DCC: June 2 - June 24 2026
Fort Sill - Lawton, OK

About me: AMEDD Army HPSP currently in school. No prior service nor family/friends that have served. All my preparation came from blog posts, reddit, SDN, and any emails they sent beforehand. Wrote this up so future students can have a better idea of what may occur - a lot of us felt unprepared going in.

TLDR; our course schedule was unique due to the class size, no wifi, food was mid, people were nice, lots of sweating = many laundry loads, lots of waiting around, death by powerpoint, class was too big to do anything hands-on, come extra prepared

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My class: mostly med or dental students with some vet students. There were ~400 of us largest class they've ever had). Some prior service/ROTC but most people were new to military life. Everyone I spoke to was really nice and easy to get along with. Insane amount of small talk. We were split into 8 sections and the schedule sometimes varied depending. You'll likely get close with your platoon and squad since you spend so much time together.

Cadre: Mainly NCOs and Drill Sergeants. The Cadre were somewhat easy going. We didn't get yelled at as much as I imagined (or how much you'd expect in normal basic). As long as you don't do anything bad, you'll be fine. If you get yelled at, just fix it and learn for next time. Some Cadre were harsher than others. Some were goofier than others. As a whole class, we only really got 1-2 corrective training sessions and they weren't that bad. There might have been more depending on platoon.

Barracks: Essentially college dorm life. They separated men's building and women's building. Some rooms have a private bathroom; most don't. The AC in my dorm was too good; it was freezing at night. I brought my own sheets and used the thin blanket they gave us. The sheets they have are gross. There is no wifi in the barracks nor anywhere else. I had to use my roommate's hotspot to download the google drive folders to my laptop.

Packing/Clothes: I packed 1 large checked suitcase, 1 carry-on suitcase, and 1 colored backpack. Better to pack everything (uniforms, etc) ahead of time. I had to buy another backpack because you can only wear solid color black, tan, or camo when in uniform. I brought civilian clothes for BOLC which was good because we spent travel days in civilians. They are strict about wearing only uniforms for the rest of the time; make sure before you get there your full uniform is compliant with the right patches and sock type. I had 2 sets of OCPs and 4 PTs. There aren't many opportunities to buy stuff at the PX store. I personally wish I had brought full size bottles of shampoo lotion etc rather than travel size. It's nice to have your own sheets, trash bags, and cleaning supplies if you can fit it; the stuff they provide is dog shit. They don't give you a fitted sheet so if you use their sheets it will come off the mattress during the night.

Laundry: The laundry situation wasn't horrible if you were smart about it. Bring lots of detergent/tide pods; we did laundry every couple days even compiling with roommates because we sweat through everything so quick. Set a timer and get your load ASAP; there are a lot of people waiting for the machines. Our building had a sticky note system where we wrote our name, number, and room in case a load was sitting for a while.

Leadership: There are multiple leadership roles that you can volunteer for (some people were chosen), and these roles rotated throughout the weeks. I heard they can be great resume builders.

Fire Guard: Every night including weekends we have "fire guard" which is where each room gets assigned chores for one hour during the night. You could be assigned 0100-0200 and have to wake up to clean the bathrooms then fall back asleep for 0400 wake up.
The list rotates until all rooms have been assigned. Chores range from cleaning the classrooms to mopping floors to cleaning the bathroom.

Food: The food was eh but there is basically no fiber and lots of added sugars in the packaged meals. We ate Eagle Rising meals for each breakfast and MREs for each lunch on weekdays. Dinner was mermite cafeteria food. If you're picky, trade with others or bring snacks. Weekends we went to the DFAC for breakfast and dinner with MRE lunch. A blessing to eat real, hot food. DFAC visits were a whole performance that lasted 1-2 hrs long (mostly just standing in the sun waiting for out turn). Any leftover snacks from the packaged meals I saved in my closet for spare time or to bring home. There were vegetarian, halal, and kosher options.

SRP: We visit the health clinic twice to get bloodwork taken and immunizations. The first day is bloodwork for antibodies, blood type, HIV, etc. and vision and audio tests. I did a hearing test beforehand through PHA, so I got to leave early. Bring a book or something to do since this was a whole day of waiting around. The hospital had wifi.

Classes/Lectures: BY FAR THE WORST PART OF EACH DAY. We sat in an old theater with no outlets. There were two stalls for the bathroom and a lot of us so the bathroom was never free. Always a long line for the water fountain or coffee machine. The lectures were sleeper material. Some days were 6-8 hours in there. They did give us 10 min breaks between each lecture which ranged from 10-45 min each. Cadre watched us like hawks to make sure no one was on their phone or falling asleep. I brought my laptop to take notes, but since there as no wifi and I didn't want to get in trouble I just sat there.

Final Exam: extremely easy and open-note. Make sure to download PDFs of the slides and use control-F. No need to study.

