How Long Is Army Training?

• Training in the army depends on the recruit's long-term goal. Everyone that enlists in the army will go through some form of basic training. Those who go through a ROTC program at a school have classes all along that go towards that training, and undergo only about four weeks of what could be considered boot camp. Everyone else goes through a nine-week training camp that develops basic army skills. This training is broken down into sections, each named after a color: red, white and blue.
  
  

• After basic training, a soldier has the option of pursuing further training, such as Officer Candidate School (OCS). This is normally only an option for those who have a four-year college degree. OCS lasts for 12 weeks and is a difficult training path. Leadership, survival skills and strategy are some of the lessons that are learned during this coursework.
  
  

Advanced Individual Training

• If OCS is not an option for a soldier or is not a goal, the soldier can still choose to pursue training in a specialized skill. This is called advanced individual training. These specialties go from infantry and office support staff all the way up to military intelligence and engineering. Each of these skills are broken up into schools that teach what is needed for that particular field. The school is broken up into subcategories of skills that fall under that category. Each skill has a different training schedule, and the number of weeks needed to complete training vary. For example, infantry is a five-week addition to training, and military police training adds 10.