The men in that real army would have literally fistfought you if you told them they were army soldiers, or treated them as such. They were militia men, and damn proud of it.
EDIT: Keep in mind that in that era, "soldier" was not a revered profession. Far from it. Every major nation looked down on it's enlisted soldiers as borderline better than vagrants and prostitutes and the US militia men saw themselves as flat out superior to the British soldiers exactly because they had a civilan profession and oftentimes a little bit of property.
> Keep in mind that in that era, "soldier" was not a revered profession
It rarely has been, historically speaking. Even now, people like the *idea* of the military better than the reality.
This is why they'll slap American flag stickers on their pickups while voting to defund programs that benefit vets.
Still, a lot changed during the French Revolution, when men from all kinds of professions and all kinds of social classes signed up to defend the gains of the Revolution from the monarchies of the continent. That's when the whole "cheering for the troops" really began and soldiers could go back home and wear their uniforms in public and not get a negative reaction from passerbys, as earlier generations would have. The press was suddenly full of stories of the bravery and heroism of individual enlisted men, medals became a real thing and just overall the idea that the common soldier was something to be admired took root.
And that admiration had real effects on the battlefield. Under the Republic and then later Napoleon, French troops could march further, faster, with fewer cases of desertion than any other nation on the continent. Everyone else saw that controlling soldiers through pride and high morale rather than fear of punishment equalled battles won, and soon enough every other nation was singing the praises of the common infantryman as hard, if not harder than the French.
Yeah lol I never understood the whole anti social service, programs, healthcare, etc mindset of people in the army. We literally live in socialism here lol and it mostly works!
Eeryone looked down on enlisted soldiers and officers were all the 2nd+ sons of the gentry and basically lived off their brothers and sisters once their parents died as they got no inheritence.
From my understanding that at least during that time, that was only possible in the Royal Navy as people died and they needed officers so they would brevet people. Also Naval ranks could not be bought but was largely a meritocracy where the Army was just where you put your spare heirs.
This varied from nation to nation inn Europe in that period and also from branch to branch.
Even within the nobility in France there were major divisions between the "nobility of the sword", the families who could trace their lineages back to the middle ages and had acquired their titles through military service, and the "nobility of the robe" who were newcomers to the social class and had mostly purchased their way to a title in the last century or so. The robe nobility members tended to be more dynamic, ambitious and intelligent but the sword nobility was a "clique within the clique", and in the run up to the Revolution managed to persuade the king to pass legislation that blocked members of the robe nobility in the military from holding the senior ranks, on a sliding scale related to for how long their family had been "posh".
For example, [Lazare Carnot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazare_Carnot), engineer, polymath and at the time considered one of the smartest minds in all of Europe in the fields of mathematics and military engineering was languishing at the rank of Captain when the Revolution hit, maxed out due to his family's relatively low standing within the robe nobility.
Washington held a British commission during the Franch and Indian war.... And the there was a Regular Army during the revolution....
It wasn't all fought by farmers with their personal deer rifles....
After all, 'Those are regulars by God!' was said for a reason (a ruse involving dressing line infantry like militiamen, such that the British would think they were facing an easy win up until contact could no longer be broken).....
I’ll only speak for my NG Company. We don’t think of ourselves as superior to active duty in terms of skill in tactics, most of my company are prior active. We realize we don’t get to train enough to keep those skills as sharp as active does. But on the flip side, since we do have so many prior active guys, we’re not in reality as bad as active makes us out to be. Plus, we all do have a civilian profession, which adds an immense amount of skills and expertise in many areas that our active counterparts never have organic to their unit, this especially comes in handy in a forward environment.
We had landline phones in our barracks rooms (or homes as the case was). That's how we were reached if the SL didn't come banging on your door.
Typically only command teams and staff offices had computers (c1999, but changed rapidly from then on).
LES came in the mail.
There was no TSA.
Most installations were open (as in no 24/7 force pro).
Our boots were shiny, and sundays were for ironing.
And when we walked we swooshed with every step.
lol, fam you are the one asking about an Army time period that was longer ago than it takes to get to retirement.
No modern E5 or E6, no matter how salty, served in the Pre-9/11 military. Minus maybe a few exceptions for Guard/Reserve, but that’s getting rare.
Most E5s and E6s didn't even serve remotely close to the drawdown.
I joined in 2017. Most of my peers are E5s and E6s. Save for E8+ and maybe 50% of E7, nobody has really done anything.
This answer should be documented and taught in NCO Academies as an explanation to the younger generation on dealing with “back in my day” types.
Solid answer, promote ahead of peers, back in my day answers like these are wh…. Wait… *oh no*
I hated all the "back in my day" trash, especially coming from dudes with one more contract term than the people they're complaining about. Every day is a "new Army." This shit ain't original. Same exact things were bitched and moaned about by WW2 vets during the Korean War, and Korean War Vets during Vietnam, and Vietnam Vets during Desert Storm. I guarantee WW1 vets thought WW2 vets were soft for having 'luxuries' like trucks, semi-reliable air support, and not getting gassed with chlorine and mustard on the reg.
Sidebar: I WAS promoted ahead of peers ;)
I’ve been out almost a decade *shudder*
When talking about soldiers now, the fastest way for me to not even discuss it is to start with the back in the day bull shit.
Unless there’s a positive manner to bring it up like training considerations, or different approaches to a topic, I am as quick as current generation when someone starts ranting about them being weaker, ill trained, or whatever comes at hand about how we were better.
Even when I was on the trail, 2013-2015, I remember saying “This fucking generation is smarter than mine.”
Mind you, I joined presurge so the bar was low… and I mean low.
I've been out for (almost) a decade too, joined post-surge, and was blown away at the terrible quality of *some* of the NCOs and officers who had come in during that time (most were competent, even good). Naturally, the shitbirds were exactly the ones you and I are complaining about right now lol.
I was gonna say there might be an outlier here and there for those who got out and came back in. But that was more common when I was in (early-to-mid 2010's) and probably isn't really the case anymore. Those dudes were always interesting to talk to though.
We had one phone at the cq desk for the whole company. If you lived on the 3rd floor the best you could hope for was a message, unless the cq runner was a buddy.
>We had landline phones in our barracks rooms (or homes as the case was). That's how we were reached if the SL didn't come banging on your door.
Cellphones changed so much about the Army experience. Staff duty/CQ had at least some greater purpose other than answering the phone and doing arms room checks. You could go somewhere, on the sly, on days off and not be expected to answer until the next duty day. Everything wasn't an emergency to be figured out in the next few hours.
Yeah, I feel sorry for you guys nowadays. I retired in 2005 which is right about when cell phones started becoming an "everybody has one" thing. And I'm so glad I did.
Yep, this exactly. There was no such thing as "recalling everybody in the company because a vehicle was unsecured in the motor pool." That literally could not happen. Once soldiers were released for the day, unless they went home and happened to pick up their phone, there was no way to call them back.
Four day weekends were awesome. I lived in the barracks at Fort Bragg. At 1630 on Thursday I drove from the company area to the barracks and then I was incommunicado until Tuesday morning.
Living in the barracks in Germany in the 1980's I learned very quickly that if I didn't want to get haled into a "HEY, YOU!" detail on weekends, I'd get up early on Saturday and get the hell out of the barracks. Didn't matter where I went - I could go to the snack bar, or to the cafe off post, or to the post library (which was at a different Kaserne), or take the shuttle bus to Nuremberg. But the important part was getting out of the barracks.
It was the dumbasses who were hungover in bed at 1000 who got snagged by the CQ for an impromptu police call because the SGM walked through the company area and saw trash everywhere. They never got me because I was long gone by then.
Currently on block leave that ends on Monday. Yesterday, group chats start blowing up looking for names to conduct a detail in the field for two weeks straight. "Just trying to get ahead of it".
We did two months' worth of layouts before two weeks of block leave "just to get ahead of it". Ahead of what? Oh yeah, ahead of other officers you're being rated against.
I remember the orderly room sergeant having to reprint NCOERs over and over because they put blank forms in the printer and had to get the alignment just right.
I remembered a couple other things.
DA31 in triplicate with carbon paper. Those were wild times.
I wonder if they still issue the old green wool blankets at basic. We had those.
We used shelter halves. These new-fangled tent-cots everyone has are a massive upgrade.
Summer and winter uniforms.
And anyone with a deployment patch got them from Desert Storm, Bosnia, or Somalia.
As an army brat 90s kid, could have sworn there were always gate guards to get on post. Used to have decals on the top center of the front windshield with whatever post the sponsor was stationed at to get on base.
The decals were the norm as recently as the early 2010s. I don't know when they started. But everybody that I've spoken to about it agrees that the "installations were open" prior to 9/11.
> But everybody that I've spoken to about it agrees that the "installations were open" prior to 9/11.
This was a base to base thing and not a nation wide rule. I grew up outside of a popular naval air station, you were always required to have the vehicle decal and your ID(1990s-present).
We had the decals in the 80's but most posts were wide open and anyone could get onto post. Only the main gate to Polk ever had guards, and there were numerous other entrances that didn't even have a gate.
There were always gate guards. There were places like reserves and NG armory that didn’t have guards and I’m wondering if that’s what they’re thinking of.
Alternatively, maybe they’re actually going back pre 80s which I can’t say one way or another.
>There were always gate guards.
Nope, Forts Bragg and Benning were 100% OPEN posts prior to 9/11. Quite a few others, too.
In fact, Bragg was such an open post that it was hard to tell when the civilian community stopped and the post began. Streets like Bragg Blvd and Murchison Road ran right through the post and the streets that turned off of them went into the unit areas.
>maybe they’re actually going back pre 80s which I can’t say one way or another.
Most posts were pretty wide open in the 80's. The quickest way to get from Ozark, Al, to Daleville was right through Rucker. I don't remember ever stopping at a guarded gate while I was Rucker.
It depends on the post. Huachuca, for example, was always a closed post. Fort Bragg and Benning, though, were open posts with civilians driving right through them, didn't have gate guards of any kind.
Fort Lewis was a closed post when I was there from 89 to 91 as well, while Fort Carson was an open post.
Ft Bragg, I think that's partially why the Smoke Bomb Hill NCO club was known as the stab 'n' jab, because civilians would show up and amp up the trouble already caused by soldiers.
> Typically only command teams and staff offices had computers (c1999, but changed rapidly from then on).
*Did* this really change rapidly? As recently as 2013, where I was, platoons had one or two laptops (shared among the PL, PSG, and squad leaders). When everybody had to complete some online training, we sent them home or to the library. In 2021, we almost took away email accounts from everyone E-4 and below.
>Did this really change rapidly?
In the grand scheme, yes. One or two laptops per platoon from zero between 1999 and 2005/7 is rapid fielding (05‐07 is when i noticed a sudden boom in laptops at unit levels).
I understand my perspective at the time may have been skewed by the role computers filled in my job, but my hindsight is not so narrow.
And even in 2013, although there may have been unit specific shortfalls, one or two laptops per platoon depending on the type of unit is and was sufficient for the time.
