1 Hour of raw uncut footage from U.S. Army Basic Training in 1998 recorded on VHS ( with timestamps in comments)
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1 Hour of raw uncut footage from U.S. Army Basic Training in 1998 recorded on VHS ( with timestamps in comments)
View Reddit by IDontUseAnimeAvatars – View Source
Hi folks, my hobby is preserving cool stuff I find on VHS tapes and uploading them online. My father was an officer stationed at the U.S. Army combat training facility at Ft. Leonard Wood Missouri and he recorded several VHS tapes of the training process while he was there. Out of all of his tapes, this was his the longest one. The video has aged a bit, especially the beginning due to him rewinding it and showing it to all his co-workers over and over again, but the majority of the footage is fantastic quality (for a VHS camera anyway).
Nobody but a few dozen soldiers and drill sergeants were ever meant to see this footage, but now you can enjoy it too.
Please watch in 1440p for the best quality.
If you’re interested, he even [commissioned an entire music video with some of the footage](https://youtu.be/I6QM7o3VyHo) with the help of a family member who worked as a TV editor.
Anyway, here are the timestamps:
00:00 New Privates arrive on post and experience the infamous Army shark attack
1:00 One tired private get smoked by multiple drill sergeants
3:55 More new Privates arrive
5:25 Three new soldiers just found out what they signed up for
7:15 First day exercises
9:45 Using drug-sniffing dogs to search through Private’s bags for contraband
10:41 First day of physical training
12:07 WE LIKE IT, WE LOVE IT, WE WANT SOME MORE OF IT
13:13 YES DRILL SERGEANT 🤓
13:20 Rolling around in the mud
14:28 Tear Gas chamber training
18:43 Brother absolutely loses it in the gas chamber and runs out like a cartoon character
20:05 A compilation of Privates leaving the gas chamber, freshly peppered
21:34 Interview with a tear-gassed Private
22:47 Smoke grenade demonstration
23:13 Thermite demonstration
23:53 First day of grenade training
24:56 Drill Sergeant gets up to completely smoke one of his Privates who just left their pillbox with a live grenade (off camera)
26:27 Privates navigate an obstacle course over open water using homemade bridges and rafts
33:20 Private falls in the water after one of their homemade bridges fails
33:52 Drill Sergeant does some spicy poses for the camera
34:17 Rifleman qualifications with M-16 A-2 Rifles
35:06 A Private prays before his rifleman qualification
37:23 4 exceptional Privates receive their sharpshooter qualification
38:33 Chow time in the field
38:54 AT4 Rocket Launcher training
40:50 Light Machine Gun familiarization training in a hot tin shack
41:25 Rifle melee training and marching in cadence
42:28 M203 under-barrel Grenade Launcher training
43:56 Pugil-stick training introduction
46:34 Pugil-stick fighting begins
48:48 First day on the Confidence Course
55:10 ARE YOU A MAD DOG? ARE YOU MOTIVATED??
56:04 😝MAD DAWGZ
56:17 Visiting unsuspecting privates on KP duty
57:35 Privates digging latrines and rudimentary foxholes for cover
1:00:46 My dad softly harassing a Private just trying to enjoy her lunch
This is amazing, thanks for sharing!
The lady smiling at the camera before remembering where she is (2:40) cracked me up
Somewhere I have a video just like this from 95 I think and my brother is in it. Always get a chuckle when I see him coming out of the teargas shack. What hell bootcamp must be.
I did my training in FLW.
“What the fuck are you doing, private?!?”
I went to basic at fort lost-in-the-woods as well, and I was never so scared in my life. lol.
Going to the combat zone at OEF was a cakewalk after that.
I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I jumped around to a few point.
Pretty similar to basic when I went through in the early 2010s. Our platoon was even the Mad Dawgz. The camo was different but the drill sergeants are still the same.
Fort Lost in the Woods, Misery
My mom and step-dad were both drill instructors there at that time. Can’t wait to show them this and look through if I can find them.
Went through basic in summer of ‘96. This brings back a lot of memories.
