Processing Days

The next 4-5 days after receipt day are known as Processing Days (P-Days). Medical and dental indoc gets done here to make sure you are able to train properly and efficiently. Haircuts are issued and pictures for the ID cards are taken. Most of these P-Days we ended up waking up at 0400 and tapped out at 2000. These are probably the most boring and horrible days of boot camp. You are not allowed to physically train yourself by doing push-ups or sit-ups (PT), and by the end of P-Days I definitely noticed a change to my pectoral strength. Just a whole bunch of yelling throughout the day and minor lectures along with all of the regular P-Day things was just about it for a week. We also by now should have been learning our chain of command. The chain of command is vital to know in all cases where conflicts may interfere. You must never jump up the chain of command but if all else fails, the next person up the ladder might be able to help. At the end of P-Days we did end up moving to our permanent (well...rest of RTC) home: Ship 12, the USS Triton. Every night after the first night consisted of constant talking and lost sleep. Well that was my case anyway. We started day 1-1 of training on the following Tuesday.


NEW EDIT 10DEC08

I forgot to mention the "Moment of Truth" and the PQS Written Test.

If you read in the DEP guide, you will know that the Moment of Truth is where you can disclose any information that you have hidden. Some people may pretend to be bipolar or anything because they do not like the first couple days. Just stick it out.

If you have done the DEP PQS, you can get advanced from Bootcamp if you pass this multiple choice test with 80% or above and passing everything on the Baseline PFA. A lot of questions are common sense, but don't think that if you are really physically fit that you can just get E-2 like that. You must pass both.