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How COVID-19 Is Changing US Army Boot Camp

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Basic training didn’t stop for the coronavirus — it just changed shape at Fort Benning.

By late March 2020, the Army had confirmed six COVID-19 cases tied to Fort Benning, the sprawling post near Columbus, Georgia, that houses the Maneuver Center of Excellence. Officials were quick to note that none of the six infected patients were part of training operations. Still, with hundreds of new recruits arriving every week to start Basic Combat Training, the post overhauled its procedures rather than shut down.

• Six confirmed COVID-19 cases were linked to Fort Benning as of late March 2020, with the Army confirming none were tied to training operations.
• Training elements requiring direct physical contact were suspended, while ongoing drills and physical fitness sessions moved to strict physical distancing.
• Outside visitors were barred from graduation ceremonies, and recent graduates were held on base rather than shipped to new units, to avoid cross-country spread of the virus.

Screening Recruits at the Gate

The changes start the moment a recruit steps off the bus. Fort Benning built enhanced medical screening directly into the reception process that every incoming class goes through before they’re issued gear and assigned to a unit. With hundreds of trainees funneling through weekly, that screening became the first checkpoint for catching anyone showing symptoms before they mixed into the broader training population.

It’s a similar logic to what other high-intensity training pipelines across the military have had to grapple with as the outbreak spread — programs like the one profiled in the Air Force Special Warfare PAST Test depend on close, hands-on evaluation that doesn’t translate easily to a pandemic.

Contact Drills Suspended, Distancing Enforced

Basic training has always leaned on close-quarters instruction — hand-to-hand tactics, formation drills, bunkmates a few feet apart. Fort Benning suspended the training elements that required direct physical contact between recruits and instructors. Drills and physical fitness exercises that continued were run under strict physical distancing rules instead of being canceled outright.

Six cases at Fort Benning, zero of them tied to training operations — and basic training kept running anyway.

That balance — keeping the pipeline of new soldiers moving while limiting the contact that basic training is built on — was the core tension officials at the Maneuver Center of Excellence were managing as March came to a close.

No Visitors, No Graduation Crowds

Graduation from Basic Combat Training is normally a family event — parents and siblings flying into Columbus to watch recruits complete the ten-week course. Fort Benning barred outside visitors from attending those ceremonies entirely, cutting off one of the biggest sources of outside traffic onto the post during an outbreak.

Graduates Held on Base

Perhaps the most consequential change involved what happens after graduation. Rather than immediately shipping newly trained soldiers to follow-on units or new assignments around the country, Fort Benning began temporarily holding recent graduates on base. The move was aimed squarely at preventing graduates from carrying the virus cross-country into other installations as they transferred to their next posts.

It’s the kind of decision that echoes precautions taken across other tight-knit, high-risk training environments — the same instinct behind why elite units, like those covered in Why You Never Mess With Elite Special Forces, guard against anything that could compromise a unit before it’s even deployed.

For now, Fort Benning’s graduates are staying put rather than heading straight to their next duty station — a holding pattern that keeps the Army’s newest soldiers on post at the Maneuver Center of Excellence until officials are confident it’s safe to move them.

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