live from st. jean

[bled12345]

k, i'm typing this semi-toasted at the recruit bistro, 8 weeks in... So since there is alot of valid info, and alot of b.s. on this board about basic training, i thought i'd just clear some fog since i'm actually here and know whats going on for training.  =)

1st rumour to clarify... combining SQ with BMQ. Yes its happening, the course is no longer 10 weeks long, 14/16 platoons here are doing a new 11 week course, and 2 guinea pig platoons are doing the 13 week course. and as of october the course will be 17 weeks long, a full combination of SQ and BMQ for ALL trades, not just army.The 11 and 13 week course are the EXACT same, same amount of classes, same ruck marches etc etc, except the 13 weeks have it spread out more. As an 11 week course, we only had 1 full friday night to sunday night weekend to ourselves.... BUT that week (week 5) we had platoon duties. So on top of inspections and fire picket and all that jazz, you had to go downstairs to the common areas (break rooms, smoke pits etc) and clean the shit out of them.

Also, some people seem to have that mentality "it won't be that bad, they will build me up to it"

WRONG!!!! With the new and improved bmq, everything has gotten way more hardcore, if you don't come in here at tip top shape, you will injure yourself, or they will cut you from the platoon. The instructors aren't here to babysit you. If you aren't fit, they will send you to the MIR, you will miss an important class, and they will recourse you back to week 1 or 2 just to make a point. There is full on swearing, sadistic pt, no sleep etc etc. Its pretty much full metal jacket, minus the physical beating, but trust me they do things far worse than hit you lol...

i only have 3 more minutes on the internetmachine so i will try to make it quick.  uhhh what else to say, oh yeah... just dont go in thinking it won't be that bad, the first 3 weeks you are here, you are waking up at  4-5 in the morning, and working the whole day until you go to sleep at 11. There are morning pt's about 3-4 times a week, so you wake up at about 4:30, shave, make your bed, then go for a 5 k march. Here's another rumour to clarifhy... "you run at the pace of the slowest platoon member" wrong. If you fall out, they will give you major shit and fuck you up the ass, you run at the sargeants pace.


Long story short, BMQ is WAY more hardcore now. We started at week 1 with 60 recruits, in week 8 we have 38 left in our platoon. The rest were VR's and injuries and recourses.

anyways peace and love from st. jean.


IF YOU AREN'T PREPARED, START GETTING THERE, THIS SHIT IS WAAAAAAY MORE HARDCORE THAN ANY CIVY JOB EVER!!!!!

 

[armyjewelz]

Makes it difficult to have faith in the "Chill Out" thread... Hubby is now panicking.. eek.

 

[PPCLI MCpl]

WRONG!!!! With the new and improved bmq, everything has gotten way more hardcore, if you don't come in here at tip top shape, you will injure yourself, or they will cut you from the platoon. The instructors aren't here to babysit you. If you aren't fit, they will send you to the MIR, you will miss an important class, and they will recourse you back to week 1 or 2 just to make a point. There is full on swearing, sadistic pt, no sleep etc etc. Its pretty much full metal jacket, minus the physical beating, but trust me they do things far worse than hit you lol...

Long story short, BMQ is WAY more hardcore now. We started at week 1 with 60 recruits, in week 8 we have 38 left in our platoon. The rest were VR's and injuries and recourses.

IF YOU AREN'T PREPARED, START GETTING THERE, THIS crap IS WAAAAAAY MORE HARDCORE THAN ANY CIVY JOB EVER!!!!!

This post brings to mind a comment made to me by a friend at DHTC prior to my departure on SAR pre-selection.  He said "Don't worry about it man, they can't kill you."  Truer words were never spoken.  So, for those of you that consider BMQ, or any other course for that matter, to be insurmountable, just remember: No matter how "hardcore" it gets, they can't kill you.

Chill Out

 

[atticus]

So basically if you can't run 5k in 20 minutes and do fifty pushups your screwed? I'm under the understanding the through BMQ, SQ (and for me BIQ) that the courses get progressively harder and harder physically. But then I'm gonna find out when my course starts monday (i leave tommorow morning).

