What Happens if a Soldier Doesn't Get Tapped out at Their Boot Camp Graduation Ceremony?

Being away from family can be difficult, no matter what stage of life you're in. It can be doubly difficult for a young person just striking out in the world if they're not only suddenly separated from family, but also placed in a situation where their contact with home is limited. This is exactly what young military servicemembers experience when they go off to Boot Camp.

To celebrate these servicemembers as they complete their basic training and get ready for their first big assignments, the military holds a graduation ceremony and invites friends and family to come make the day extra special. It's during graduation that soldiers are "tapped out" by a loved one and excused from the formation. But what happens when a soldier doesn't get tapped out?

Luckily, there's a plan in place.

First, what is "tapping out"? At the end of the Boot Camp or Basic Training graduation ceremony, the newly-minted soldiers will stand in formation with their comrades-in-arms. "Tapping out" occurs when a loved one approaches the soldier and quite literally taps them on the shoulder to release them from the formation.

It can be emotional and is a solid reminder of the world these soldiers leave behind when they promise to serve.

Yet not everyone has a family who can or is willing to attend, and not everyone has friends who can travel for the ceremony. So what happens to those soldiers?

Never fear; they don't just stand in formation forever.

Often times, TikTok's @DefenderJo explains, either the general who gave the commencement speech during the ceremony will come around and tap out those soldiers left, or a family member from one of the soldier's uniformed buddies will take the honor.

In video after video on the internet, moms, dads, siblings, and friends of their soldiers will tap out their loved one's friend to make sure they know they are loved and celebrated too.

And yes, it's as emotional of a scene as you might expect it to be.

Compilations of tap-out videos show people coming face-to-face with their loved ones for the first time in weeks or months. Sometimes, the family member stands silently, just gazing at their loved one, before welcoming them home.

And in some videos, a new mom presents their child to her husband or boyfriend as he meets the child he may have missed the birth of.

Siblings gleefully tap their older siblings in, and moms often weep as they welcome their child's graduation to the next stage of life.

But when a tap out comes from a stranger, it's a beautiful thing as well. You can see new familial bonds and ties forming with every tap out, reminding soldiers that they are one extended family and facing the same things together.

Not only do the soldiers face the same challenges when they are deployed and actively serving, but their family members often face the same struggles at home.

This makes them one big family, as occasionally dysfunctional as any family.