Title: Bootcamp and Training
Informant info: Informant name is Jason Laackmann. Jason is twenty-eight years old and attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Army Veteran. Jason served in the Army for five years in active duty and continues to serve in the Minnesota National Guard. Jason also served as a paratrooper and attended and graduated flight school. The locations in which he has served are Fort Bend, Georgia, Fort Riley, Kansas, and overseas in Eastern Afghanistan.
Type of lore: Customary Folklore
Language: English
Country of Origin: USA
Social / Cultural Context: Jason was interviewed at Dartmouth College. He was asked to talk about his boot camp/training experience during his time in the military. Due to his serving in various locations over the past couple of years, Jason didn’t go into much detail, but rather gave a general summary of what his bootcamp/training experience was like.
Associated File: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6KcnEdk7Q4 (start at 0:45)
Transcript: [I have recorded the item exactly how it was told to me in the interview]: The training experience was… was pretty simple, pretty cut and dry. It was sixteen-week officer basic course for infantry. Uh, it centered around tactics, um, platoon and squad level operations and then how to write orders, um, and then how to plan those operations. Um, I did eight of the sixteen weeks where we’re out in the woods actually training where the other ones were just either refitting, uh, resetting your gear and doing, like homework assignments. Um, the officer basic course is much different than the original, uh, basic training of boot camp that enlisted soldiers go through. Um, but I did do a, uh, a basic training as well at Fort Knox, Kentucky where the drill Sergeants come after you, attack you for no reason, verbally. And uh, build the core which they desire.
Informant’s comments: Jason stated that he vividly remembered being yelled at by his drill sergeants. He commented that at the time it was a bit intimidating but the yelling had the purpose of molding them to be strong soldiers.
Collector’s comments: The informant was straight to the point when recalling his experience, but smiled when he remembered being yelled at by his drill sergeants.