To Those Awaiting Basic Training,
Do you know what you need to get done before you leave for basic training? You are patiently waiting for your MEPS date to arrive. You’ve made the decision to serve and you are counting the precious days left with your loved ones before you leave. Maybe you’re nervous or excited, and while this new journey can seem fun and exciting, there are real fears for the family you are about to leave behind. Especially if you are married or have kids, there are very important details that need to be hashed out before you leave. While this list is not exhaustive, it will get you on the right track to having your affairs in order before leaving for training. So here it is 11 Things to Do Before Basic Training.
Pack
It may seem silly, but that packing list your recruiter gave you is no joke. It can be difficult to find socks with no logos and the right color underwear with no spandex in it. Whatever you do, please don’t be that guy (or gal) that waits until the very last minute to pack. I’ve been there, it was awful. And there is nothing worse than leaving your wife (or mom) for months with a bad attitude because you didn’t have your shit together. So don’t procrastinate this packing thing, it’s serious business.
Check out this article to see my ultimate guide to packing for basic training.
Will and POA
If you just graduated high school, you’re not married, and you have never really been out in the world, this may seem like a shock to you. If you are married and/or have kids, I really hope you already have one, but if not, never fear. You still have time to get a Will and Power of Attorney together before you leave.
The first thing to do is search online for an attorney in your area that writes wills and powers of attorney. Then call and ask for their price. We paid $300 to have ours done. A decent price would be anything from $200-$500, depending on where you live. It may seem like a lot to pay upfront, but trust me, those documents will be well worth the money if you ever need to use them.
Many people think that they don’t need a will when they join the military because they will be forced to write one anyway. You do fill out forms in regards to burial and funeral wants before you get deployed, but these forms do not cover specific details of your possessions. To be sure that your possessions go to who you want them to, you have to have a will in addition to military paperwork.
Wills are important but generally not the most important when it comes to military life. Having a Power of Attorney is extremely useful, especially if you are married. A Power of Attorney allows someone else to make financial or medical decisions for you. The most common is a healthcare power of attorney. This is the document specifying who should make medical decisions for you, should you be unable to do so.
Other Powers of Attorney can be helpful in military life, particularly when it comes to property. For example, say your wife drives a car that is in your name. While you are in basic training this car breaks down and it doesn’t make sense to fix it so she needs to sell it for what she can get for it and buy a new car. If your name is on the title, she cannot sell the car. But if she has a Power of Attorney that allows her to make buying and selling decisions in your name, she is then legally able to sell the car. The same can go for a house. If you live in a house that will need to be sold when your family moves to meet you at your first duty station, your partner will not be able to sell the house without you if they do not have a Power of Attorney.
If you do not have any property and don’t really care what happens to you if you should get hurt or pass away during your training, then you can skip this step. Many young enlistees do not feel the need to have a will as their parents will take care of everything anyway. If this is the case, you can always wait until you get to your first unit, where a legal aid can help you write a will for free.
Check out this article by Military OneSource about why soldiers should prepare a Will.
Death Letter
This one may seem a bit morbid and I apologize for that. It also will not apply to many people but it was a strict must for my husband when he joined.
If there is someone in your life that you are not currently speaking to but would have final words for should something happen to you, I suggest you write them a letter.
This was the case for my husband as he estranged from his family. Before joining the military he had a falling out with his parents and has not spoken to them since. While he is not speaking to them now, that doesn’t mean that he never will. Therefore, I urged him to write them a letter of any last words before he left for basic training. This letter sits in a folder on his laptop and I pray to God I will never have to send it. But should the day come that my husband passes away, I can print off this letter and send it to his parents. Maybe it was closure for my husband, and hopefully, it would bring closure for them. But at the very least it is written just in case.
Clean Out Room
The day my husband left for basic training I spent the afternoon with my parents cleaning out his bedroom and putting his belongings together to send home with my parents for storage. It was awful. I was so angry with him. The last thing I wanted to be doing that day was pouring over his stuff trying to hold back tears. I wanted that room to be cleaned out weeks before he left, but it didn’t happen. So there I was, miserable and angry. More than anything I was hurt. I shouldered the burden for something he didn’t want to do and it wasn’t fair to me.
Having been an Army wife for over a year now, I’ve learned that shouldering an unfair share of the burden is just part of the job. It’s my service to my country. Things will get left behind and I will pick up the pieces when my husband is long gone to the field.
My advice to you is not to make the people in your life feel this way until you have to. There will come a day when you rely on your family to help you through and dump things at their feet to run off and jump out of a plane. It’s military life. But you can save them that one last time of feeling that way by just doing your part to clean your stuff before you go.
AKA if your mom has been telling you to clean your room for a week GO DO IT NOW! She loves you and is going to miss you terribly, don’t leave her on a bad note.
Get Rid of Clothes
If you haven’t noticed this yet, my hope for this blog is that you will learn from all of our mistakes. In addition to cleaning out his room, my husband left behind tons of clothes that he would never wear again. They were dragged from his apartment in Ohio to my grandma’s basement in Michigan, back down to North Carolina where he threw most of them away because they will never fit.