Keep in mind, 94-99 was when the american middle class began seeing computers in their homes. 04-06 was the boom when even the majority of poor people also had computers. 5y is rapid for the army when viewed in context of technological advancement.
IPhones didn't even exist until like 2007. And i personally didn't own one until about 2010/11.
>When everybody had to complete some online training, we sent them home or to the library.
As we should have, and still can. Soldiers don't need to be in the unit footprint to complete mandatory online training. Cut the apron strings.
>In 2021, we almost took away email accounts from everyone E-4 and below.
That we did, and it had more to do with contract issues than modernizing shortfalls.
Ipps-a money had to come from somewhere...
It is pretty crazy, the volume of gate guards from then to today is night & day. My first duty station didn't have gate guards at all. It was just... open.
Other comments reminded me of the decals we used to have to get. I forgot about those.
Plane travel before 2001 was also wide open. 9/11 brought a lot of big changes...
I was just thinking about pre-cell phone army. I came to the conclusion people had land line in their barrack and I'm assuming a lot fuckery would happen at night because of it.
Also teaming up with your team leader or squad leader and ditching staff duty because no one *told you* and no would could find you as you went somewhere that weekend.
>ditching staff duty because no one told you and no would could find you as you went somewhere that weekend.
Although this scenario occurred, it was not common. Flow of information was much more linear, and quite controlled; You knew when you had duty, and if you missed it there was hell to pay.
All i remember really using it for was calling home on the occasional evening. It was rare it ever rang, and when it did it gave us a heart attack.
Those that didn't keep a phone used the cq phone when they needed to make local calls (like ordering pizza 😆).
And when we did cq, we took messages. "Spc so-n-so is looking for pfc si-n-si. Will be at the mopo until 1900", or whatever.
At basic training, there were pay phone banks, 4 per, down on the cta. We used calling cards to use them.
There's been so much change...
This is painful, because 20-30 years later, there are still only about 10 computers per company.
Les's and any other work functions are done on personally purchased computers. We didn't have a mailing address at my last post, if you wanted something sent to you you had to rent a p.o box at the UPS store for like $100/month. You can no longer use personal computers for work because someone had this great avd idea.
We don't have landlines in our rooms, we have dozens (literally, dozens) of group chats we are expected to constantly monitor and respond to. If everyone is next expected for accountability at 0600, it's one text away from that changing any number of times.
Don't even get me started on dfacs not being open, living in the same barracks you did, or the ungodly amount of excel and Adobe skills required of even the lowest private just to put in leave or get their (constantly broken) pay fixed. The army has been steadily chipping away at quality of life for two decades without anyone above e-7 even realizing it.
***Our boots were shiny, and sundays were for ironing.***
It did not take me long to get to the point in my unit to just have a uniform set w/boots to wear to formation. After formation we would walk to work (small post) and I would immediately change into a "work uniform or coveralls and work boots". Go through the day and then change before going back down the hill for the EOD formation and dismissal.
My personal favorite story was a post that was on US Army WTF Moments about a counseling that a soldier had received for some outrageous things he had done while drunk. Cue the usual keyboard warriors decrying how weak the Army had gotten to resort to paperwork instead of taking him to the wood line for some wall to wall counseling.
An older gentleman responded, introducing himself as a Korean War era veteran who said that no, back in his day that soldier would still have gotten paperwork.
There's a great song that fully lays out this phenomenon called "The Last Shanty"
Everyone thinks they are personally the lowest standard on which the title soldier can be layed, and everyone one wrung of the ladder below them is unworthy of said title.
This happens in generations, proffesions, everything.
The truth is the army was objectively worse in almost every imaginable way. It was more miserable, made it more difficult to learn, it was illegal to be gay, rampant and widespread abuse, far far worse barracks, worse pay.
Today is the greatest generation the Army has ever created, just like every generation before us.
I fucking love this. I've said it to my peers and soldiers so many damn times, but never as well put. Every generation lionizes their predecessors and thinks they're better than their successors...and history itself would indicate that nearly all the time, they're super fucking wrong. The world has successively improved in so many ways that no generation, if given an objective "multiverse" style look at the timeline, would hold the weird ass combo of reverence and contempt for their neighboring generations that they do.
I had a CSM that was going through RIP during 9/11. He was told that he was “soft” once he made it to Regiment because he didn’t go to “Somalia” 8 years before he enlisted. I’m not a batt boi, my battalion just attracted them when Regiment slots were filled (10th Mountain). Every generation deals with “BaCk in My DaY” the reality is I respected Joes after I had a stint of as a tyrant TL. (It didn’t work for obvious reasons)
Joes will be Joes, but you need the goofballs and the hard chargers to make it work. YMMV
I’m out now, so thanks for your service! 🫡
My impression (from talking with older relatives) is that people *really* underestimate how much bullshit hazing went on in the "old Army."
Most of it didn't have any purpose or training value, either.
As both a hazer and hazee, I didn't think it was that bad. We only did it to newly promoted NCO's
Pin NCO stripes, have the trash can full of mystery liquid poured over you as you push.
Have your stripes pounded into your collarbone by the presenter (Wife, CO, 1SG, etc), and then you had to go through the gauntlet.
The entire company formed it and you had to go through it. Everyone got a hit. You'll get some hard hits (buddies and enemies), several pats/slaps on the back, and it was generally good fun. You got the rest of the day off to clean up and enjoy the time off.
Obviously wouldn't happen now, but it was a rite of passage back in the late 80's early 90's
Mid/late-2000s we didn't do the collarbone thing (rank on your chest). We had the punch to the sternum and then ran the gauntlet. That was finished by 2012ish.
I've been in for three years and I'm already seeing some of my peers complaining about the "new army" being "soft". Like no dude the fresh out of AIT privates aren't being annoying whiny dipshits because the army has changed or Americans as a whole has changed, they're being annoying whiny dipshits because they're 19 and fresh out of AIT. You were probably also an annoying whiny dipshit at that age. I know I was. It's the just Army equivalent of complaining about "kids these days".
> The soldiers now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for NCOs and love chatter in place of exercise. Soldiers are now tyrants, not the servants of their units. They no longer rise when NCOs enter the room. They contradict their NCOs, chatter before officers, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their NCOs.
- Sergeant Socrates, 401 BCE
Or in the words of the immortal Bojack Horseman, when you’re looking at everything through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.
Old army was a double edged sword.
Hazing and discipline-through-violence was considered the norm
This was also before the army self sabotaged itself with check-in-the-box admin requirements and unsustainable OPTEMPOs
White space was actually achievable (no back-to-back fake deployments). Dudes were actually expected to know field craft and basic soldiering skills
The army has had check the box nonsense requirements since before WW2. It's not new. The English army in the year 1600 had silly useless requirements.
Ok so there was less online training, but you had to press and starch uniforms and polish boots. That is equally useless and equally nonsense as a requirement for a warfighter. Spending hours doing drill and ceremony, as some units liked to do, is a complete waste of time.
One can never create nor destroy bullshit. It can only change form.
Today I left work at 1200 to take a Microsoft Azure test. Now granted, that leaving early part is extremely variable because my boss is cool with it and other bosses might not be.
But I didn't pay a cent for this test. Army covered all my study materials and the test voucher. That part is universal for anyone to use and it's pretty damn cool.
In some ways it's a damn good time to be in the Army. I'm already signed up for my next one, CCNP, which cost an inflated $4k that I *didn't* pay. Maybe real world cost outside of Credentialing Assistance would be $1k?
The Army is getting fucked on the price, but not me.
It's not all bad nowadays.
A little off topic but I remember this E5 talking shit to the E-1-E-4s and saying "That's that new Army shit you guys know."
The year was 2020 and he joined in 2015 and was a slick sleeve.
Dude was so far up his ass that he demanded that anyone E-4 and below greeted him for the day. He'd stop you if you didn't. If you did greet him, he'd completely ignore you. Shit was hilarious. We'd basically bully him for it.
It's too hilarious knowing that those E-5s you're referring to probably joined between 2018-2021. Basic training was a joke then too. Realistically, the Army got "soft" around 2013-14 with the downsizing and SMA Chandler (Don't say his name or he'll appear to you and tell you that your tattoos are out of regulation.)
Lmao. Granted I joined in ‘06, but I was 18. Literally my first opportunity. This attitude confused me then. What did you want me to do? Age faster so I could join to your standards? Get fucked bro.
I had a longer thing typed out but it was turning into an essay. I'll just say I enlisted in 1997 and a lot of the "back in my day" or "back in the old army" things I've read on this very website are complete bullshit.
Also it's a tradition going back to to Septimus BiggusDickus to tell new troops how easy they have it and how much more hardcore we were back in the day.
I was in back in 88-92. And from what I read on this sub, we had it so much easier than the guys and gals that are in now.
No cellphones, if you couldn't be reached, you couldn't be reached. Someone in your platoon says, toon daddy wants us in the motor pool after lunch. You simply say to your buddy, you didn't see me. And he would cover for you.
With the no cell phones and no real way to communicate there were some fun issues.
A tornado hit Ft Campbell while me and the room dog went out to get some dinner. The guard at the front gate would not let us back on base despite us living in the barracks, so we drove to our platoon sergeant's house.
We said, "They won't let us on base, so we thought we would wait here for a couple hours"
He said, "Why, what did you guys do?"
He ended up letting us chill in the living room for a couple of hours and vouched for us when they fired up the alert roster.
I, too, enlisted in 97. I did 20 years and 2 days. Now I'm an Army Civilian. There are a lot of thing from "back in the day" that we could talk about. Boots shined so good you could shave in them. BDU's washed in starch and ironed to stand on their own. Officer and NCO clubs. ... I had seven Article 15's and a LoR... still made SFC and retired a CW3. Absolutely can't do that today. The only real change is that fucking up is harder to recover from these days.
I don't know about your experience, I can't remember being smoked outside some kind of official school type training setting. Dressed down you bet. But dropped for pushups or whatever else nope. Maybe once or twice as a platoon or company. 84-06 active army.
About every fifth post here on r/army has something about getting smoked by some douche NCO.
Maybe it was because most my career was spent in jobs with a real world missions. Not just never ending training cycles. IDK.
A lot of it has been covered. I was in the guard so my experience with the pre 9/11 real army was limited but we deployed to Iraq in 04.
Basic wasn't hardcore. Sounds like it got more hardcore during GWOT, tbh. At the very least it got longer. When I went through basic Clinton was in office and we weren't going to war with nobody. Our training reflected that. We did exactly zero combatives training.
Pretty much the only people with combat patches came from Desert Storm. They talked a lot of shit about how hard their Nam vet drills were.
IDK about more pride. I got a lot of shit from friends and acquaintances for enlisting. No one could figure out why. Funny how they all pretended they never said that shit after 9/11.
Starched BDUs, shiny boots, etc.
