Laundry at Basic Training
Laundry at Basic Training
A lot of people wonder how laundry is done at Air Force Basic Military Training. This is understandable to wonder how 50+ people get their laundry done. Taking care of your own laundry can seem like a daunting task sometimes. Thankfully at BMT, your flight will have a laundry crew that a few trainees will be a part of. They will wash all your flights clothing.
Each trainee in your flight will typically donate a few dollars to the laundry crew to buy laundry detergent. Typically, they will buy enough from the beginning to last your entire time at Basic Training. If they need to buy more later, they can. If they bought too much and you have left over detergent, it will stay in the dorm for the next flight.
The new dorms have washers and dryers in each flight’s dorm themselves.
The old dorms have a laundry room outside of the dorms that is shared by all the flights in the building. Pray that you don’t get the old dorms. Well, if you do, you kind of get bragging rights because you had a harder more “real” BMT experience than those who are in the new dorms. When I joined, they had just started to finish building the new ones so none of the people before me got to experience the new dorms.
First, how do you keep track of your laundry at BMT if everyone’s clothes get washed together? Good question! While you’re at BMT, you’ll mark all your clothes with your laundry mark.
What is a laundry mark? Another good question! At BMT, they will show you how to add a laundry mark to all your clothes except for socks. You will use a black sharpie to write your laundry marks, they usually go on the tag of your shirts or pants or on the back collar.
Your laundry mark will be the first letter of your last name and then the last 4 of your social security number.
You’ll have a mesh garment bag that you put your underwear and socks in, and all the bags get washed together. Your garment bag will have your laundry mark on it. That way you’ll always get your bag back with your socks and underwear.
As far as undershirts go and PT uniforms, those all get washed together and then will be passed out based on the laundry marks. That way everyone gets their own stuff back.
Your OCP uniforms and your blues are a different story. You’ll take those to dry cleaning to be cleaned. The dry cleaning place shares a building with the dining facility which is right next to the dorms.
It wasn't a big deal for me, but some people weren’t happy with marking their clothes with laundry marks. My advice is to only take clothes to BMT that you don't mind applying the laundry mark to.
After the laundry crew washes everyones clothes every day or every other day, everything will be passed out to their respective owners based on the laundry marks. You’ll fold and roll your clothes and place them back in your wall lockers.
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