There are a few things that will happen when you go to basic training. If you’re skinny you’ll gain weight and if you’re bigger (or have muscle mass) you’ll lose weight. But chances are that you’ll never be the same size after basic that you were before. My husband lost 20 pounds and when he gained the weight back after training it was in a completely different way. The clothes he had before he went in had no chance of ever fitting again.
The moral of the story is to go through your clothes. If you don’t totally love it, or it’s too big or small, just get rid of it. Besides, once you get into Army life you’ll live in gym clothes anyway.
Shave Your Face
If you are not used to shaving, I suggest you start before you get forced to do it with a cheap and probably dull razor. If your face isn’t used to being clean-shaven, the first couple of weeks will be miserable. Your skin will probably break out, the grow back will hurt, and you’ll most likely cut yourself a couple times. I don’t know about you but I would much rather go through all of that in the comfort of my home, not with a Drill Sergeant yelling at me. But hey, to each his own.
Cut Your Hair
If you already have a decently short haircut this one isn’t as big of a deal. If you have long hair though, I suggest you get rid of it. They don’t treat you nicely cuz your hair will get stuck in the razor… no, they won’t use scissors first. So if you don’t want your scalp yanked while your hair gets caught in a razor blade, just get it shortened up before you go.
Get In Shape
Uhm run. Just run. And do some push-ups. Maybe a couple sit-ups. Unless you’re a physical stud, basic training will still suck. And it will push you to your physical limits, but it doesn’t have to be the first time you’ve run since elementary school gym.
A lot of recruiters do a weekly physical fitness program with people who are waiting to enlist. Ask if your recruiting station has something like this. If not, someone in the office might even let you tag along to their workouts once a week. It never hurts to ask. It also doesn’t hurt to get to know people that you are leaving with. My husband got to know another Army guy that was going to the same basic training as him. Having that connection before leaving made getting on the plane and the first days of training a lot easier on him. And on myself, as I got to meet his wife and had an instant connection with another woman going through the same thing I was.
Talk About Communication
I wrote to my husband every day that he was at OSUT. All 14 weeks. Every. Single. Day. I was in college, we don’t have kids, and let’s be honest, I didn’t have much else to do with him gone. This really isn’t realistic for most people going into military life. I was in a special situation that afforded me the time to write every day, but many of you will not be so lucky. You will be leaving mothers, children, full-time jobs, and busy schedules behind.
The key to being happy in your relationships while you’re away at training is to set expectations for what your communication plan will be. Will you write every week? Twice a week? I told my husband early on that I really appreciated his letters and that it would make me extremely happy if he wrote to me every day. Because of this communication, he knew that taking the extra time to write me a note before he went to sleep really kept our relationship alive.
It may sound silly, but my husband going to basic training was the best thing that ever happened to our relationship. We found our rhythm in the flow of pens on paper. By the time I got to see him the first time (9 weeks in), we were so in sync that we realized we had been writing to each other about the same feelings on the same days. Even hundreds of miles apart, our relationship grew stronger, and it all started with communication.
I had friends whose husbands only wrote to them once every few weeks. Their husbands were doing the same things mine was. They just chose to talk to friends, or stretch, or sleep instead of writing their wives. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, but it is very difficult when one party wants daily communication and the other is okay with weekly.
Whatever your communication strategy may be, make sure that you decide on something together. You might think that it’s okay to call your mom first if you get a phone call, your girlfriend may have a different opinion. My best advice would be to sit with your significant other and determine what your plan for communication is. Then you can reach out to parents or close siblings/friends to fill in the gaps. You will need the strength and support of your family and friends to get through this tough training time, don’t push them away by not talking in advance about communication.
Make an Emergency Plan
What happens if your paycheck doesn’t go through? Can someone cover your car payment? What if your grandma has a stroke? Or your dog has to be put down?
Making plans for emergency scenarios is the best way to confidently go into training. For both you and your family. These plans don’t have to be intense or even complicated. It could be as easy as asking your parents if they can cover your car payment if your paycheck gets messed up and your fiancé can’t cover it herself. These little conversations can make your life much easier if you know that things back home will be taken care of.
Get Finances in Order
Did you know that joining the military gets you out of your current lease?
Finances are a generally overlooked part of joining the military. Who will pay your bills when you are gone? Is someone taking over your portion of the rent?
Making someone a joint owner of your bank account is probably the easiest way to avoid trouble with this. My husband called and made sure I had access to all of his bank accounts, cell phone account, and credit card. This way I could pay his bills and deal with any issues should they arise.
You can’t plan for everything before leaving for basic training, but you can get a jump on some things that will put you and your family at ease.
Things will come up. For example, my husband’s credit card that he used for snacks and the food truck got compromised so they canceled the card. It was nerve-racking for sure but all I had to do was call the company phone line and tell them to pass on a message that he needed to use a different card.
It can be easy to forget but try to remember that these people have been putting on basic training classes every cycle for years and years and years. They know what they’re doing. They are good at their job, and they won’t totally shut your family out of the picture. When emergencies arise, they are dealt with in the manner your Drill Sergeants see fit. You might not agree with it, it may cost you some push-ups, but it will still be handled.
Everyone’s basic training journey will be different, but I hope you can learn from the few lessons we wish we would have known before going in.
What is your biggest fear about basic training?? Family members and recruits comment below!
God Bless,
A Real Life Army Wife