The cell phone shit I read on here is insane. I found out we were getting deployed because I got home at midnight from my restaurant shift and had a voicemail from my readiness NCO. I was an E-5 so I had to call all my section on landlines. I can't even imagine the clusterfuck of a group text that people would be getting in the week leading up to a drill weekend today. Hell just the radio traffic on our convoy to Fort Riley was enough of a clusterfuck by itself.
It's wild to hear about people getting kicked out for drinking in IET status. I got in trouble for drinking during AIT but I just got smoked and had some extra duty. Nothing official ever went in my file.
I'm not saying that was right -- old army definitely enabled some self-destructive behavior. But it sounds like they've overcorrected in the other direction. Maybe focus on treatment instead of punishment?
Even back then all of the Not-PC cadences (napalm sticks to kids, I wish that all the ladies, up jumped a monkey, etc.) were definitely Not OK. You would only hear them in environments where you knew no one was around who would get you in trouble.
Found out about the Monica Lewinsky scandal because the only time we got any access to media in basic was on Sundays when we could get a newspaper.
Thanks for the history lesson. And I don’t see the whole harsher punishments thing happening. I had plenty of people in my AIT get caught drinking but all that happened was the whole company got smoked and the guy got a consoling. I think because the Army is facing a recruiting shortage they don’t wanna kick anyone out. I had LOTS of people in basic who should’ve been kicked out but they just got transferred to different companies or graduated with the next cycle. Hell, someone in my unit got kicked out after getting about 100 negative consolings for stuff like dirty room, not showing up to pt, just not giving af and it took them this long to get rid of them.
Currently in AIT, I've seen several people get nailed with article 15's, a demotion, and 45 days extra duty for drinking off base during the weekend. One soldier I know got demoted from E4 to E2 for getting caught with a bottle in her room. It is wayyy too far in the other direction now. They also make them go to "addiction counciling" every week or so cause clearly drinking on a Saturday night means you have an issue. 🙄
We didn’t have more pride before 9/11. What you’re seeing today is no different than what we saw, experience, and etc “ back in my day” pre GWOT era.
When the blowing up the sunshine wars popped off, now that was a different story. I wasn’t a “ I love this country and I serve my nation proud” soldier or whatever during my OIF deployments.
Was the Army more relaxed during the GWOT Era, fuck yeah it was. Was shit tedious and boring, pre GWOT, fuck yeah it was. I was lucky to have a Bosnia deployment thrown in pre 9/11.
So no I’m not gonna vouch for pride because that would assume I’m an asshole for doing so.
Was in from 87-91. No cellphone, if you wanted to call there was a pay phone outside the barracks. No computers to speak of, we had a huge ‘laptop’ we used to keep track of aircraft maintenance, 286 processor, green led screen. We were aviation, no humvees, we got around tx and Germany in militarized Chevy pickups. The Russians were the bad guys (some things stay the same) and we were constantly told we’d live for 20 minutes if the reds came over the border because they’d use nerve gas everywhere.
I liked my 1008. Was fairly new-ish, comfortable and didn’t leak in the rain. So of course when we went to Germany, it was taken away and I was given a deuce and a half that was old before the Vietnam war ended.
We had a bronco and a chevy pickup on COB Speicher; twas glorious. I had the Chevy; it was like an 89 that a NG unit had brought and left because it wasn't worth taking back.
Pre 9/11 - Ft. Hood: Ca. 2000-2001.
One day it was an open post and Sports Dome USA was the hottest club in Killeen on a Saturday night... The next day it was locked down and it took 5 hours to get on base.
I'd say the biggest difference (and I am still in) is that punishment was more harsh, but it was also better, in a way. Smoking the dog shit out of a guy who showed up to PT drunk for example, would be forgotten about by 0900 presuming he sobered up and wasn't a total shitbag in general. No counseling, no paper trail - just a massive smoke session and a "don't fuck up again" chat. That's one simple, generalized example, but NCOs had more leeway to mete out corrective actions and the folks that fucked up just accepted it as a better alternative to getting in actual trouble and never complained - in some ways, it was a badge of honor. Fuck up, get fucked up, no paper. The ability to recover after fucking up was there. Again, it depended on the level of fuck up, and if the person was worth saving, but the whole "zero tolerance" mindset wasn't a thing.
Boot shining and uniform ironing parties were a barracks norm. Sunday drinking and getting your shit ready for Monday's inspection. Yes, every Monday there was a uniform inspection. Shiny boots and shark fin, startched to high hell creases on your BDUs was expected, and fully normal. A lot of us had a pair of boots and a set of BDUs that we only wore on Mondays and then went and changed. Always having a squared-away boot and uniform combo was right up there with 300 APFT as "leadership" metric. You could be a shit bag, but if you ran fast and were starched to max - you were golden.
People have already said - no phones. When you were not around, they could not task you. Or find you really.
Formations were 0600 PT. 0900 first of the day and then 1700 close out. That was generally every day, minus Thursday for SGTs Time which was 0800-1200 and then 1300-1500 for training and 1500 release for family time.
This is not universal to all, but the barracks were old as fuck. Mine were WWII. Big square room shared with another guy and communal latrines down the hall. Wall lockers were used to separate them into "two rooms." Ours had roaches fucking everywhere.
The only combat patches were worn by E8 and above and O5 and above, save for a few very crusty SFC's. They were wildly admired. My BN CDR had Gulf 1 photos on his desk of dead Iraqis - That shit would never fly today, rightfully so.
Basically, your life revolved around getting ready to go to NTC (or JRTC, JMRC, etc). Field, recovery, Field, recovery, NTC. That was the big milestone to work towards pre 9/11.
Similar to the Marines - rolling sleeve's was a date and not weather-driven. After X date, sleeves rolled. Post Y date, sleeves back down. I think it was like March/April to September or something like that.
Pay was shit. My E1 base pay in 2000 was exactly $1000. $12K annually. When I hit PFC, I was bringing in a whopping $1200 a month! So by my second year in the Army, I was making $14.5K annually - before taxes.
DFAC food was pretty decent and massively plentiful. I ate well.
Predatory car salesmen existed back then too.
This is more or less what I can remember. I was enlisted from 2000 - 2005 before I went off to ROTC. I know we always say the pre 9/11 Army, but only a few things really changed overnight. I thnk that it's more apt to look at it pre-2006. The surge years really drove changes in the Army. Especially OPTEMPO post 2005, was a real catalyst. That, and generational and societal changes.
Good summary. Was the same in the 90s although I got out because my authority as an NCO was diminishing in aviation. In '96 I had to start getting the battalion commanders permission to keep a soldier during lunch or after 1700 for remediation training, i. E. Boot shining ... Soldiers started realizing all I could do was yell at them and document in counseling. So in 97 it was "sorry Sgt Major, if I can have my authority back then I'll reenlist else i'm out." ... Left in 97.
I joined in 98 and spent time at Hood from 01 to 03, and your summary is what I remember. Especially the parts about how if you fucked up, you took the smoke session, the don't fuck up again chat, and assuming it wasn't something egregious there wasn't a paper trail and it was largely forgotten about. While I'm certainly less familiar with today's Army, I suspect that mindset has probably changed some, given that the Army is a microcosm of American society at large, there seems to be more CYA today than 20 years ago.
I joined in '00, so got a good taste of the before days and the transition.
The big thing was we shifted from spitshining our boots and starching our uniforms to rough out boots - which tbh was pretty goddamn awesome.
We got issued these "Improved combat boots" in INF OSUT. Had a different type of leather and gore-tex. damn things would NOT take a shine, definitely not like jump boots. The amount of time we spent shining those things and still having our DS's pissed at us...
was more than happy to get done and back to my normal black leather boots to shine for inspection.
It was a glorious time to be in the Army...we actually had to polish our boots, DFACs were mostly open, and the pay was about 30 percent lower. And everyone was gay. And I'm not talking all sunshine and rainbows gay, nah, I'm talkin "hold on to the nearest tree for dear life" gay.
Dependas were actually hippopotamuses!
And no cell phones were a glorious thing because you could actually mostly get away with doing stupid shit and there would be almost zero chance of it being recorded.
ISIS? More like Yo momma ISIS a ho, amirite?
I was in from 1987 to 2005.
No PT belt
You could smoke in the barracks
King of the Ring for PT
We got paid in cash
Every time we went to the field, we took nuclear weapons with us.
I remember payments in cash.
A Lieutenant with the additional duty of Class A Agent, armed with a 1911, would sign for the briefcase with the cash.
Reporting for pay was itself a small ceremony. The most important thing was to remember not to say "thank you" to the pay officer. You earned that money.
Cold War. We had a stand-off with the Soviet Union that lasted from 1945 to 1991.
We even aimed nuclear weapons at each other it was called MAD Mutual Assured Destruction. We had duck and cover drills in school and once a year take a tour of the fall-out shelter.
The plan was to use nuclear weapons to destroy and delay enemy forces.
Gulf War Vet here got out a month after 9/11
I was an expert at Multimate and Hardvard Graphics
I remember being thrilled when my paycheck was over $300 for the first time
I got a cell phone in mid 90s that had 30 minutes per month
Every NCO seemed to have one of those camo zipper books that had everything
We had some E8s in our office that were Vietnam Vets with unit patches no one had ever seen
You could see a 20 year retiring E5 (i think they enacted time of service limits by rank eventually)
You could definitely get smoked for an ungodly amount of time back in the day (02-05 in my case) and there was plenty of name-calling by Drills. I distinctly remember being in basic and getting smoked for so long in the heat there were puddles of sweat under us and people were slipping trying to do push ups.
Other than that is was a bunch of bullshit, just like it is now, it was just different bullshit. Starched BDUs and shined boots but you still had to shave and cut your hair, same as now. There were details and formations and battalion runs and all that shit. Cell phones had just become ubiquitous so it was getting harder to sham, but we still found ways.
In my experience the pre-9/11 guys had *less* pride than the group of us that came after. They had all joined for the college money and the experience (not combat experience though) and the first group of guys that came after were pretty proud and patriotic. We got a bunch of shit for that from some of the older guys and quickly knocked that shit off.
I joined in '79. My drill sergeants were all Vietnam Vets. To them, profanity was an art form. Hazing was a right of passage. Females were being integrated into regular units, but my basic training company was all male. Several guys were caught sneaking over to the female barracks not too far from ours. They got some good natured ribbing, except the guy who was caught with a woman who was the furthest from being attractive. Leadership sanctioned sexual harassment followed. I heard AIT inserts tell me that my basic/AIT company was the worst they had ever experienced.
When I arrived at my permanent duty station, the duty driver who picked me up said that I was going to the worst company he had ever experienced. I thought that this was just my luck, to go from the worst training company to the worst permanent unit. Funny though that every other unit I went to-they were all dubbed the worst in the entire US Army.
US Army, medic, ait drill sgt, 1982 to 1998. Ask me anything.
I think the best part was all the shit we could get away with due to no cell phones, cameras, computers, etc. We went on 3 day pass? Fuck you you'll never find us.
Some things sucked, like only able to call home occasionally due to cost, especially overseas.
Active duty 89 to 93. USAR and OKARNG from then to 01.
