Uday left for Basic Training on 28 Aug 2000, the same day his father and sister were returning to India from O’Hare Airport, Chicago, while Uday was leaving from the same airport for Louisville, with a change of flight at St Louis. They said their goodbyes at the airport and knew that they would only be seeing each other not earlier than third week of December 2000.This would be the first time that Uday would be away from home and family for so long.
Basic Training was from 29 Aug 2000 till 19 Dec 2000- almost fourteen weeks divided into four phases- Red, White, Blue and Gold.
The father recollects that it was a known fact that basic training was real hard and that he was so worried for Uday, because of his back pain, as a result of some past injury. He was also worried whether Uday will be able to find his way around as till then Uday had not travelled independently and that to in an alien country.
Uday on 2 Sep 2000 wrote to his father, sister and grandmother - “I miss you all a lot and it would be very difficult to get through this boot camp”- (he probably had already got a taste of things to come at Reception itself). He went on to write “After I left O’Hare I did not mess up anywhere and reached my destination right on time. The Drill Sergeant did not allow me to roll my bag, and I had to carry it, and it was very heavy now because though we had bought everything, I had to buy a lot of stuff again. Waste of money”.
“Reception was hell, but I was fortunate to leave reception within three days”.
Uday settled down with his assigned training unit – 3rd Platoon, C Company, 2nd Battalion 82 Armor, 1st Armor Training Battalion, Fort Knox, Kentucky.
He continued in his letter “The Drill Sergeant kept on shouting at me, because I could not understand what he said”. “And would continue to punish me”. This was one of the most exasperating as well as embarrassing experience for young Uday- simply because he could not understand what the Drill Sergeant was saying, because of his accent. It is another thing-to be punished for not doing what you are told to, but this was absolutely unreasonable.
It also emerged from Uday’s letters that a lot of things that the Recruiter had told him where simply not true.
In the earlier few weeks Uday was very homesick- and had doubts and regrets about joining the army- and in fact wrote to his father “do something but just get me out of here”. Matters were made worse as the Drill Sergeant refused to acknowledge the fact for weeks that Uday was not able to quickly understand because of the different accents- and that should be no reason to punish-as that is detrimental for morale and left Uday very miserable.
However, by mid-October 2000, from his letters it seemed all that frustration of the earlier weeks was behind and, Uday was very upbeat and by the time he got into the Blue phase of the training- he was one of the more popular soldiers, and was liked by one and all. Uday was coming into his own and in the Gold phase up to graduation Uday was leading his platoon- and his leadership qualities were being shaped and were for all to see and acknowledge.
Uday wrote to his father- “Dad I am feeling good about myself”.
Uday graduated on 19 Dec 2000 and was assigned to 1st Battalion 34 Armor Regiment based at Fort Riley, Kansas.
He did visit India after graduation before joining his battalion at Fort Riley on 15 January 2001.