I've been watching Band of Brothers and I'm interested in learning more about what kind of training these and other US soldiers were put through to prepare them for war. I'm planning on reading the Band of Brothers book, which I'm sure will have some more information, but I'd also like to hear from others on this sub. What kind of physical training they were put through, classroom lessons, what their day-to-day schedules were like, what books or papers they were assigned to read, food available in the training camps, tactics they were taught, how they were tested etc. I'm keen for any information, and also if there are particularly interesting things about other nations' military training programs during WWII, I'd be interested to hear about that as well.
The basic outline of US combat arms training from WW II through Vietnam was 6-8 weeks of basic training followed by at least to 6-8 weeks of advanced individual training (AIT) in one's assigned military occupational specialty (MOS).
Basic training involved mostly physical and light arms training and drill. It was mostly demonstration, repetition and memorization. One did not need to be literate in order to do well in Army basic training.
Depending upon one's MOS, the training in AIT varied. Here is a link to the various field manuals that would have been used by the instructors in AIT and by the specialists, NCOs and company grade offices in the field in WW II.
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/PDFs/FM7-5.pdf
The film Take the High Ground (1953) incidentally depicts an accurate presentation of Army combined basic and infantry AIT training as it was done from WW II through Vietnam for someone whose MOS was 11B (infantryman).
You might also look for period training films on Youtube.