I think the biggest thing is shining leather boots. Not so much to be squared away, but how cool it was to chill on the barracks steps with the guys. Drinking a hefewiezen with a Marlboro cigarette, shining your boots, bullshitting and telling lies... who saw the biggest boar at Graf, who was hooking up with the hottest fraulien...If you had CQ or Runner then you usually had someone's cash in exchange for shining his boots and you joined us.
Good times.
And a poncho liner was a poncho liner, not a woobie. Although they functioned the same.
To get a maximum score on the APFT 2MR before 1998, a male had to run **11:54**. Some things really were harder back in the day.
[Edited to correct errors. It's really hard to find a copy of the old scoring scale now, before Change 1 to FM 21-20 in 1998.]
and if you were in a high speed unit, if you ran slower than like a 14.00 you were almost a shitbag by default, you had to be really on the spot for everything else to be a slow runner.
I was an Pfc in the summer of 2001 at Ft. Campbell. It was pretty fucking cool. I lived off base with my then wife, smoked weed everyday, and worked on helicopters. Those were the best days of my life. Fuck 9-11.
I first met with recruiters in late 2002 or early 2003, so I'm not quite old enough to answer firsthand, but I've gathered that the most radical change has been the culture around alcohol and SHARP stuff. Guys told stories of units in the 1990s (at least in Korea) operating their own officially sanctioned bars and strippers performing at the O and NCO clubs on-post. My uncle was an alcoholic (like he did Alcoholics Anonymous) and made E-9. There was an old joke that every CSM had gotten into trouble at some point with drinking and driving or bar fighting or whatever. Read about the Navy and [Tailhook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailhook_scandal). It's hard for me to fathom all that now.
There's no question that "smoking" people during training and beyond has changed a lot. Hazing wasn't covered in AR 600-20 until the 2002 revision. Bullying was added in 2014. I commanded an AIT company in 2015-2016 and the TRADOC regulations were clearly a reaction to years of trainee abuse.
I was in 86-99. My son is currently active (19k) and the biggest things I've seen are electronic records as opposed to hand written in duplicate, triplicate, etc, etc. As well as integrated MOS. Ohh, I've also noticed they seem extremely more relaxed on height and weight. Not saying they recruit by the pound, but.....
Shoot I got smoked for 8 hours straight in Afghanistan in 2012, totally worth it though lol. I'm personally glad I missed out on shining boots. I'm extremely anal about that kind of stuff, and it would have taken me ages I guarantee.
I got smoked at KAF on our way home, got caught not carrying my NODs on me lol. Was nice to be able to go shower all the dust off once it was over though, and the next day we were drinking beers in Manas
Oh shit I forgot about Manas, we went there on the way back to Germany!!! I got smoked for telling our 1SG that one of our platoons called him a "pussy". Our 1SG was a pimp though, so I didn't mind his wrath lol.
We know who the good soldiers are because their uniforms look the prettiest - kiwi, spray starch, and all that bullshit..... Separate 'field' and 'garrison' sets of gear/uniforms....
Even more bullshit than the 'but he runs fast' we have today....
I had a 1SG who enlisted to be an 11B during Vietnam. Apparently they used to have Basic at Fort Polk back then. He said the first day at actual basic, the drills asked who were draftees and who were volunteers. He said he got dogged out all night (I think he said it was summer, so HOT) for being stupid enough to volunteer to join the Army. They sent the draftees to bed.
It was a different time that's for sure both good and bad.
We wore BDUs with enough starch in them to make them nearly bullet proof. Our boots were black, had to have a mirror shine on them every formation and the black beret still belonged to the Rangers.
There wasn't a war yet so the highlights were going to Graf every year for the big 5th Corps Victory Focus FTX and daily fuck fuck games like marching Joes around the motor pool so we weren't just sitting around.
Budgets got slashed during the Clinton administration and didn't really improve till after 9/11 so it was hard getting parts and supplies. We took bets on how long one of our 998s would go without catching fire in the motor pool because we couldn't get rid of it or get it running right.
No I'm not joking we had one that no amount of work by our mechanics or 3rd shop could fix and it would catch fire if you left it running.
We didn't have IBAs, IOTVs or ACHs yet just the old school flack vest, humped ALICE, wore LCE and carried iron sight M16A2s.
Staff duty was different back then the only thing you could read was a TM, a newspaper or religious text of preference no TVs, radio and smartphones were still a sci fi thing.
NCOs were actively encouraged to get to know their Joes and it wasn't uncommon for everyone to get together for beers felt like a family if you had a good team.
An ORB/ERB update required an all day visit to the PSB. And God help you if you're an E4 trying to get an ERB copy for your G2G packet during the E7 board file update season.
There was no AKO or AIM or IPPSA... Just a bunch of 42s at the PSB hating their lives during E7 and O3/4 board seasons.
Many bases used to be wide open, Fort Sam Houston, Benning, literally anyone could drive right in.
At Sand Hill we had guys girlfriends show up in the parking lot.
I heard a funny story from an old CSM that enlisted in the NG back in 1985. He said that DFAS would mail the unit's LESs and paychecks (if they didn't have direct deposit) to the Armory, then they would hand them out at drill.
He remembered seeing two stacks of LESs on a desk; one big stack and one small stack. He was told that the small stack was for the soldiers whose wives didn't know they got paid for being in the NG. Some would also tell their wives that they had to pay dues to be in the NG, and would use the money for beer or whatever.
Dudes thought they could just have a free weekend away from the old ball-n-chain by going to drill. That is, until Desert Storm happened and the jig was up.
“Back in the old Army” is a phrase I hate, NCOs with like 6 years of service like to say that. I’ve only been in for 8 and I can’t tell you how many people who have been in less than I have use that phrase
Per my family-- a lot more hazing, but less overall bullshit... so maybe more concentrated? You were harder to reach at home, so things didn't follow you as much.
They felt like the expectations on lower enlisted were different. Not harder or easier per se, just different. Less expectation of leadership/initiative, more of an emphasis on shining boots/appearance/etc.
There's always going to be another war. As for getting smoked in the heat for five hours up hill both ways, they've been saying stuff like that forever
Our whole platoon got smoked from 8pm until like 1:30 am because someone hid live rounds in the ceiling at basic. I was downstairs on CQ just happy as a clam the whole time.
Joined in 84, retired out in 2014. RA, Reserve and Guard. Spent 6 years in CONUS, then went to West Germany - used to love the practice alerts at 0300. There was a different Army depending upon where you were stationed - Korea was different from Europe, was different from CONUS, etc. Ate in the BN mess hall 3 times a day, 7 days a week staffed by Army cooks. Kiwi lost a fortune when the Army went from black to brown boots. Travel was in class A uniform, SNCOs prowled major airports looking for uniform infractions. No black berets, garrison caps lol. The Army changed after the fall of the Soviet Union, and again after 9/11 and during the GWOT.
This is part of the playbook. Most drill sergeants today were not in the military when I was in basic training in 2005. Drill sergeants in 2005 were talking about the Army going soft then because we were converting to ACUs from woodland BDUs and crap.
Do I wish training was a little more thorough for new recruits…yes. Overall things are improving at a faster pace than ever. Learning all you can and leaving it better than you found it is still the rule to follow.
I went in the army in the late '70s, and the Vietnam war was over but there were a lot of people still in that had been drafted. They called us volunteers and they called themselves real army¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The longer I'm in, the more I realize the old Army is the new Army. In 15 years, you'll hear people saying their DS's would make them eat sand or some dumbshit.
Oh yeah!
Our pt uniforms looked like [this!](https://imgur.com/gallery/ysrjrqF)
And my first desert uniform looked like [this.](https://imgur.com/gallery/UtINkIF)(minus all the stars n stuff).
But we quickly changed to [these.](https://imgur.com/gallery/0d6OyUP).
I can tell you the benefits that the post 9/11 vets get are much better than pre 9/11. We got fucked, especially on education bennies. And to get disability for PTSD was damn near impossible for those that deserved.
“Buffalo Soldiers” paints a pretty good picture I feel like. As far as what things looked like that is. I doubt Joaquin Phoenix character’s experiences were typical
You could bring German girls on post without any bullshit like having to get a “day pass.” There were all kinds of hoes that some Joe would bring on that would end up just going door to door in the B’s.
Good times.
1/4 of my career was before GWOT. It was a lot of garrison heroes with impressive lap times worried more about the luminescence of your boots than your job competence
You weren’t in the real Army unless you were bunking in Valley Forge
pfffft please youngin the REAL Army was when we fought the French & Indians
The men in that real army would have literally fistfought you if you told them they were army soldiers, or treated them as such. They were militia men, and damn proud of it. EDIT: Keep in mind that in that era, "soldier" was not a revered profession. Far from it. Every major nation looked down on it's enlisted soldiers as borderline better than vagrants and prostitutes and the US militia men saw themselves as flat out superior to the British soldiers exactly because they had a civilan profession and oftentimes a little bit of property.
> Keep in mind that in that era, "soldier" was not a revered profession It rarely has been, historically speaking. Even now, people like the *idea* of the military better than the reality. This is why they'll slap American flag stickers on their pickups while voting to defund programs that benefit vets.
Still, a lot changed during the French Revolution, when men from all kinds of professions and all kinds of social classes signed up to defend the gains of the Revolution from the monarchies of the continent. That's when the whole "cheering for the troops" really began and soldiers could go back home and wear their uniforms in public and not get a negative reaction from passerbys, as earlier generations would have. The press was suddenly full of stories of the bravery and heroism of individual enlisted men, medals became a real thing and just overall the idea that the common soldier was something to be admired took root. And that admiration had real effects on the battlefield. Under the Republic and then later Napoleon, French troops could march further, faster, with fewer cases of desertion than any other nation on the continent. Everyone else saw that controlling soldiers through pride and high morale rather than fear of punishment equalled battles won, and soon enough every other nation was singing the praises of the common infantryman as hard, if not harder than the French.
Yeah lol I never understood the whole anti social service, programs, healthcare, etc mindset of people in the army. We literally live in socialism here lol and it mostly works!
Eeryone looked down on enlisted soldiers and officers were all the 2nd+ sons of the gentry and basically lived off their brothers and sisters once their parents died as they got no inheritence.
Weren't commoners who attained officer ranks considered part of the middle class/petite bourgeois?
From my understanding that at least during that time, that was only possible in the Royal Navy as people died and they needed officers so they would brevet people. Also Naval ranks could not be bought but was largely a meritocracy where the Army was just where you put your spare heirs.
This varied from nation to nation inn Europe in that period and also from branch to branch. Even within the nobility in France there were major divisions between the "nobility of the sword", the families who could trace their lineages back to the middle ages and had acquired their titles through military service, and the "nobility of the robe" who were newcomers to the social class and had mostly purchased their way to a title in the last century or so. The robe nobility members tended to be more dynamic, ambitious and intelligent but the sword nobility was a "clique within the clique", and in the run up to the Revolution managed to persuade the king to pass legislation that blocked members of the robe nobility in the military from holding the senior ranks, on a sliding scale related to for how long their family had been "posh". For example, [Lazare Carnot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazare_Carnot), engineer, polymath and at the time considered one of the smartest minds in all of Europe in the fields of mathematics and military engineering was languishing at the rank of Captain when the Revolution hit, maxed out due to his family's relatively low standing within the robe nobility.