D&C: Drills and ceremony was fun. We were in full OCPs doing your typical "left right left" marching and formation. It was a lot more stimulating compared to class time even in the hot sun. Felt like we were playing the part, doing the thing. D&C was every day since we had to prepare for the final evaluation exam. It's messy bc no one knows what they're doing, but everyone improves slowly over time. Your final score is based on a group evaluation, so make sure not to mess anything up for anyone else.

Land Nav: didn't do it :/ (class size too big) They gave us a didactic lecture to prepare us for BOLC which was honestly pretty helpful. Because of this we did not go to CIF to retrieve assault packs or any gear

Gun Range: didn't do it :/ We were able to take out the rifles to learn how to hold them and disassemble. No shooting though.

EGAS: I lowkey had a great time. It sucked for sure but only for like 10 seconds at most. I was lucky enough to be in the first 4 or 5 groups so it wasn't as saturated as the later groups. Some prior service people said it was worse than they did it in basic before. No wearing lotion, sunscreen, nothing. It was just exciting to do something new. Remember to take deep breaths to calm yourself down before they make you take the mask off. They had us sing happy birthday, and I started coughing as soon as I got one word out. The skin stinging wasn't too bad. The coughing was the worst part. As soon as you go outside and breathe fresh air, you recover very quickly.

Working out: We didn't have access to the track or gym until the third day, and you can't workout on your own until after dinner. Any formal morning PT training is not enough to stay in shape or prep for the AFT (which is diagnostic and week 3). There's a small gym in the basement with lots of free weights, dumbbells, hex/straight bars, cardio, and some machines. There is an outdoor track with bars to hang/do pullups. The "beaverfit" is a shipping container outside the barracks that has all the items you need for the AFT. We had to sign our name with CQ each time we used track/gym/beaver. They could get busy but there's enough room.

Room Inspections: We had our first formal room inspection the second weekend. Wasn't bad as long as you don't have contraband items and stuff everything in suitcases/drawers out of sight. This is where having your own cleaning supplies comes in handy because what they provide doesn't really do the job. The main issue was cleaning bathrooms. It's best to have people clean during the day because there isn't enough time for fire guard to clean within their time slot at night. Throwing the shower curtains in the wash will turn them from yellow to white.

AFT: diagnostic, doesn't count. Everyone's times were faster day-of than any other time practicing. Must have been the cheering and adrenaline.

Misc

We had final formation at 2100 every day.

The first two days were completed entirely in civilian clothes. We went to Exchange the day after arrival. They let some people go to PX on the first weekend for essential hygiene items/etc and male haircuts.

Strict battle buddy system where you cannot be out and about without a person of same gender or 2 people of opposite with you.

The first week was kinda brutal because we have less privileges and mostly boring intro classes.

I think the shower water and hair regulations messed my hair up. I lost a lot of hair and it felt more damaged than it has ever been coming out.

We had a barracks plague. A head cold spread through all of us like wildfire.

So many people went to sick call and were on profile for MSK injuries. Many of them were shin splints or activity-related injuries.

DEERs was a nightmare for many people because more paperwork was needed for some people than they told us. Naturalized citizens needed documents they didn't have. You need everything for your dependents as well. They told us to overnight ship very important papers. It was kind of a mess.

Cadre highly discouraged mail/packages/letters. Ubereats/Doordash was forbidden.

Top performing students get awarded or named at graduation. I was in the top 10% of the class but they only awarded top 5% :(

Tips/Advice

DRINK WATER ALL DAY it's unbearably hot and you lose more water than you think just standing around.

Bring a small notepad and pen with you for classes so you don't have to use an electronic.

Take you CAC with you everywhere.

Memorize your social security number and DoD ID.

Try not to go on your phone during the day. I was still able to text my friends or call people at the end of the day. If we're just standing around, I opened my phone to send a quick text. It's generally discouraged to have your phone out while in uniform.

Be prepared to do nothing A LOT. Especially since they messed up having too many people in our class, we spent a lot of time waiting for the next task and feeling unproductive since there was no wifi.

Get into a regular workout routine on your own before coming here. Try training for the AFT on your own. Most people had the most trouble with the 2-mile run and push ups.

Bring fiber supplements and eat as many veggies/fruits as you can. They sometimes gave us apples/pears/bananas that I liked to stock up on. Everyone's bowel movements were fucked up for a while.

Take naps when you can. We don't have enough allotted sleep time for the amount we're working out and eating like shit.

I really enjoyed meeting everyone, but at some point you get so exhausted being around people. There is never a moment of alone time. Prepare your social battery.

Read up on all the rules especially in the handbooks beforehand. It's better to come prepared and presentable than get yelled at for, say, having your hair out of regulation. Bring what you need to do all of that (hair gel, shave beard, bring bobby pins, bring black above ankle socks, etc.). You'll learn the minute details of the culture while you're here (ex. when to say sir/ma'am, how to stand, when to take your cap off).

Take it seriously but have some fun! It's basically summer camp. Army stuff can be ridiculous; just play the part and move on. Be grateful that you get more freedom than regular Basic Training. Do not take for granted the money they are giving you.

I will probably make a post for BOLC-B as well.