Overworked Drill Sergeants Offered Brief Reprieve at Basic Training Battalion

 

Overworked Drill Sergeants Offered Brief Reprieve at Basic Training Battalion

Life as a drill sergeant is taxing. Noncommissioned officers assigned to any of the four basic combat training installations across the Army are usually up at 4 a.m. and aren't home until the late hours of the night. They are almost always on call during training cycles and constantly away from their families during their two-year assignment on "the trail."

Those at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the largest of the four training bases -- which sees an average of 1,000 basic combat training soldiers graduate every week, are getting an olive branch: an area where drill sergeants can spend time with their families and "take a break from the grind of the first 72 hours" of a training cycle.

The 1st Battalion, 13th Infantry Regiment, calls it "the 1st 72-hour room."Read Next: Military Pilots Reported 1,700% More Medical Incidents During the Pandemic. The Pentagon Says They Just Had COVID"To help foster a positive climate, we create[d] an enclosed space for young children to play where parents are still close enough to monitor children but can still sit, eat and socialize with their family or other members of the battalion," Lt. Col. Anthony Messenger, commander of the battalion, wrote in a press release Thursday.