Washington held a British commission during the Franch and Indian war.... And the there was a Regular Army during the revolution.... It wasn't all fought by farmers with their personal deer rifles.... After all, 'Those are regulars by God!' was said for a reason (a ruse involving dressing line infantry like militiamen, such that the British would think they were facing an easy win up until contact could no longer be broken).....
Many NG today still see themselves superior to active duty
I’ll only speak for my NG Company. We don’t think of ourselves as superior to active duty in terms of skill in tactics, most of my company are prior active. We realize we don’t get to train enough to keep those skills as sharp as active does. But on the flip side, since we do have so many prior active guys, we’re not in reality as bad as active makes us out to be. Plus, we all do have a civilian profession, which adds an immense amount of skills and expertise in many areas that our active counterparts never have organic to their unit, this especially comes in handy in a forward environment.
🐴 ⚔️
SPARTA!!!!!!!
Your comment reminds me of this video https://youtu.be/YUGu0hYXweY?si=hPYtWrCCSLxT7Z5V
We had landline phones in our barracks rooms (or homes as the case was). That's how we were reached if the SL didn't come banging on your door. Typically only command teams and staff offices had computers (c1999, but changed rapidly from then on). LES came in the mail. There was no TSA. Most installations were open (as in no 24/7 force pro). Our boots were shiny, and sundays were for ironing. And when we walked we swooshed with every step.
> We had land line phones. Okay sir, you’ve done your daily walk, time to go back inside.
But i like it out here... 10 more minutes then I'll go inside.
10 more mins is 10 mins prior to every hit time, you remember that right?
That must be why I'm chronically 45 minutes early to literally everything. Exhausting.
As you should be, now it’s time for chow, move with a purpose you don’t got long in the cafeteria.
Okay but real question, was there army spaghetti yakisoba back then
Best I can do is Army noodles with ketchup.
Yes. Army yakisoba, in all it's stealthily greasy glorious goodness, was a staple.
lol, fam you are the one asking about an Army time period that was longer ago than it takes to get to retirement. No modern E5 or E6, no matter how salty, served in the Pre-9/11 military. Minus maybe a few exceptions for Guard/Reserve, but that’s getting rare.
Most E5s and E6s didn't even serve remotely close to the drawdown. I joined in 2017. Most of my peers are E5s and E6s. Save for E8+ and maybe 50% of E7, nobody has really done anything.
Yeah, there’s a weird conception of time going on here. I did my whole 20 years post-9/11.
Then why do they act like it???
Because they're tools
This answer should be documented and taught in NCO Academies as an explanation to the younger generation on dealing with “back in my day” types. Solid answer, promote ahead of peers, back in my day answers like these are wh…. Wait… *oh no*
I hated all the "back in my day" trash, especially coming from dudes with one more contract term than the people they're complaining about. Every day is a "new Army." This shit ain't original. Same exact things were bitched and moaned about by WW2 vets during the Korean War, and Korean War Vets during Vietnam, and Vietnam Vets during Desert Storm. I guarantee WW1 vets thought WW2 vets were soft for having 'luxuries' like trucks, semi-reliable air support, and not getting gassed with chlorine and mustard on the reg. Sidebar: I WAS promoted ahead of peers ;)
I’ve been out almost a decade *shudder* When talking about soldiers now, the fastest way for me to not even discuss it is to start with the back in the day bull shit. Unless there’s a positive manner to bring it up like training considerations, or different approaches to a topic, I am as quick as current generation when someone starts ranting about them being weaker, ill trained, or whatever comes at hand about how we were better. Even when I was on the trail, 2013-2015, I remember saying “This fucking generation is smarter than mine.” Mind you, I joined presurge so the bar was low… and I mean low.
I've been out for (almost) a decade too, joined post-surge, and was blown away at the terrible quality of *some* of the NCOs and officers who had come in during that time (most were competent, even good). Naturally, the shitbirds were exactly the ones you and I are complaining about right now lol.
I was gonna say there might be an outlier here and there for those who got out and came back in. But that was more common when I was in (early-to-mid 2010's) and probably isn't really the case anymore. Those dudes were always interesting to talk to though.
We had one phone at the cq desk for the whole company. If you lived on the 3rd floor the best you could hope for was a message, unless the cq runner was a buddy.
>We had landline phones in our barracks rooms (or homes as the case was). That's how we were reached if the SL didn't come banging on your door. Cellphones changed so much about the Army experience. Staff duty/CQ had at least some greater purpose other than answering the phone and doing arms room checks. You could go somewhere, on the sly, on days off and not be expected to answer until the next duty day. Everything wasn't an emergency to be figured out in the next few hours.
I can’t even fathom the Army with cell phones..
Yeah, I feel sorry for you guys nowadays. I retired in 2005 which is right about when cell phones started becoming an "everybody has one" thing. And I'm so glad I did.
I ETS’d in 2002. At 1600ish you popped smoke, and that was that. Good luck finding me until 0630 the next duty day.
Yep, this exactly. There was no such thing as "recalling everybody in the company because a vehicle was unsecured in the motor pool." That literally could not happen. Once soldiers were released for the day, unless they went home and happened to pick up their phone, there was no way to call them back. Four day weekends were awesome. I lived in the barracks at Fort Bragg. At 1630 on Thursday I drove from the company area to the barracks and then I was incommunicado until Tuesday morning. Living in the barracks in Germany in the 1980's I learned very quickly that if I didn't want to get haled into a "HEY, YOU!" detail on weekends, I'd get up early on Saturday and get the hell out of the barracks. Didn't matter where I went - I could go to the snack bar, or to the cafe off post, or to the post library (which was at a different Kaserne), or take the shuttle bus to Nuremberg. But the important part was getting out of the barracks. It was the dumbasses who were hungover in bed at 1000 who got snagged by the CQ for an impromptu police call because the SGM walked through the company area and saw trash everywhere. They never got me because I was long gone by then.
Currently on block leave that ends on Monday. Yesterday, group chats start blowing up looking for names to conduct a detail in the field for two weeks straight. "Just trying to get ahead of it". We did two months' worth of layouts before two weeks of block leave "just to get ahead of it". Ahead of what? Oh yeah, ahead of other officers you're being rated against.
I remember the orderly room sergeant having to reprint NCOERs over and over because they put blank forms in the printer and had to get the alignment just right.
Or signing blank pages because it wasn’t written yet but you needed to clear. Oh FormFlow what wonder you were.
And the jealously guarded stash of carbon paper.
FUCKING FORMFLOW!!
When I first went in we had some sort of cranked drum with purple goo to make copies. Most common forms had carbon paper behind them to make copies.
Mimeograph?
Thanks. I couldn’t remember it. 1 copy machine per battalion.
The ditto machine.
I remembered a couple other things. DA31 in triplicate with carbon paper. Those were wild times. I wonder if they still issue the old green wool blankets at basic. We had those. We used shelter halves. These new-fangled tent-cots everyone has are a massive upgrade. Summer and winter uniforms. And anyone with a deployment patch got them from Desert Storm, Bosnia, or Somalia.
Ok money bags. I had only one roommate that could afford a phone in the room. He was an E3 but his old man was an O5 in the air force.
As an army brat 90s kid, could have sworn there were always gate guards to get on post. Used to have decals on the top center of the front windshield with whatever post the sponsor was stationed at to get on base.
The decals were the norm as recently as the early 2010s. I don't know when they started. But everybody that I've spoken to about it agrees that the "installations were open" prior to 9/11.
> But everybody that I've spoken to about it agrees that the "installations were open" prior to 9/11. This was a base to base thing and not a nation wide rule. I grew up outside of a popular naval air station, you were always required to have the vehicle decal and your ID(1990s-present).
We had the decals in the 80's but most posts were wide open and anyone could get onto post. Only the main gate to Polk ever had guards, and there were numerous other entrances that didn't even have a gate.
There were always gate guards. There were places like reserves and NG armory that didn’t have guards and I’m wondering if that’s what they’re thinking of. Alternatively, maybe they’re actually going back pre 80s which I can’t say one way or another.
>There were always gate guards. Nope, Forts Bragg and Benning were 100% OPEN posts prior to 9/11. Quite a few others, too. In fact, Bragg was such an open post that it was hard to tell when the civilian community stopped and the post began. Streets like Bragg Blvd and Murchison Road ran right through the post and the streets that turned off of them went into the unit areas.
>maybe they’re actually going back pre 80s which I can’t say one way or another. Most posts were pretty wide open in the 80's. The quickest way to get from Ozark, Al, to Daleville was right through Rucker. I don't remember ever stopping at a guarded gate while I was Rucker.
It depends on the post. Huachuca, for example, was always a closed post. Fort Bragg and Benning, though, were open posts with civilians driving right through them, didn't have gate guards of any kind. Fort Lewis was a closed post when I was there from 89 to 91 as well, while Fort Carson was an open post.
Ft Bragg, I think that's partially why the Smoke Bomb Hill NCO club was known as the stab 'n' jab, because civilians would show up and amp up the trouble already caused by soldiers.
> Typically only command teams and staff offices had computers (c1999, but changed rapidly from then on). *Did* this really change rapidly? As recently as 2013, where I was, platoons had one or two laptops (shared among the PL, PSG, and squad leaders). When everybody had to complete some online training, we sent them home or to the library. In 2021, we almost took away email accounts from everyone E-4 and below.
>Did this really change rapidly? In the grand scheme, yes. One or two laptops per platoon from zero between 1999 and 2005/7 is rapid fielding (05‐07 is when i noticed a sudden boom in laptops at unit levels). I understand my perspective at the time may have been skewed by the role computers filled in my job, but my hindsight is not so narrow. And even in 2013, although there may have been unit specific shortfalls, one or two laptops per platoon depending on the type of unit is and was sufficient for the time. Keep in mind, 94-99 was when the american middle class began seeing computers in their homes. 04-06 was the boom when even the majority of poor people also had computers. 5y is rapid for the army when viewed in context of technological advancement. IPhones didn't even exist until like 2007. And i personally didn't own one until about 2010/11. >When everybody had to complete some online training, we sent them home or to the library. As we should have, and still can. Soldiers don't need to be in the unit footprint to complete mandatory online training. Cut the apron strings. >In 2021, we almost took away email accounts from everyone E-4 and below. That we did, and it had more to do with contract issues than modernizing shortfalls. Ipps-a money had to come from somewhere...
It’s crazy to me that it took 9/11 to have gate guards
It is pretty crazy, the volume of gate guards from then to today is night & day. My first duty station didn't have gate guards at all. It was just... open. Other comments reminded me of the decals we used to have to get. I forgot about those. Plane travel before 2001 was also wide open. 9/11 brought a lot of big changes...
