Cadet Kit List

First, the good news: uniform is issued

You do not buy uniform. It is issued by the unit once a cadet is enrolled, and exchanged as they grow. Nobody needs to turn up to a first parade night in anything special — comfortable clothes and trainers are fine. Be wary of anyone suggesting you need to buy kit before you have even spoken to a unit.

Parade night

• Uniform once issued, clean and pressed, with boots.
• A notebook and a pen that works.
• A drink.
• Any medication, and make sure the unit knows about it.

A weekend away

Units issue a specific kit list for each weekend and that list is the one to follow — it will reflect the activity and the weather. Typically it includes:

• Washkit and a towel.
• Spare socks, more than seems necessary. Then more again.
• Warm layers, and waterproofs.
• A sleeping bag, and a roll mat if told to bring one.
• A torch — a head torch is far better than a handheld one — with spare batteries.
• Black bin bags. They waterproof a bergen from the inside and cost nothing.

Annual camp

Camp is the same idea for longer, so the list grows rather than changes: more socks, more layers, more washkit. Add a padlock if lockers are used, a cheap watch, and enough spending money for the NAAFI or the trip out if there is one. Label everything — identical issued kit in a room of thirty cadets goes missing constantly.

The things people always forget

• Spare socks and a spare pair of boots laces. Wet feet ruin a weekend faster than anything else.
• A head torch with working batteries. Not a phone torch — the phone will be flat.
• Blister plasters. Deal with a hot spot early and it never becomes a blister.
• A pen. Sounds trivial until there is a lesson and nobody has one.

What not to bring

Anything valuable, anything you would be upset to lose, and anything on the unit’s prohibited list — which will be made clear in advance. If in doubt, ask the unit rather than guessing. Knives and similar items are controlled: never bring anything of that sort unless the unit has explicitly instructed it as part of the kit list for an activity.

Where Cadet AI fits

Kit lists are a unit matter, but the training you do once you get there is exactly what Cadet AI helps with — quizzes across the syllabus and an AI study assistant for the theory, so the practical weekends make more sense when you arrive.