Is it true there are now 12 weeks of basic and no HBL for those in Basic Training?

PVT (Join to see) - I'm not going to sit here and give some sort of "back in my day basic was like..." story. Rather, I would like to leave you with this thought. Think of basic training as the military's first time to introduce you to what combat is some what like. There are days you are running around like crazy and others where it seems like they are finding busy work for you to. I personally believe a 12 week BCT program is not a bad thing. During my short 8.5 years in the military, I saw plenty of Service Members get rushed through Basic. Those that needed help on the range seemed to pass anyways and told that they would have more time at their duty station to improve. I think the same can be said about so many other basic level tasks; and then these Service Members found themselves packing up and deploying where their lack of training may have resulted in the injury or death of others.

As far as Holiday Block Leave, do not get yourself to worked up about it. I went through basic in the summer of 1999 and my AIT ended right at the start of the HBL so it wasn't an issue but again, I ask you to think on this. During Basic Training, the Army and the other branches, are breaking you down to build you back up. You come into the military with all the habits you had before joining and while you will leave with some of those same habits, the military needs to change the way you approach issues. I look at it like this. Now that I'm out, I find myself working with civilians, most of whom never served. Sometimes they see an issue and fly off the rails making it worse where I see the problem and try to figure out the best solution while maintaining control because if you fly off the rails in combat, someone dies. Granted in the IT field, the changes of someone dying because of something is seriously reduced, but still possible in the right area, but it is always easier to find solutions with a calmer mind. I think if the military was to give HBL to recruits, they would be setting their work back a lot. How would those weeks count into the course? Would the recruits get credit for those weeks forcing the DIs to pack the training schedule even tighter? You can't put a hold on shipping recruits out around the holiday, that would cause a major back log in the system. So what I will say is, yes it sucks to not be home during the holiday but if you ever get deployed, there are chances of you not going home for the holidays, a birth of a child, or whatever else happens while you stand on the line.

No, not yet but it is something they're trying to get hammered out and implimented. Longer basic will only help though.

I don't want to come across like a grumpy old retired guy and I do understand that boot camp is probably the first time some recruits have been away from mommy and daddy but it is only 10 weeks! Why are they going home during training? Boot camp builds war fighters...I thought.