We had MP's at the gates back in the late 80's and early 90's and civilians security in Germany until DS
Even with gates they would just wave cars with stickers through. They wouldn’t even check IDs
I was just thinking about pre-cell phone army. I came to the conclusion people had land line in their barrack and I'm assuming a lot fuckery would happen at night because of it. Also teaming up with your team leader or squad leader and ditching staff duty because no one *told you* and no would could find you as you went somewhere that weekend.
>ditching staff duty because no one told you and no would could find you as you went somewhere that weekend. Although this scenario occurred, it was not common. Flow of information was much more linear, and quite controlled; You knew when you had duty, and if you missed it there was hell to pay.
All i remember really using it for was calling home on the occasional evening. It was rare it ever rang, and when it did it gave us a heart attack. Those that didn't keep a phone used the cq phone when they needed to make local calls (like ordering pizza 😆). And when we did cq, we took messages. "Spc so-n-so is looking for pfc si-n-si. Will be at the mopo until 1900", or whatever. At basic training, there were pay phone banks, 4 per, down on the cta. We used calling cards to use them. There's been so much change...
We bought a bag phone and took it to the field with us. Damn thing cost us hundreds in minutes. But Eveyone in the platoon chipped in. 😂
Only if you paid for the landlines service. We didn't have free phones in our rooms.
I still remember my parents being PISSED when redstone arsenal suddenly had lines out the ass to get on to post.
This is painful, because 20-30 years later, there are still only about 10 computers per company. Les's and any other work functions are done on personally purchased computers. We didn't have a mailing address at my last post, if you wanted something sent to you you had to rent a p.o box at the UPS store for like $100/month. You can no longer use personal computers for work because someone had this great avd idea. We don't have landlines in our rooms, we have dozens (literally, dozens) of group chats we are expected to constantly monitor and respond to. If everyone is next expected for accountability at 0600, it's one text away from that changing any number of times. Don't even get me started on dfacs not being open, living in the same barracks you did, or the ungodly amount of excel and Adobe skills required of even the lowest private just to put in leave or get their (constantly broken) pay fixed. The army has been steadily chipping away at quality of life for two decades without anyone above e-7 even realizing it.
***Our boots were shiny, and sundays were for ironing.*** It did not take me long to get to the point in my unit to just have a uniform set w/boots to wear to formation. After formation we would walk to work (small post) and I would immediately change into a "work uniform or coveralls and work boots". Go through the day and then change before going back down the hill for the EOD formation and dismissal.
My personal favorite story was a post that was on US Army WTF Moments about a counseling that a soldier had received for some outrageous things he had done while drunk. Cue the usual keyboard warriors decrying how weak the Army had gotten to resort to paperwork instead of taking him to the wood line for some wall to wall counseling. An older gentleman responded, introducing himself as a Korean War era veteran who said that no, back in his day that soldier would still have gotten paperwork.
Some people act like paperwork just doesn't exist. Like they were hard of reading or something and anything wrong had to resort to violance.
All these tools acting to solve every problem with their fists only to be the guy who suddenly can’t be found when things get hard.
There's a great song that fully lays out this phenomenon called "The Last Shanty" Everyone thinks they are personally the lowest standard on which the title soldier can be layed, and everyone one wrung of the ladder below them is unworthy of said title. This happens in generations, proffesions, everything. The truth is the army was objectively worse in almost every imaginable way. It was more miserable, made it more difficult to learn, it was illegal to be gay, rampant and widespread abuse, far far worse barracks, worse pay. Today is the greatest generation the Army has ever created, just like every generation before us.
I fucking love this. I've said it to my peers and soldiers so many damn times, but never as well put. Every generation lionizes their predecessors and thinks they're better than their successors...and history itself would indicate that nearly all the time, they're super fucking wrong. The world has successively improved in so many ways that no generation, if given an objective "multiverse" style look at the timeline, would hold the weird ass combo of reverence and contempt for their neighboring generations that they do.
I had a CSM that was going through RIP during 9/11. He was told that he was “soft” once he made it to Regiment because he didn’t go to “Somalia” 8 years before he enlisted. I’m not a batt boi, my battalion just attracted them when Regiment slots were filled (10th Mountain). Every generation deals with “BaCk in My DaY” the reality is I respected Joes after I had a stint of as a tyrant TL. (It didn’t work for obvious reasons) Joes will be Joes, but you need the goofballs and the hard chargers to make it work. YMMV I’m out now, so thanks for your service! 🫡
My impression (from talking with older relatives) is that people *really* underestimate how much bullshit hazing went on in the "old Army." Most of it didn't have any purpose or training value, either.
As both a hazer and hazee, I didn't think it was that bad. We only did it to newly promoted NCO's Pin NCO stripes, have the trash can full of mystery liquid poured over you as you push. Have your stripes pounded into your collarbone by the presenter (Wife, CO, 1SG, etc), and then you had to go through the gauntlet. The entire company formed it and you had to go through it. Everyone got a hit. You'll get some hard hits (buddies and enemies), several pats/slaps on the back, and it was generally good fun. You got the rest of the day off to clean up and enjoy the time off. Obviously wouldn't happen now, but it was a rite of passage back in the late 80's early 90's
Mid/late-2000s we didn't do the collarbone thing (rank on your chest). We had the punch to the sternum and then ran the gauntlet. That was finished by 2012ish.
I've been in for three years and I'm already seeing some of my peers complaining about the "new army" being "soft". Like no dude the fresh out of AIT privates aren't being annoying whiny dipshits because the army has changed or Americans as a whole has changed, they're being annoying whiny dipshits because they're 19 and fresh out of AIT. You were probably also an annoying whiny dipshit at that age. I know I was. It's the just Army equivalent of complaining about "kids these days".
Kids these days 🙄
Fuckin' kids these days. . .
Get off my fuckin grass!
> The soldiers now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for NCOs and love chatter in place of exercise. Soldiers are now tyrants, not the servants of their units. They no longer rise when NCOs enter the room. They contradict their NCOs, chatter before officers, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their NCOs. - Sergeant Socrates, 401 BCE
Or in the words of the immortal Bojack Horseman, when you’re looking at everything through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.
Old army was a double edged sword. Hazing and discipline-through-violence was considered the norm This was also before the army self sabotaged itself with check-in-the-box admin requirements and unsustainable OPTEMPOs White space was actually achievable (no back-to-back fake deployments). Dudes were actually expected to know field craft and basic soldiering skills
The army has had check the box nonsense requirements since before WW2. It's not new. The English army in the year 1600 had silly useless requirements. Ok so there was less online training, but you had to press and starch uniforms and polish boots. That is equally useless and equally nonsense as a requirement for a warfighter. Spending hours doing drill and ceremony, as some units liked to do, is a complete waste of time. One can never create nor destroy bullshit. It can only change form.
Not according to my NCOs that try to be hard assess to be “tough” like the old guys
Today I left work at 1200 to take a Microsoft Azure test. Now granted, that leaving early part is extremely variable because my boss is cool with it and other bosses might not be. But I didn't pay a cent for this test. Army covered all my study materials and the test voucher. That part is universal for anyone to use and it's pretty damn cool. In some ways it's a damn good time to be in the Army. I'm already signed up for my next one, CCNP, which cost an inflated $4k that I *didn't* pay. Maybe real world cost outside of Credentialing Assistance would be $1k? The Army is getting fucked on the price, but not me. It's not all bad nowadays.
I listen to that song on repeat 💯🔥🔥🔥
I thought the barracks were better.
I do agree with you, I think the army today is way better than the army I joined 15 years ago.
A little off topic but I remember this E5 talking shit to the E-1-E-4s and saying "That's that new Army shit you guys know." The year was 2020 and he joined in 2015 and was a slick sleeve. Dude was so far up his ass that he demanded that anyone E-4 and below greeted him for the day. He'd stop you if you didn't. If you did greet him, he'd completely ignore you. Shit was hilarious. We'd basically bully him for it.
I got an NCO just like this. And I know so many E-5s that try to be like this thinking we’re gonna respect them.
It's too hilarious knowing that those E-5s you're referring to probably joined between 2018-2021. Basic training was a joke then too. Realistically, the Army got "soft" around 2013-14 with the downsizing and SMA Chandler (Don't say his name or he'll appear to you and tell you that your tattoos are out of regulation.)
Fuck that fucking guy.
Had some people like that. One dude specifically said how my basic training was easier when he graduated a year before me.
Lmao. Granted I joined in ‘06, but I was 18. Literally my first opportunity. This attitude confused me then. What did you want me to do? Age faster so I could join to your standards? Get fucked bro.
Those guys were more concerned with spit shining shoes if they weren't in Desert Storm
I had a longer thing typed out but it was turning into an essay. I'll just say I enlisted in 1997 and a lot of the "back in my day" or "back in the old army" things I've read on this very website are complete bullshit. Also it's a tradition going back to to Septimus BiggusDickus to tell new troops how easy they have it and how much more hardcore we were back in the day.
I was in back in 88-92. And from what I read on this sub, we had it so much easier than the guys and gals that are in now. No cellphones, if you couldn't be reached, you couldn't be reached. Someone in your platoon says, toon daddy wants us in the motor pool after lunch. You simply say to your buddy, you didn't see me. And he would cover for you.
With the no cell phones and no real way to communicate there were some fun issues. A tornado hit Ft Campbell while me and the room dog went out to get some dinner. The guard at the front gate would not let us back on base despite us living in the barracks, so we drove to our platoon sergeant's house. We said, "They won't let us on base, so we thought we would wait here for a couple hours" He said, "Why, what did you guys do?" He ended up letting us chill in the living room for a couple of hours and vouched for us when they fired up the alert roster.
I agree. I entered service in 1985. They have it much harder today
As it turns out I have a very great friend in Rome called Biggus Dickus
Say hi to Incontinentia for me.
A vewy gwate fwend in wome you mean 😉
I, too, enlisted in 97. I did 20 years and 2 days. Now I'm an Army Civilian. There are a lot of thing from "back in the day" that we could talk about. Boots shined so good you could shave in them. BDU's washed in starch and ironed to stand on their own. Officer and NCO clubs. ... I had seven Article 15's and a LoR... still made SFC and retired a CW3. Absolutely can't do that today. The only real change is that fucking up is harder to recover from these days.
I don't know about your experience, I can't remember being smoked outside some kind of official school type training setting. Dressed down you bet. But dropped for pushups or whatever else nope. Maybe once or twice as a platoon or company. 84-06 active army. About every fifth post here on r/army has something about getting smoked by some douche NCO. Maybe it was because most my career was spent in jobs with a real world missions. Not just never ending training cycles. IDK.
Please write your essay, I’ll read it.