 

[armyjewelz]

While that may be true... it is hard for someone who has waited their whole lives to be in the services.. to swallow.  I am watching from the outside at my poor DH who is working his butt of to try and be ready for this.  After 31 years he is finally pursuing his dreams and he reads this stuff and is scared poopless that he is not in good enough shape (He is a bigger build) and not young and that he will be kicked out yadda yadda.  It is sad really to watch the mind states he goes through.  I honestly hope that "Doing your best" is recognised and that this is honestly them looking for the best, even if it takes some of them a bit extra... :-\

 

[armyjewelz]

So basically if you can't run 5k in 20 minutes and do fifty pushups your screwed? I'm under the understanding the through BMQ, SQ (and for me BIQ) that the courses get progressively harder and harder physically. But then I'm gonna find out when my course starts monday (i leave tommorow morning).

Well deffinately don;t go in thinking you are going to fail, but if that is the case, then my DH is screwed too! LOL.  His 2,4k still takes him about 12.5 so....

 

[atticus]

Yeah, my 2.4 km right now takes about 12 minutes (unfortinanly it used to be better) but I can keep running. I can do proper pushups until about 30 and then they progresivly get worse until about 50. I was just thinking BMQ was mainly mental stuff and the physical stuff got worse and worse through the courses.

 

[armyjewelz]

Kinda the impression we got.. also from threads like "Chill Out" that they were honestly looking for "Afew good people" not to tear the snot out of anyone who tries...

 

[SemperFidelis]

I started to panic..I start BMQ in 2 days.  Have tomorrow left and the next day Im off to become a soldier.  Like I said...after reading this, panic kicked in....then logic (usually its logic first...I think its just the pre-bmq nerves that got the two mixed up).  Lets not for get one thing.  This bled12345 is there 8 weeks ( congrats on making it that far) but lets not forget...this is from his point of view at basic.  He hasnt attended a numerous amount of BMQs in order to make a judgement call whether its more "hardcore" or whether or not it has changed.  This site is loaded with perspectives on BMQ from DIFFERENT people...therefore how these people handled the experience will be DIFFERENT and so will their advice.  Take it all with a grain of salt.  Who ever has been to this site, and done any sort of research in order to better prepare themselves for BMQ, you just have that much of a heads up. Most people who have absolutely NO clue what so ever what they're getting into, with the exception of the video they show you at the CFRC at the time of your enrollment.  It shows initiative...dont forget that initiative when your at basic, use it and abuse  it to give yourself that extra push when your day is too long, when your sleep deprived, exhausted and missing that significant other (or whatever else).  REMEMBER...This is BASIC training.  
An interesting thing happen last night...I got a call at 3AM from a friend of mine, who's a US Marine: Force Recon ( those guys are pretty bad ass mofos) currently on deployment to Iraq.  It felt sort of funny telling him this, but I said to him " Im honestly kinda scared, what If Im not capable of doing all they want from me.  What if I cant do it?"  He said (more like yelled) this ..." Dont you EVER say something like that again! You have NO clue what you are capable of doing until you are pushed to your limits by external forces.  Prior to most of my training had you asked me if I could see myself doing that ...I would have said no...but I surprised my self...and realized self-doubt is not an option.  Because, you DONT know until you've been there and done it.  And let me tell you...you CAN. " .....he went on for a bit....but he also went on to point out...things like reasons as to why they're so tough on inspection and why they yelling and why this and why that.....basically comes down to if you cant take care of your soap dish...how are you going to take care of your rifle.  If you cant take being yelled at by your instructor...how are you going to deal with bullets whizzing past your head, and mortars going off around you.  Anywho...whatever info you find on here...take it with a grain of salt.  You wont know what BMQ is like, until you experience it for yourself.  Dont "freak out" like I was doing for SOOO long.  Go there, do your best, do not quit no matter what, remember its 10 weeks not 10 months, and no matter how hard it gets remember somewhere in the world theres someone who's in a MUCH more difficult position on a day to day basis and be privileged to be ablebodied and have the mental capacity to undertake such a challenging journey.  
Best of luck to all...and stop stressing!!

P.S.  The journey is more important than the destination.  
P.S.S. That destination better be an amazing career in the CF!!!!
Irvy...OUT

 

[armyjewelz]

My husband is going and with every intent of just doing it.. I just feel for all these recruits that have to read this kinda thing and worry....
Can't be good for the mind....

Also depressing to see the drop out rate. I mean, didn't all these people go in thinking they could do it?

Hmmm bled did say he was blitz.. maybe it was the booze talking 

 

[armyjewelz]

True enough.. but you have to know where I am coming from with that statment though!

 

[armyjewelz]

Piper -You rock.. thanks for helping a fretting wife outta her rutt.. yer right!  