This is awesome! These were my same drill sergeants when I went thru in February 98. Getting smoked in the pit! So cool to see this footage. Thanks for sharing!
Thinkin about this it’s kinda crazy to think a lot of these people that passed basic were probably deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq a few years after this…
Poor girl rolling on her head at 14:06
Crazy how it’s not that much different then as it was when I joined in 2013. The shark attack was more or less the same, the way everything was then hasn’t changed that drastically over 20+ years. Only thing missing from this footage is drill sergeants being able to whoop people’s asses. Great video OP.
Watching this feels like a time-traveling workout session, I kind half-expect the VHS to ask, ‘Are you still watching?’ while I reminisce about the good ol’ ’90s boot camp workouts
I went through the same experience at Fort Leonard Wood in 2001 – ah, memories.
The DI when he lays down next to the guy and is resting with him. I already lost it. This is hilarious.
The worst part about boot camp (for me anyway) was the sleep deprivation. After a few days the yelling didn’t bother me and I got used to the constant physical activity.
The lack of sleep, however, I never got used to.
I thought my company outings were rough…
The brother running out of the teargas shack at 18:30-ish fucking sent me.
I joined in ‘98 and did basic that summer. I was sent to Ft. Sill but did the next 10 years at FLW after. High quality memories. I plan on showing this to my kids.
I’m a Ft. Leonard Wood brat! My father was stationed there in the early 70s.
Do they still bring you in on cattle cars? I remember a number of guys just straight collapsing on day one from the heat (ruck PT) where you hold the bag for what feels like hours over your head.
Good times man!
My first trip to the chamber was 1992 at Ft.McClellan, they called it the “Disco Hut” because people do a dance when exposed to a concentration of CS in a small room. I was at the end of the line. There were three DS going down the line and when they approached we had to unmask and call out our name and serial number. When they got to me, I unmasked I froze as the pain hit. Drooling and crying, the DS tells me to mask up and clear it. Upon our exit a large oak tree stood immediately as you open the door. The first couple people run out, smack into the tree and are writhing in pain on the ground. We come from behind and pick them up and drag them towards the water hoses set up to wash off any residue. It wasn’t fun, but funny. I had to go through it a few more times after in my career, didn’t get any better.
How do the drill sergeants not have totally shredded vocal chords from screaming all day every day? I would get hoarse after 30 seconds.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT!
Oh shit! That’s were I went in ’92! LoL
Ha. I was at Ft. Leonard Wood from October 1995 through January 1996. This brings back memories. Thanks.
When we got off the white bus with our bags a Drill Sergeant stood at the door and grabbed us by our bags and made everyone go tumbling onto the grass one by one. Then we had to run up four flights of stairs. It was so exhausting.
Also when we first got onto the busses from Reception Battalion heading to basic training as soon as it started moving a Drill Sergeant on the bus suddenly shouted “EVERYBODY PUT YOUR HEADS DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP”. They didn’t want us to see the layout of the area in case someone tried to run away. And a few weeks into basic one guy who had been recycled from the previous basic training and was basically stuck in limbo lost his mind and did end up running away.
Fun fact: the US Army discontinued Shark Attack. Now the first day is about team building exercises, and to keep recruits as busy as possible.
You should post this in r/army
I wish I still had the VHS of my time in basic training in 1999
Ahhh, memories. Ft. Lost in the Woods.
There was a moment here at Leonard Wood when the Drills had us all in a theatre and informed everyone that service was completely voluntary and that if you felt it wasn’t right for you, just raise your hand and they would bring you down to the front of the auditorium and issue you separation papers then and there. For a split second, I wanted to raise my hand so badly…
When the had them all assembled at the front, one of the drills said, “Do you see these people? Does everybody see these people?? Do you know what these are????”
You could hear a pin drop….
…,” These are my BITCHES for the next 9 weeks…..”
So much terror lol. I was in the last all male basic class there prior to gender integrated trainings in 91.
So many madcap stories like this….
This brings back some fond memories and some not so fond. I joined in 98 but I went to Jackson.