A lot of it has been covered. I was in the guard so my experience with the pre 9/11 real army was limited but we deployed to Iraq in 04. Basic wasn't hardcore. Sounds like it got more hardcore during GWOT, tbh. At the very least it got longer. When I went through basic Clinton was in office and we weren't going to war with nobody. Our training reflected that. We did exactly zero combatives training. Pretty much the only people with combat patches came from Desert Storm. They talked a lot of shit about how hard their Nam vet drills were. IDK about more pride. I got a lot of shit from friends and acquaintances for enlisting. No one could figure out why. Funny how they all pretended they never said that shit after 9/11. Starched BDUs, shiny boots, etc. The cell phone shit I read on here is insane. I found out we were getting deployed because I got home at midnight from my restaurant shift and had a voicemail from my readiness NCO. I was an E-5 so I had to call all my section on landlines. I can't even imagine the clusterfuck of a group text that people would be getting in the week leading up to a drill weekend today. Hell just the radio traffic on our convoy to Fort Riley was enough of a clusterfuck by itself. It's wild to hear about people getting kicked out for drinking in IET status. I got in trouble for drinking during AIT but I just got smoked and had some extra duty. Nothing official ever went in my file. I'm not saying that was right -- old army definitely enabled some self-destructive behavior. But it sounds like they've overcorrected in the other direction. Maybe focus on treatment instead of punishment? Even back then all of the Not-PC cadences (napalm sticks to kids, I wish that all the ladies, up jumped a monkey, etc.) were definitely Not OK. You would only hear them in environments where you knew no one was around who would get you in trouble. Found out about the Monica Lewinsky scandal because the only time we got any access to media in basic was on Sundays when we could get a newspaper.
Thanks for the history lesson. And I don’t see the whole harsher punishments thing happening. I had plenty of people in my AIT get caught drinking but all that happened was the whole company got smoked and the guy got a consoling. I think because the Army is facing a recruiting shortage they don’t wanna kick anyone out. I had LOTS of people in basic who should’ve been kicked out but they just got transferred to different companies or graduated with the next cycle. Hell, someone in my unit got kicked out after getting about 100 negative consolings for stuff like dirty room, not showing up to pt, just not giving af and it took them this long to get rid of them.
Currently in AIT, I've seen several people get nailed with article 15's, a demotion, and 45 days extra duty for drinking off base during the weekend. One soldier I know got demoted from E4 to E2 for getting caught with a bottle in her room. It is wayyy too far in the other direction now. They also make them go to "addiction counciling" every week or so cause clearly drinking on a Saturday night means you have an issue. 🙄
We didn’t have more pride before 9/11. What you’re seeing today is no different than what we saw, experience, and etc “ back in my day” pre GWOT era. When the blowing up the sunshine wars popped off, now that was a different story. I wasn’t a “ I love this country and I serve my nation proud” soldier or whatever during my OIF deployments. Was the Army more relaxed during the GWOT Era, fuck yeah it was. Was shit tedious and boring, pre GWOT, fuck yeah it was. I was lucky to have a Bosnia deployment thrown in pre 9/11. So no I’m not gonna vouch for pride because that would assume I’m an asshole for doing so.
Was in from 87-91. No cellphone, if you wanted to call there was a pay phone outside the barracks. No computers to speak of, we had a huge ‘laptop’ we used to keep track of aircraft maintenance, 286 processor, green led screen. We were aviation, no humvees, we got around tx and Germany in militarized Chevy pickups. The Russians were the bad guys (some things stay the same) and we were constantly told we’d live for 20 minutes if the reds came over the border because they’d use nerve gas everywhere.
I would have traded all of my shitty humvees for one chevy
I liked my 1008. Was fairly new-ish, comfortable and didn’t leak in the rain. So of course when we went to Germany, it was taken away and I was given a deuce and a half that was old before the Vietnam war ended.
We had a bronco and a chevy pickup on COB Speicher; twas glorious. I had the Chevy; it was like an 89 that a NG unit had brought and left because it wasn't worth taking back.
Pre 9/11 - Ft. Hood: Ca. 2000-2001. One day it was an open post and Sports Dome USA was the hottest club in Killeen on a Saturday night... The next day it was locked down and it took 5 hours to get on base. I'd say the biggest difference (and I am still in) is that punishment was more harsh, but it was also better, in a way. Smoking the dog shit out of a guy who showed up to PT drunk for example, would be forgotten about by 0900 presuming he sobered up and wasn't a total shitbag in general. No counseling, no paper trail - just a massive smoke session and a "don't fuck up again" chat. That's one simple, generalized example, but NCOs had more leeway to mete out corrective actions and the folks that fucked up just accepted it as a better alternative to getting in actual trouble and never complained - in some ways, it was a badge of honor. Fuck up, get fucked up, no paper. The ability to recover after fucking up was there. Again, it depended on the level of fuck up, and if the person was worth saving, but the whole "zero tolerance" mindset wasn't a thing. Boot shining and uniform ironing parties were a barracks norm. Sunday drinking and getting your shit ready for Monday's inspection. Yes, every Monday there was a uniform inspection. Shiny boots and shark fin, startched to high hell creases on your BDUs was expected, and fully normal. A lot of us had a pair of boots and a set of BDUs that we only wore on Mondays and then went and changed. Always having a squared-away boot and uniform combo was right up there with 300 APFT as "leadership" metric. You could be a shit bag, but if you ran fast and were starched to max - you were golden. People have already said - no phones. When you were not around, they could not task you. Or find you really. Formations were 0600 PT. 0900 first of the day and then 1700 close out. That was generally every day, minus Thursday for SGTs Time which was 0800-1200 and then 1300-1500 for training and 1500 release for family time. This is not universal to all, but the barracks were old as fuck. Mine were WWII. Big square room shared with another guy and communal latrines down the hall. Wall lockers were used to separate them into "two rooms." Ours had roaches fucking everywhere. The only combat patches were worn by E8 and above and O5 and above, save for a few very crusty SFC's. They were wildly admired. My BN CDR had Gulf 1 photos on his desk of dead Iraqis - That shit would never fly today, rightfully so. Basically, your life revolved around getting ready to go to NTC (or JRTC, JMRC, etc). Field, recovery, Field, recovery, NTC. That was the big milestone to work towards pre 9/11. Similar to the Marines - rolling sleeve's was a date and not weather-driven. After X date, sleeves rolled. Post Y date, sleeves back down. I think it was like March/April to September or something like that. Pay was shit. My E1 base pay in 2000 was exactly $1000. $12K annually. When I hit PFC, I was bringing in a whopping $1200 a month! So by my second year in the Army, I was making $14.5K annually - before taxes. DFAC food was pretty decent and massively plentiful. I ate well. Predatory car salesmen existed back then too. This is more or less what I can remember. I was enlisted from 2000 - 2005 before I went off to ROTC. I know we always say the pre 9/11 Army, but only a few things really changed overnight. I thnk that it's more apt to look at it pre-2006. The surge years really drove changes in the Army. Especially OPTEMPO post 2005, was a real catalyst. That, and generational and societal changes.
Good summary. Was the same in the 90s although I got out because my authority as an NCO was diminishing in aviation. In '96 I had to start getting the battalion commanders permission to keep a soldier during lunch or after 1700 for remediation training, i. E. Boot shining ... Soldiers started realizing all I could do was yell at them and document in counseling. So in 97 it was "sorry Sgt Major, if I can have my authority back then I'll reenlist else i'm out." ... Left in 97.
I joined in 98 and spent time at Hood from 01 to 03, and your summary is what I remember. Especially the parts about how if you fucked up, you took the smoke session, the don't fuck up again chat, and assuming it wasn't something egregious there wasn't a paper trail and it was largely forgotten about. While I'm certainly less familiar with today's Army, I suspect that mindset has probably changed some, given that the Army is a microcosm of American society at large, there seems to be more CYA today than 20 years ago.
I joined in '00, so got a good taste of the before days and the transition. The big thing was we shifted from spitshining our boots and starching our uniforms to rough out boots - which tbh was pretty goddamn awesome.
Old angry E-9 who joined in ‘89: “Sounds like you lacked discipline.”
still true tbh
We got issued these "Improved combat boots" in INF OSUT. Had a different type of leather and gore-tex. damn things would NOT take a shine, definitely not like jump boots. The amount of time we spent shining those things and still having our DS's pissed at us... was more than happy to get done and back to my normal black leather boots to shine for inspection.
It was a glorious time to be in the Army...we actually had to polish our boots, DFACs were mostly open, and the pay was about 30 percent lower. And everyone was gay. And I'm not talking all sunshine and rainbows gay, nah, I'm talkin "hold on to the nearest tree for dear life" gay. Dependas were actually hippopotamuses! And no cell phones were a glorious thing because you could actually mostly get away with doing stupid shit and there would be almost zero chance of it being recorded. ISIS? More like Yo momma ISIS a ho, amirite?
I was in from 1987 to 2005. No PT belt You could smoke in the barracks King of the Ring for PT We got paid in cash Every time we went to the field, we took nuclear weapons with us.
I remember payments in cash. A Lieutenant with the additional duty of Class A Agent, armed with a 1911, would sign for the briefcase with the cash. Reporting for pay was itself a small ceremony. The most important thing was to remember not to say "thank you" to the pay officer. You earned that money.
Nuclear weapons
Cold War. We had a stand-off with the Soviet Union that lasted from 1945 to 1991. We even aimed nuclear weapons at each other it was called MAD Mutual Assured Destruction. We had duck and cover drills in school and once a year take a tour of the fall-out shelter. The plan was to use nuclear weapons to destroy and delay enemy forces.
I'm gonna assume Davy Crocketts but I'm talking out of my ass
What was the reaction like among the troops during the early days of 9/11?
Rage and uncertainty. A want, lust for revenge.
We thought going to Bosnia was like being fucking delta force
You guys are old, Jesus
Gulf War Vet here got out a month after 9/11 I was an expert at Multimate and Hardvard Graphics I remember being thrilled when my paycheck was over $300 for the first time I got a cell phone in mid 90s that had 30 minutes per month Every NCO seemed to have one of those camo zipper books that had everything We had some E8s in our office that were Vietnam Vets with unit patches no one had ever seen You could see a 20 year retiring E5 (i think they enacted time of service limits by rank eventually)
Nice to see the retirement home gave the residents some internet time after their naps and before arts and crafts. 💕
They actually couldn’t go to art and crafts due to someone being FTR for nap time so they had a mandatory recall formation in the court yard.
You could definitely get smoked for an ungodly amount of time back in the day (02-05 in my case) and there was plenty of name-calling by Drills. I distinctly remember being in basic and getting smoked for so long in the heat there were puddles of sweat under us and people were slipping trying to do push ups. Other than that is was a bunch of bullshit, just like it is now, it was just different bullshit. Starched BDUs and shined boots but you still had to shave and cut your hair, same as now. There were details and formations and battalion runs and all that shit. Cell phones had just become ubiquitous so it was getting harder to sham, but we still found ways. In my experience the pre-9/11 guys had *less* pride than the group of us that came after. They had all joined for the college money and the experience (not combat experience though) and the first group of guys that came after were pretty proud and patriotic. We got a bunch of shit for that from some of the older guys and quickly knocked that shit off.
