three or four hours later. Now, over on my Instagram, I actually asked some of my followers who have gone through basic training or OSU, what were the hardest parts for them? And so we’re going to go through a few of those and give you a little bit of examples from some people that maybe recently went through basic training or OSUT, or maybe just in the past have gone through that initial training. So Jesse says, The other people, everybody was so different than how people were back home. I can understand that, right? You’re used to growing up in a certain area and the culture in that area, and the culture in that area. Then you start really intermixing with a lot of people from different parts of the United States.

I don’t know if that makes it hard. It definitely makes it a little bit weird, a little bit different, right? Trying to get acclimated to how their lifestyle was, or their culture is, or their slang words, or whatever the case was, and getting used to those adjustments. 720, Ester says, Being away from family. Definitely probably the hard part. I remember I had a girlfriend from high school, and I was missing her, and my family, and everything like that. But you got to tough through it. And there are some people that I remember in basic training have actual family families. They have a wife and kids and everything like that that are counting on them, and they’re probably missing them like crazy. So I definitely can see that. That’s probably a pretty tough thing, missing your family, whether it’s a wife, husband, kids, or just mother, father, whatever the case is. It can be a very tough situation, especially if it’s your first time being away from them for that long of time. Brianna says, The gas chamber and the anvil. I’m not sure what the anvil is, but the gas chamber does definitely suck. It’s pretty short term, but it does while it’s happening.

It definitely sucks. I don’t know if it’s one of the worst things. It’s definitely one of the most laughable moments you’ll probably remember from basic training about how it felt and how other people reacted to it and everything like that. But it’s very temporary. You only go through that one time in basic training. It lasts maybe 10, 20 minutes, something like that, and then it’s over. Try not to choke prior service Air Force to death at Fort Jackson, says Joe Mama. I don’t think I had to deal with any Air Force people. We had one who was prior Navy, but he was a cool dude, so not too big of a problem. Jacob says COVID ruined a lot of the events and made it very boring. That definitely, I can see being something difficult current day as I’m recording this video with COVID going on, that definitely can probably throw a wrench in everything and make things harder than they need to be or boring, whatever the case is. That definitely messes stuff up. Hopefully, maybe when you go, maybe it’s all over with and it’s just back to normal basic training. But COVID does definitely change a lot of factors and everything like that.

In some cases, it makes it either more boring or maybe even harder. Kevin says, climate change from sunny and 72 in LA to 20 or less at Fort Seal. I definitely can relate to that. I came from California and then went to Georgia, which was humid as hell. And then by the time I went to AIT, it’s wintertime now, so I had to go to Fort Leonardwood, Missouri, and that was super cold there. So I experienced all sorts of different climate changes, from muggy and hot in Georgia to the freezing cold in Missouri. And then one last one, Royal Spencer says, Being with really stressed out drill sergeants who got their contracts extended due to COVID. I can understand that, right? Maybe they’re excited to get the hell out of there and go back to doing their MLS maybe, but COVID throws a wrench in that plan, and now they’re stuck being a drill sergeant for longer than they wanted to be, so they’re probably going to take it out on you. Now you know what some of the worst parts are. Maybe you want to know, what are some of the best parts of army basic training?

Convenient enough, I made a video about that. Check this guy out right here if you haven’t seen it already. I also have my latest upload right down here if you haven’t watched that video, check out links down the description for social media, the sponsor, all sorts of fun stuff. You’re awesome. You rock. I’m Christopher chaos, and I’ll see you next time. See you.

George N.
Latest posts by George N. (see all)