Anyone fell really sick during basic training? (open to all militaries) (Army, Air Force)
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Anyone fell really sick during basic training? (open to all militaries from all countries)
I had a very bad cough and really bad fever; till I got admitted to a hospital and placed in a observation ward. I still served 2 years. At first, i saw a doctor but carried on training; but then got really bad;but I really feared being called a malingerer.
If your simply talking about a bug/virus then yeah. The very last day of BMT I came down with something. Didn't go to the Doc or anything like that since I was leaving for Tech School that day. But due to the close living quarters, stress, lack of sleep, etc stuff seemed to move with ease through the whole flight. I'd say around half my flight of 60 came down with something at one point or another during the 6 weeks of BMT. Just varied by the individual what they did with it. We did have quite a few who went to the Doc and never came back. So I assume they were recycled "Term we use in the Air Force when your sent back a week in training". So judging from my personal experience and others; I'd say it happens rather often.
If your simply talking about a bug/virus then yeah. The very last day of BMT I came down with something. Didn't go to the Doc or anything like that since I was leaving for Tech School that day. But due to the close living quarters, stress, lack of sleep, etc stuff seemed to move with ease through the whole flight. I'd say around half my flight of 60 came down with something at one point or another during the 6 weeks of BMT. Just varied by the individual what they did with it. We did have quite a few who went to the Doc and never came back. So I assume they were recycled "Term we use in the Air Force when your sent back a week in training". So judging from my personal experience and others; I'd say it happens rather often.
Well, I was not in the US armed forces. I was a conscript soldier somewhere else but in the middle of BMTtraining, the moment I could book out of camp, I sent myself to the hospital with a raging fever (camp doctors were very unhelpful) plus I was allergic to all fever medicine.
In the end they did a blood test and they picked up a unknown virus, they placed me in a observation ward, where I had a raging fever and coughed my lungs out, and they sent me home, with a 1 week medical leave.
Later on in my conscript service, i developed ezcema (amazingly, none of the doctors diagnosed it that way) and had a very bad rash. I had to keep going to a public hospital (the military would not accept a GP diagnosis), where the doctor and nurses regarded me with contempt. I now understood that they thought me to be a malingerer.
But I was not malingering.
All this were more than a decade ago. Yet, I am now working in a public hospital and I hear some doctors disparagingly describe some of the conscript soldiers as malingers with sob soldiers. i have to admit that a certain percentage are probably genuine sob stories (some of the 18 year olds came with their parents....)
I do feel a sense of somewhat shame that i was not strong enough to overcome my health problems.
Strep throat. What's bad about boot camp is you're taking people from across the entire country and US territories and putting them in one room to live, eat, and sleep.
I remember a crab epidemic when I was at PI. Apparently some recruit in another platoon had the crabs when he arrived and it spread through the whole company due to communal living and I suppose the laundry. In our platoon about 16 guys caught them and they were put at the end of the barracks. They also designated one of the toilets in the head as "the crab toilet".
Not sick but I did get an infection in my blistered foot (cellulitis) that required a stay in sick bay & antibiotics. Afterwards, they were going to move me to a Company that was a week behind mine, but I did some fast talking about how I was really only gone one day plus a weekend & therefore didn't miss anything The guy let me return to my Company -- whew!
I remember a bunch of guys had 1970s long hair covering their ears when they came in, and the San Diego Summer sun did a number on those exposed ears. They had to put some kind of ointment on the tops of their ears and the sunburn pain must have been intense for awhile.
I remember a crab epidemic when I was at PI. Apparently some recruit in another platoon had the crabs when he arrived and it spread through the whole company due to communal living and I suppose the laundry. In our platoon about 16 guys caught them and they were put at the end of the barracks. They also designated one of the toilets in the head as "the crab toilet".
Scabies in our (female) platoon at PI. Once a week we'd drag all the mattresses out to air. When they got dragged back in they didn't go back on the same bunk. I was so miserable. I knew something was wrong but I was afraid to say anything. I wasn't sleeping (not a great thing in Marine basic). By the time I said anything I was nearly having an emotional breakdown. The DI's looked at each other like I was a nutcase. Even the stupid Navy Corpsmen that saw me at medical didn't believe me. But they gave me stuff and that fixed it. Soon there were others and, by then, they knew what they were dealing with. Luckily I didn't get a reoccurance.
In Army BCT we had strep throat and pink eye go through the barracks.
All I can say is any advice i would give to people going through BCT and AIT is to wash your hands every opportunity you get. Also take a shower to clean any bacteria you have off of your body... and of course drink lots of water. (Its my job so say all that, I'm a 68W).
In PI, we had multiple cases of 'sand in their cl!t' go through the platoon. Once these recruits were dropped, everything went fine after that. Of course we also had a few cases of a severe sore throat come up on Final Drill day.
Humor aside, we were pretty lucky. Nobody came down with anything horrible except for a handful of recruits developing a bad case of cellulitis.
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