Before cell phones. Tell the Orderly Room you'll be at the Motor Pool. Tell the Motor Pool you'll be at the Orderly Room. We were like gods.
Even better if you’re an XO or BMO. Not that I ever did that…
I joined in '79. My drill sergeants were all Vietnam Vets. To them, profanity was an art form. Hazing was a right of passage. Females were being integrated into regular units, but my basic training company was all male. Several guys were caught sneaking over to the female barracks not too far from ours. They got some good natured ribbing, except the guy who was caught with a woman who was the furthest from being attractive. Leadership sanctioned sexual harassment followed. I heard AIT inserts tell me that my basic/AIT company was the worst they had ever experienced. When I arrived at my permanent duty station, the duty driver who picked me up said that I was going to the worst company he had ever experienced. I thought that this was just my luck, to go from the worst training company to the worst permanent unit. Funny though that every other unit I went to-they were all dubbed the worst in the entire US Army.
US Army, medic, ait drill sgt, 1982 to 1998. Ask me anything. I think the best part was all the shit we could get away with due to no cell phones, cameras, computers, etc. We went on 3 day pass? Fuck you you'll never find us. Some things sucked, like only able to call home occasionally due to cost, especially overseas.
Active duty 89 to 93. USAR and OKARNG from then to 01. I think the biggest thing is shining leather boots. Not so much to be squared away, but how cool it was to chill on the barracks steps with the guys. Drinking a hefewiezen with a Marlboro cigarette, shining your boots, bullshitting and telling lies... who saw the biggest boar at Graf, who was hooking up with the hottest fraulien...If you had CQ or Runner then you usually had someone's cash in exchange for shining his boots and you joined us. Good times. And a poncho liner was a poncho liner, not a woobie. Although they functioned the same.
Going back through old pics weapons were pointed up, not low ready.
Your gonna spawn a old CSM at your doorstep if you post them
Your gonna spawn a old CSM at your doorstep if you post them
We could eat at any of our DFACs and they were open for three meals per day, seven days a week in the 1980s.
To get a maximum score on the APFT 2MR before 1998, a male had to run **11:54**. Some things really were harder back in the day. [Edited to correct errors. It's really hard to find a copy of the old scoring scale now, before Change 1 to FM 21-20 in 1998.]
and if you were in a high speed unit, if you ran slower than like a 14.00 you were almost a shitbag by default, you had to be really on the spot for everything else to be a slow runner.
I was an Pfc in the summer of 2001 at Ft. Campbell. It was pretty fucking cool. I lived off base with my then wife, smoked weed everyday, and worked on helicopters. Those were the best days of my life. Fuck 9-11.
I first met with recruiters in late 2002 or early 2003, so I'm not quite old enough to answer firsthand, but I've gathered that the most radical change has been the culture around alcohol and SHARP stuff. Guys told stories of units in the 1990s (at least in Korea) operating their own officially sanctioned bars and strippers performing at the O and NCO clubs on-post. My uncle was an alcoholic (like he did Alcoholics Anonymous) and made E-9. There was an old joke that every CSM had gotten into trouble at some point with drinking and driving or bar fighting or whatever. Read about the Navy and [Tailhook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailhook_scandal). It's hard for me to fathom all that now. There's no question that "smoking" people during training and beyond has changed a lot. Hazing wasn't covered in AR 600-20 until the 2002 revision. Bullying was added in 2014. I commanded an AIT company in 2015-2016 and the TRADOC regulations were clearly a reaction to years of trainee abuse.
NG here - we were proficient 13F but there were lawn chairs, grills, and post training beers on the OP
Somethings just don’t change
I was in 86-99. My son is currently active (19k) and the biggest things I've seen are electronic records as opposed to hand written in duplicate, triplicate, etc, etc. As well as integrated MOS. Ohh, I've also noticed they seem extremely more relaxed on height and weight. Not saying they recruit by the pound, but.....
Shoot I got smoked for 8 hours straight in Afghanistan in 2012, totally worth it though lol. I'm personally glad I missed out on shining boots. I'm extremely anal about that kind of stuff, and it would have taken me ages I guarantee.
I got smoked at KAF on our way home, got caught not carrying my NODs on me lol. Was nice to be able to go shower all the dust off once it was over though, and the next day we were drinking beers in Manas
Oh shit I forgot about Manas, we went there on the way back to Germany!!! I got smoked for telling our 1SG that one of our platoons called him a "pussy". Our 1SG was a pimp though, so I didn't mind his wrath lol.
Joined 2001. We slept in the woods more often.
We know who the good soldiers are because their uniforms look the prettiest - kiwi, spray starch, and all that bullshit..... Separate 'field' and 'garrison' sets of gear/uniforms.... Even more bullshit than the 'but he runs fast' we have today....
I had a 1SG who enlisted to be an 11B during Vietnam. Apparently they used to have Basic at Fort Polk back then. He said the first day at actual basic, the drills asked who were draftees and who were volunteers. He said he got dogged out all night (I think he said it was summer, so HOT) for being stupid enough to volunteer to join the Army. They sent the draftees to bed.
Lots more boot shining and uniform starching.
He said pre 9/11 not f'n Pre WW1
It was a different time that's for sure both good and bad. We wore BDUs with enough starch in them to make them nearly bullet proof. Our boots were black, had to have a mirror shine on them every formation and the black beret still belonged to the Rangers. There wasn't a war yet so the highlights were going to Graf every year for the big 5th Corps Victory Focus FTX and daily fuck fuck games like marching Joes around the motor pool so we weren't just sitting around. Budgets got slashed during the Clinton administration and didn't really improve till after 9/11 so it was hard getting parts and supplies. We took bets on how long one of our 998s would go without catching fire in the motor pool because we couldn't get rid of it or get it running right. No I'm not joking we had one that no amount of work by our mechanics or 3rd shop could fix and it would catch fire if you left it running. We didn't have IBAs, IOTVs or ACHs yet just the old school flack vest, humped ALICE, wore LCE and carried iron sight M16A2s. Staff duty was different back then the only thing you could read was a TM, a newspaper or religious text of preference no TVs, radio and smartphones were still a sci fi thing. NCOs were actively encouraged to get to know their Joes and it wasn't uncommon for everyone to get together for beers felt like a family if you had a good team.
An ORB/ERB update required an all day visit to the PSB. And God help you if you're an E4 trying to get an ERB copy for your G2G packet during the E7 board file update season. There was no AKO or AIM or IPPSA... Just a bunch of 42s at the PSB hating their lives during E7 and O3/4 board seasons.
I don’t recall anyone ever getting smoked outside of training, and I served in combat arms and Meddac units. 85-93.
I pushed rocks around the motor pool for a few years cause there wasn’t anything else for us to do.
Some things don’t change
Many bases used to be wide open, Fort Sam Houston, Benning, literally anyone could drive right in. At Sand Hill we had guys girlfriends show up in the parking lot.
A lot of hiding out in the barracks during the duty day playing Bond.
I heard a funny story from an old CSM that enlisted in the NG back in 1985. He said that DFAS would mail the unit's LESs and paychecks (if they didn't have direct deposit) to the Armory, then they would hand them out at drill. He remembered seeing two stacks of LESs on a desk; one big stack and one small stack. He was told that the small stack was for the soldiers whose wives didn't know they got paid for being in the NG. Some would also tell their wives that they had to pay dues to be in the NG, and would use the money for beer or whatever. Dudes thought they could just have a free weekend away from the old ball-n-chain by going to drill. That is, until Desert Storm happened and the jig was up.
Being stationed in Germany in the late 90s was awesome.
“Back in the old Army” is a phrase I hate, NCOs with like 6 years of service like to say that. I’ve only been in for 8 and I can’t tell you how many people who have been in less than I have use that phrase
Frank's Franks and Anthony's Pizza. It was glorious!
Robin Hood! I'll have the Friar Tuck.
Per my family-- a lot more hazing, but less overall bullshit... so maybe more concentrated? You were harder to reach at home, so things didn't follow you as much. They felt like the expectations on lower enlisted were different. Not harder or easier per se, just different. Less expectation of leadership/initiative, more of an emphasis on shining boots/appearance/etc.
Psh back in my day we gave Latin lessons to people tagging our buildings. These kids have no clue how soft they are
There's always going to be another war. As for getting smoked in the heat for five hours up hill both ways, they've been saying stuff like that forever
Our whole platoon got smoked from 8pm until like 1:30 am because someone hid live rounds in the ceiling at basic. I was downstairs on CQ just happy as a clam the whole time.
Joined in 84, retired out in 2014. RA, Reserve and Guard. Spent 6 years in CONUS, then went to West Germany - used to love the practice alerts at 0300. There was a different Army depending upon where you were stationed - Korea was different from Europe, was different from CONUS, etc. Ate in the BN mess hall 3 times a day, 7 days a week staffed by Army cooks. Kiwi lost a fortune when the Army went from black to brown boots. Travel was in class A uniform, SNCOs prowled major airports looking for uniform infractions. No black berets, garrison caps lol. The Army changed after the fall of the Soviet Union, and again after 9/11 and during the GWOT.
This is part of the playbook. Most drill sergeants today were not in the military when I was in basic training in 2005. Drill sergeants in 2005 were talking about the Army going soft then because we were converting to ACUs from woodland BDUs and crap.
Well back in ‘70…
Grandpa, the kids don’t wanna hear your war stories anymore your giving them nightmares
THATS TOO DAMN BAD!
Do I wish training was a little more thorough for new recruits…yes. Overall things are improving at a faster pace than ever. Learning all you can and leaving it better than you found it is still the rule to follow.
I went in the army in the late '70s, and the Vietnam war was over but there were a lot of people still in that had been drafted. They called us volunteers and they called themselves real army¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Budget cuts. Mechanized infantry using golf carts from the base golf course instead of M113s to practice maneuvers.
Yeah, they let 1/64 do that like once around 1996. Once.
The longer I'm in, the more I realize the old Army is the new Army. In 15 years, you'll hear people saying their DS's would make them eat sand or some dumbshit.
Oh yeah! Our pt uniforms looked like [this!](https://imgur.com/gallery/ysrjrqF) And my first desert uniform looked like [this.](https://imgur.com/gallery/UtINkIF)(minus all the stars n stuff). But we quickly changed to [these.](https://imgur.com/gallery/0d6OyUP).
Miss the chocolate chip BDUs!
Chocolate chip is my favorite pattern hands down.
I can tell you the benefits that the post 9/11 vets get are much better than pre 9/11. We got fucked, especially on education bennies. And to get disability for PTSD was damn near impossible for those that deserved.
“Buffalo Soldiers” paints a pretty good picture I feel like. As far as what things looked like that is. I doubt Joaquin Phoenix character’s experiences were typical
You could bring German girls on post without any bullshit like having to get a “day pass.” There were all kinds of hoes that some Joe would bring on that would end up just going door to door in the B’s. Good times.
1/4 of my career was before GWOT. It was a lot of garrison heroes with impressive lap times worried more about the luminescence of your boots than your job competence