I did Basic in between my Jr and Sr year of high school. It was definitely intimidating to be that young. Unfortunately, I can't help with the rest because that was over 30 years ago.
I will say that doing Basic in Georgia in the summer sucks really bad. Also, I was one of five people that didn't get to start training when scheduled because the class was too big. We had to wait two weeks for the next group to show up.
It does amaze me now that graduation from Basic is a thing. My nephew just got out of Basic for the Air Force and they had a big ceremony. My sister and BIL (and his wife) flew down for the ceremony. IIRC, we had a 20 minute ceremony and then they sent us to our next duty station (I went home).
