On Fri, 28 Sep 2018 07:15:40 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 20:42:00 -0400, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 9/27/2018 8:33 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:24:59 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 9/27/2018 4:14 PM, John H. wrote:
On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:02:02 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 15:19:54 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 14:52:07 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 10:34:05 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 09:35:15 -0400, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 9/27/2018 9:14 AM, John H. wrote:
On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 08:09:33 -0400, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:


Our grandson starting his first week of US Army bootcamp. (on right
marching away from camera). Following completion of bootcamp he will
attend a Navy SeaBee Carpentry and Construction school in Mississippi.

Meanwhile, his older brother serving in the United States Coast Guard
just returned from a lengthy drug interdiction patrol where a record
amount of cocaine was captured and recovered from drug smugglers.

Proud of both of them!

http://funkyimg.com/i/2LAj6.jpg

Good on 'em!



John, it's amazing how social media has changed the whole experience of
basic training today. In the Army each company has a dedicated Facebook
page that is established when the company is formed. Parents, family
and friends can follow the progress of their "boot" as they
go through training. Pictures are updated and uploaded daily to the
Facebook page documenting the various parts of training.

When we entered the military back in the dark ages, we just disappeared
into a black hole and emerged 9 or 10 weeks later. Other than mandatory
letter writing and receiving mail occasionally, we were out of touch.

I am not sure I go along with the way it's done today. The transition
from being a young family member to a member of the military includes
"snipping" some of the ties .. and it's true for both the service member
and of his parents/family. I am witnessing the reaction my daughter
has to her son's Army Facebook page and I don't think it's all
necessarily good.

I had no idea anything like that was going on. We didn't even have a telephone in the barracks.
Someone may have smuggled in a radio, but I don't remember ever seeing one.

We got a weekend pass on the weekend before graduation (during Basic at Ft. Leonard Wood). That was
the only time I saw or heard from any family the whole time.

I agree with everything you said. I think it should be a 'growing up' time, not a 'whining on
Facebook' time.

Same here. No TV, no radio, not even a newspaper for the whole 12 1/2
weeks I was at Cape May TC. If they thought we needed something they
gave it to us. It was a few weeks before we even got up to the canteen
where you could hear the juke box and drink a Coke. It was a pretty
spartan place tho.
You could write letters and by that 3d (or 4th?) week when you got up
to the canteen, they had phones.


We had no canteen or PX at Leonard Wood. Once I got to Ft. Sill for some Artillery Fire Direction
Control, we had beer and all that good stuff!

The canteen was a perc for people who were doing well in boot camp. I
think you needed 80% or higher on your tests to get the pass. I was
100% the whole time so it was not an issue for me.
If I didn't have 2 "hits" for discipline I would have been the top
recruit. That gave me an overall 98 so I got edged by the guy who had
a hit free 98.
One of those hits was real (breaking formation), I still think the
second was bull****. I had braided an aguillette out of 3 marlins pike
lines and the guys thought I should wear it down to the smoking pit on
the last full day because I was the top recruit at the time.
The chief was not as enamored with the idea. ;-)

Well, I was an 'Acting Jack' platoon sergeant during the cycle - and had my platoon. The guys in the
platoon thought I'd already completed basic, but I'd had only an extra week up front to learn to
march and give commands. I did get selected as trainee of the cycle and got an early promotion to
E-2 out of it.

But...I still didn't see the inside of a canteen or PX beer hall the whole time I was in basic
training.



I remember there was a "lounge" in the building that our barracks was in
where smoking was allowed. Our bootcamp company commander wasn't a
smoker so he never allowed a "smoke" break except for once. He came in
the barracks room and hollered, "Ok girls, how many of you smoke"?
I didn't smoke at the time so I didn't raise my hand.

He then told those who smoked to go to the lounge and light up.

then he said, "The rest of you, fall out outside for a snow shoveling
working party".

I realized later it was just a way of messing with you to see what you'd
take.


I didn't really smoke but I always took a smoke break, just to stand
around and shoot the ****. I would smoke a cigar now and then but you
usually did not have time to smoke a whole one, not even those drug
store cigars we all smoked in those days.
It was always outside tho and you had to really want "out" to go
outside in February/March in Cape May. There was never any place where
you could smoke inside in Cape May except maybe the canteen. It was
certainly not the barracks or any of the educational buildings.
OTOH when I got to the Navy school, it was "smoke'm if you got'm"
pretty much everywhere. There were ash trays on the tables in the
classroom as I remember. Same at IBM schools.



That "smoke break" that I mentioned was the only one the CC authorized
in boot camp. We also never had a day off except for the 24 hours of
liberty at the very end of bootcamp which was really to see if you'd
return. I've mentioned it before but I spent Christmas day in bootcamp
shining boots and shoes and ironing dungaree uniforms (that we washed by
hand in a deep sink) using a plastic soap box.


We didn't pull guard duty at all during basic. I reckon the Army thought we were still too stupid to
tote a rifle (which we hadn't learned to shoot yet).

During AIT I pulled guard duty for a married guy on Christmas Eve. A very nice black family had a
couple of us to dinner on Christmas day. We watched a Bing Crosby special and had the best dinner
I've ever eaten anywhere - to include my own house!

We didn't really have guard duty, we had fire watch.
I remember my first night there I saw a guy wearing a cartridge belt
walking around and thinking he was a guard. My first thought was "I
could take that guy".
A couple nights later I was wearing the cartridge belt and walking
around ;-)