The Navy said beginning Friday it's allowing boot camp recruits to use their cell phones for family calls after a small test of the new policy rolled out in late November.
Recruits are typically allowed five standard phone calls during their training, the Navy's statement announcing the policy change said. “Now, recruits will utilize their personal devices to contact their family or friends,” it added.
“We decided it is time for recruits to connect with their loved ones in a more modern way,” Capt. Ken Froberg, the head of the Navy's Recruit Training Command, said in the statement announcing the change that was released Friday.
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Lt. Nicholas Lingo, a spokesman for Recruit Training Command, told Military.com in a phone interview Friday that the plan is for recruits to keep their phones in separate lockboxes where they will be away from everyday access. In the future, the lockboxes will also have the ability to keep the phones charged.
Then, every couple of weeks, when recruits would normally be taken to the Recruit Training Command's massive banks of pay phones, they will now get their phones and make their calls home from their own devices.
Lingo stressed that recruits will be told not to use any other functions on their phones like video calling or apps.
“You want to afford them the opportunity to be responsible adults, to be good sailors, and this is just yet…
