The Navy’s boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois, says it will start letting recruits have some access to cell phones while they are in training.
“Over the next few weeks,” recruits in two divisions — units of roughly 60 to 80 sailors — “will have limited access to their cell phones during designated periods of training in order to connect with family and friends and manage personal matters,” the Navy announced in a Facebook post Tuesday.
Beyond the announcement, the service offered few details about the policy change that promises to be a major shift in recruits’ experience at boot camp and one that is already proving controversial among outside observers.
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Typically, Navy recruits have had little access to the outside world or their personal phones while undergoing the difficult early days of training to be a sailor. Instead, recruits still make use of a large room filled with pay phones several times during their 10-week stay at Great Lakes.
The Navy’s boot camp website even recommends recruits pack prepaid phone cards to simplify the pay phone process.
However, the service’s initial training is one of the last entry-level programs to strictly enforce such a firm stand on cell phones. By contrast, the Army allows its recruits some access to phones — usually in limited time windows or as a reward — but they don’t carry them…