 

[Jungle]

Basic trg is being made more robust. As mentionned, they're not going to kill anyone out there... well, not intentionnally anyway 
Most of the failures on basic still come from VRs (voluntary releases) in the first couple of weeks of the course. Just keep a "never quit" attitude. They can't kick you out if you meet the standards.
Now all of you going into basic soon, read my sig line.

 

[alexpb]

I don't understand why the hell there are so many VRs...

Don't people know what they are getting themselves into?

 

[George Wallace]

I don't understand why the heck there are so many VRs...

Don't people know what they are getting themselves into?

Many may think they do, but find out different once they get there.   It is one of those cases where one can tell you all about it, but until you have gone and seen it or done it yourself, it can never be described with enough accuracy for you to truly believe.

 

[theSage]

Well that post filled me with dread,  but Piper you put things more or less back into perspective.  I guess I am just going to have to find out tomorrow when I ship out to my BMQ,  I hope my SQ is serparte though I wanted to to go through both courses.  Well I guess I'll find out soon enough.

 

[muskrat89]

The "Chill Out" thread was accurate. Fear not...

If I randomly selected 20 Army.ca members, and subjected them to a totally unfamiliar, life-changing experience, you would get 20 versions of the same experience. For people who have an easy time with PT, maybe it is the written PO checks. For the flabbies like me, maybe the PT was almost insurmountable. For some, maybe the lack of control/not enough time/meticulous bed-making.. whatever... each person has their own strengths and weaknesses - for each person it is a different experience. ESPECIALLY when Instructors are different individuals, with their own personalities, putting their own slant on each class/course/situation.

Frankly, I think 2 things are at work here. One is false bravado. I think genuine "toughness" has been decreasing over the generations. Hard work on the farm, or in the woods, with little disposable income has been replaced  over time by the "gangsta tough" and bling bling. Keep in mind I am generalizing 2 extremes to make my point. Like Jungle said - your mind and your will need to be strong. Everything else will fall in place, most likely with a few ripples and bumps.

Also, I think some of you are making yourselves nuts with trying to harvest every miniscule crumb of information. Then you panic, when a new crumb is different than the previous one. I hate to use the "my generation" crap, but seriously - there were no message boards, and no internet in previous times. Ignorance was indeed, bliss. Prepare yourself mentally, prepare yourself physically, chill out. I fear that some are trying to prepare themselves for specific scenarios, specific bits of information, specific everything. Prepare broadly, and then you can handle all that comes along - even the things that no one told you about.

 

[George Wallace]

Remember:

Your greatest enemy is yourself.

Don't let your fears of something defeat you before you even start.  You'll find on completion that your fears were unfounded.  Once you have done that, you will have more self confidence in your abilities and skills.  False bravado does a lot of people in.  In the end this is what Basic is all about, making you into the type of person the CF needs - Winners - not quitters.

Once you have finished BMQ, SQ and all that, you will be like most other CF members and tell all the newbies that they will never have it as hard as you did..... ;D

 

[bled12345]

holy christ, relax on flaming me.  How do I know that BMQ is getting more hardcore? There's people that have been here for like a year on pat platoon from different injuries. Prior to the summer, most platoons didn't do a morning run until the 3rd week.  After summer with the new and improved course, every platoon did a morning 5:10 am 5 km run at the end of the first week.  The marches aren't bad at first, but then they start with the ruck marches, then the fully loaded ruck marches with the rifle etc etc. Week 6 we had a 5 km forced march with a fully loaded ruck sack which ended at the obstacle course, we had about 5 minutes to gear down, gear up, get water in us, and then we hit the obstacle course with our rifles and webbing as 3 seperate sections trying to complete it in a timed competition.

And as for piper... I think as much as you would like to compare reserve bmq to regular force bmq, there is honestly no comparison AT all.  How do I know? there are 2 guys on my platoon who had 6 years as artillery reserves, SQ and even a deployment in haiti. they have to redo bmq because they are going combat engineer and there is no reserve to reg force transfer like with the infantry and artillery.  They told me that bmq  reg force is harder than the reserves SQ. 

There is no way you can compare a 21 day course to a 3 month course. It never stops, it just keeps going and going and going.  I'm not saying that it is an impossible course, I'm not saying that only olympic athletes can complete it, I'm just saying... Don't come in being unprepared, thinking that "hey, they will build me up"  Come in at the best shape you can. You shouldn't be running 2-3 k and thinking "wow that was a good run" you should be running 6-10 k, pushing yourself to the limit, and THEN say that "hey that was a good run"  anyone can run 6 k, its all in the mind, before I came I was running 2-3 km, and you really pay for it once you get here.

