Basic Training and your clothes?

For the Air Force, your 3 changes of clothes are for the first few days when you haven't been to your first uniform issue.

For women, they suggest bringing more underwear than just for 3 days (same with sports bras) because they do not issue those to females like they do the males. They are available for purchase in the mini mall, but sometimes they are out of certain sizes, so if you're going into the Air Force, I would suggest taking extra with you. Nothing fancy though because they will turn gross colors when they're washed.

That's just for the Air Force though. Don't know how other branches work. Good luck :)

You won't be wearing those clothes at all during basic, so there is no need to worry about that. Your recruiter will include a list of clothes that you will need to go under your uniform, you will be issued the rest. The three outfits are for when you get out of basic and move on to tech school. Those will be locked up along with any cell phones or other private items in your personal luggage until you get to your next base. oh...don't forget shoes.....nothing worse than getting to wear you civilian clothes again and all you have are low quarters to go with the outfit!

What branch of service?

The '3 changes of clothes' is probably just a made up number. The real definition would be "A backpack worth of clothes." You won't be wearing your civilian clothes at all in basic training. You just need to have a change or two of clothes for when you're getting from the processing station to your training station where they issue the clothes. If there are plane delays, problems with transportation, unforeseen acts of chaos, then you'll want to have them.

My advice: Get some of those vacuum seal bags, it'll let you pack your bags way tighter than you could otherwise, and you can manually suck the air out of them.

That said, here's my standard canned reply for joining the military.

You do not want to join the Army. It will tear you down until you stop questioning orders, chew you up until you can't bleed any more for your country, then throw you away rather than maintain you.

An old Army slogan used to be "We do more before 9AM than most people do all day." The modern version: "Our gate guards get paid more by 9AM than we do all day."

Bear in mind, what you sign up to do in the Army is NOT what you will do. You'll be graded as if you were doing that job for promotion opportunities, but few people in the Army outside of infantry and military police actually do the job they signed up for. You will do whatever your unit needs you for, regardless of your qualifications. That means the overwhelming majority of your day will be done performing mundane unskilled 'any warm body could do this' labor.

Join the Air Force, Navy or Marines. Their quality of life is exponentially better than that of the Army.

Army recruiters lie their asses off in a peculiar way. Rather than 'flat out lie", they use the recruiter logic of "1/2 truth + 1/2 truth = Whole truth"

Example

1/2 truth : "Here's blueprints of new barracks being built at bases all over the country..."

1/2 lie (unsaid): "... for officers and high ranking Sergeants. You'll be living in a building with more asbestos warnings than exit signs and sharing a room with two to three other guys."

1/2 truth: "I got to live in a room like this when I first got to post X."

1/2 lie: "I was married and got to live off-post. Note that I said "like this" not "this."

So the "whole truth" you take away is: "You will live in a room like the one you saw."

The "whole lie" you should have seen is that you'll live in horrible conditions. Now apply that to everything the Army recruiter says.

Medical care is also a huge factor.

In the Air Force, your doctors are highly paid civilian contractors. There is a long and highly competitive waiting list to work for the Air Force as a doctor and the quality of care shows.

In the Navy, your doctors are actual Navy personnel. They will take care of you because you're a fellow seaman. They put on the uniform, take the PT test and fire their rifles the same as everyone else, so they know what you do on a daily basis and are going to ensure you get proper time to recover if you get hurt.

In the Army, your doctors fall into two categories. Since the Army pays very little, you have either foreign nationals on a work visa or doctors who lost their license due to too many malpractice lawsuits and can only work for the government. The average Army doctor will solve your problem by making you someone else's problem. "Okay, go to physical therapy." "But... my arm is broken." "Yeah but by the time you're done with physical therapy and come back, I'll be working in a different office and not have to deal with you." These are 'doctors' who have never held a rifle and have no clue what the physical fitness test entails, yet make decisions on what your physical capacities are. When I needed a cane and brace to walk more than ten feet, the doctors wrote on my profile (Doctors note) that I could fire my rifle (How am I supposed to reload it one handed or kneel?) and walk the PT test (Which is 2.5 miles in under 28 minutes, I could barely walk 2.5 meters). Do you really want people who don't have the remotest clue what a job entails making the decision if you are qualified for it? Remember, Walter Reed was considered the "pinnacle of medical care" in the Army... and it was revealed to be a mismanaged rat-infested hell-hole. That means everywhere else in the Army was and still is worse than Walter Reed.

The other branches of the military care for their people, seek to advance them and leave them better off than when they first joined. The Army just wants to bleed you dry and throw you away.

I can only speak for the Navy, but I suspect the rest of the branches are probably the same.

I believe you';ll find that the military issues you EVERYTHING you'll need... head to foot. All the stuff you bring will probably be boxed and sent home. I've heard some branches just store them until the recruit graduates.

The Navy Web site lists things you're SUPPOSED to bring, things you MAY bring, and some idea of what you CANNOT bring.

May bring: http://www1.netc.navy.mil/nstc/rtcgl/what_to_bring...

Must bring: http://www1.netc.navy.mil/nstc/rtcgl/pdfs/Required...

Don't bring: http://www1.netc.navy.mil/nstc/rtcgl/pdfs/What_Not...

I checked the Army and Marine sites and found no such lists. They may exist somewhere... I just didn't see find them.

I'd copy the list down and E-mail it to your recruiter for approval. Maybe that will light a fire under the branch and get them to do it right... by posting the lists... the way the Navy does it. ;-)

It includes three full changes of clothing. So three pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, three shirts, three pairs of underwear, three bras etc.

You don't have a lot of space so 3 should be sufficient and bring sports bras. Any other type of bra just isn't going to give you the support you are going to need.

Search on YouTube. I found some videos about basic training for the Army awhile back, they would surely have some for the Air Force. Good Luck.

If you are in Navy DEP (not sure about other branches) you recieved a "START" guide that tells you everything you need to know for Boot Camp. In it, there is a list of everything you need to bring, are allowed to bring, and are not allowed to bring.

Your civies are supposed to be shipped home in a box; but mine were cut up for rags because I was away getting fitted for glasses. That was an omen. The next four years in the NAV sucked out loud.

Navy bootcamp GLAKES, 1975.

Honorable discharge 1979. USN NEVER AGAIN! FTN!!!!!!!