Training Tips

This is going to provide each and every soldier future soldier (Like My son) with some training tips they should comprehend prior to completing any task while in the United States Army. This is to be used as a guide and for no other purpose. These will be my ideas assisted by United States Army Manuals that I have gathered over my almost 20 years of Service.

1. Prepare yourself.
a. Get training guidance from your chain of command on when to train, which soldiers to train, availability of resources, and training site.
b. Get training objectives (task conditions and standards) from the source of which you will be using.
c. Ensure you can do the task. Review the task summary and the references in the reference section. Practice doing the task or, if necessary, have someone train you on the task.
d. Choose a training method. Some tasks provide recommended training methods in which you could use.
e. Prepare a training outline consisting of informal notes on what you want to cover during your training session.
f. Practice your training presentation.
2. Prepare the resources.
a. Obtain the required resources as identified in the conditions statement for each task.
b. Gather the equipment and ensure it is operational.
c. Coordinate for the use of training aids and devices.
d. Prepare the training site using the conditions statement and the evaluation preparation section of the task summary as appropriate.
3. Prepare the soldiers.
a. Tell the soldier what task to do and how well it must be done.
b. Caution soldiers about safety, environment, and security.
c. Provide any necessary training on basic skills that soldiers must have before they can be trained on the task.
d. Pretest each soldier to determine who needs training in what areas by having the soldier perform the task.
4. Train the soldiers who fail the pretest.
a. Demonstrate how to do the task or the specific performance steps to those soldiers who could not perform to standard. Have the soldiers study the appropriate training materials.
b. Have the soldiers practice the task until they can perform to standards.
c. Evaluate each soldier using the evaluation guide.
d. Provide feedback to those soldiers who fail to perform to standard, and have them continue to practice until they can perform to standard.
5. Record your results in your leader book.

If you follow these short and precise steps you will be learning the Army’s training method of Crawl walk run, rinse and repeat. This same format could be used in any organization that has a great demand on teaching and mentoring people to complete a given task.

If this has helped you or you would like to just some feedback please post me a comment, so I can continue to provide you with great information like this.

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Day 1 Basic Training

Well the story continues:

Day 1 of actual Basic training has arrived and I was cold missing home and my friends already. What have I done, was going through my head each and every minute. I was feeling out of place and confused at the same time. Things were going to be different. Heck I did not even have mommy to make me my breakfast or wash my clothes. (lol)

Well the drill sergeants picked us up and moved us onto the buses to head to our new home for the next 8 weeks. We go moved and shoved; this resembled herding cattle onto the truck. Everyone had at least 2 bags and was required to run and move onto the buss as fast as we could. All of this was happening while the drill sergeants were yelling and screaming in our ears. Calling us every name in the book. I even remember 1 kid breaking down and starting to cry. When we arrived at our new location it was a building about 4 floors kind of like a hotel look to it with balconies and the stairs on the outside. We got order to grab our bag and hit the pavement.
Upon reaching the pavement we had to dump all of our belonging onto the ground to have them inspected. They went through taking out things we were not allowed to have like tobacco products etc. 1 guy even has a pair of women’s panties. (That was a funny event) Once they were satisfied with checking everything and taking away all electronic devices and alienating us from the outside world. We have 2 minutes to pack it all up and follow him. Or we would get (smoked); I was thinking what in the world that is?
The yelling started again and then a new drill sergeant came running out of the building saying follow me. We grabbed our stuff and started running up floor after floor of this huge building. We started on the north side and ran the 4 flights of stairs then back down the other side around the building and back up the opposite side. This was kind of tiring we had all of our bags in our hands and it was like 4 am. After running the length of the entire building we went to another adjacent building were after running this on also. We started to get assigned our barracks. They were huge bays that slept about 12 people per room 6 bunk beds. The first thought I had was do I want top or bottom bunk. The top would smell the stench of the person from the bottom, while being on bottom bunk would smell the farts from the person up top. I took the top 1.
After dropping off our bags in the room we had to get ready for physical training I swear this went on all day long. Or at least my body felt like it did. Pretty much the entire day was getting yelled at doing a lot of push up’s and sit up’s. We did get to eat but only after doing 100 sit up’s and about 30 minutes of working on our abs. I think they were trying to make sure our bellies hurt so we would not eat so much.

So the journey has begun. I will keep updating this and going through my wonderful events in basic combat training. From my view in 1989.

Gringo