I'm not psyching anyone out, I'm just saying this sure as hell isn't summer camp, come in with a tough  mentality, and just know that its going to be tough, so after the first 2 weeks of getting no sleep, working all day, having 15 minutes to eat, and then sewing all your kit, having shitty inspections, and doing pushups ALL day long... you don't say to yourself "This isn't what I thought it was going to be"  you can say " I knew it was tough, and I came in here with the right mindset, so I'm going to get it done."



And as for that BMQ video being "good preperation" piper.... HA..... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..... That video is *THE SINGLE MOST MISLEADING PRODUCTION THE MILITARY HAS EVER PRODUCED ABOUT BMQ* that video makes it look like a cakewalk!!!!! in fact it makes it look fun. They should have a video showing recruits polishing their boots for 5 hours the night before the inspection, waking up at 4:30 in the morning to go for a 5k morning run, coming back up 8 flights of stairs at 5:30 am, showering, shaving, securing kit, making your bed, changing, being downstairs at the mess for 6:00 am,  coming back upstairs at 6:30 am, cleaning their rooms, the bathrooms (after everyones showered, pooped, and used all the sinks) making sure the showers are bone dry, the toilettes chromed, the floors mopped and dried,  and standing at attention by 7:15 am for an hour long inspection, where after having spent 5 hours making your parade boots look like mirrors, they take them and whip them across the room, scuff the shit out of them, tell you that your boots are shit, then take your ironed shirts, crinkle them, go through all of your shit, tear your room apart, tell you that your an individual and blah blah blah, make you do 25 pushups, and then hold the pushup position for 5 minutes while they inspect the next guys room because "you stay there and think about how fucking shitty your room was" lol, or get jacked in the halls and have to mark time for like half an hour on the weekend like some poor bastard had to do today, or have to do  20 pushups and hold it with a ruck sack on your back because "someone drank water without being given permission to" and being told that you are a worthless bag of shit and that you will never be able to serve in "our army" etc etc. That little PO in the bmq video was a princess compared to how the staff really is lol.

Don't get me wrong, basic training has its high points, its low points, etc etc, but the buddies you make here are awsome, and like everyone was saying, just don't go in with a quitter attitude, but at the same time realize that the army isn't there to hold your hand, they really don't care if you sprained your ankle or not, they will just recourse you if you miss too many classes and then kick you back a few weeks.  So take care of yourself, if you got an injury just try to tough it out with ice and plenty of painkillers etc etc.

Basic isn't easy, its tough, but its not impossible and people can do it if they are prepared physically and mentally. And Piper, I don't really know where you get off saying I don't know what I'm talking about with my whole "8 weeks of military experience"  I'm not dissing the reserves, but honestly I don't know where you get off talking trash to me when you play army boy for 3 hours a week on a thursday night.  24/7 army life is just a wee bit more demanding than that.

How many people got dropped from your course on bmq for the reserves? I hear maybe 1-2 people don't pass those... How many people in 8 weeks dropped from my platoon of 60?  17, how many from our sister platoon of 60? 19.  How many of those 17 were VR's?  only 9,  5 were recourses, and the last 3 were injuries. 

I hate to say it, but those are the numbers, the cold hard truth, As much as you may like me to sugar coat it piper, and make people feel like the army is there to take care of you and make sure you graduate, the numbers say differently. Its not civy side life... one guy fell off the obstacle course in another platoon, fractured his back (didn't paralyze it thank god) and their MC was yelling at him, there the guy is with a broken back, and he's getting chewed out lol.



anyways, if your heart is in it, and your prepared, you can do it, but thats all i'm saying... be prepared, bmq isn't kansas anymore..... don't kid yourself with the "it won't be so bad" mentality" realize that it will be one of the toughest things you will ever do in your life, and that you will never quit, and you will be ok.


JUST TRY TO BE AS PREPARED PHYSICALLY AS POSSIBLE!!!! they upped the physical side of it way more now since they are trying to combine SQ with BMQ.

Thats all I really have to say. Good luck to all of you guys.

 

[aesop081]

bled12345,

clam down your enthusiasm for a minute.  What some people are saying is that since you are new you have nothing to compare your BMQ with what it used to be.  one day when you have some TI of your own you will see what they mean.  Until then, stay in your lane.