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On Mon, 01 Oct 2018 19:38:32 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:51:11 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:20:16 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Mon, 1 Oct 2018 18:19:05 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 01 Oct 2018 05:45:00 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Sep 2018 20:09:20 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 30 Sep 2018 16:55:13 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Sep 2018 08:55:15 -0400, John H.
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Sep 2018 02:32:16 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote:

John H. wrote:
On Sat, 29 Sep 2018 15:39:06 -0000 (UTC), Bill
wrote:

wrote:
On Fri, 28 Sep 2018 20:08:35 -0000 (UTC), Bill
wrote:

wrote:

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 ;-)

Same thick with air force. They explained making you wear the cartridge
belt made you under arms and more liable if you screw up.

There were not any live rounds on our side of the base and our drill
rifles did not have firing pins in them. I am not quite sure what arms
we were under. ;-)

We had the belt. That was all.

We wore the belt, canteen, ammo pouches and toted a real M-14...but no ammo.

Air Force basic we only handled firearms on two days of 6 weeks. One day
of inside, raining, safety and dry fire. Next day at range. In pouring
rain.

I'm thinking we spent about 3 weeks on weapons training - assembly,
disassembly, and cleaning; the
manual of arms; actual firing and qualifying with the weapon, bayonet drill...

===

So what's the spirit of the bayonet?

Even Google knows the answer to that one. :-)

Let me guess ... "Stab him, Stab him NOW!"

We never had bayonets. Our plan was to start shooting at them about
12,000 yards out with the 5", then open up with the M2s if they got
inside 500-1000 yards and prepare to ram. ;-)

Lucky you. I'll bet you didn't have to clean the mud off your boots and
then spit shine them for the
next morning's inspection either.

I love these new Army boots - no shining. Brush the mud off and good to go.

We had our own fun. The "boondockers" we had were not just hugh top
shoes like the Navy used. They gave us steel toed engineer boots that
came with some kind of oiled finish that we had to get off before we
started the spit shine process. They still wanted the spit shined tho.
Once I got to the Navy school I found out those guys were OK with a
shoe shine out of a bottle if you were careful laying it on. There was
a little bit of a trick getting it on without streaks but it was still
far faster than spit shining. I had 2 pairs of shoes. One was Kiwi,
stored stuffed into white cotton boot socks, one was bottle shine,
just in case someone changed their mind.

At tech school, some bought the Corfam Boots. Come shining. Just do not
scratch the finish. Did not come in my size, 14.

After OCS I invested in Corfam low-quarters. Couldn't wear them before that. Always wore the
Corcoran jump boots. They were easier to spit shine than the Army issue boots.

I was really happy when I got away from boot camp. That was the last
place where spit shined shoes were expected of us. They just needed to
be "business" shiny.
My go to for that was always the bottle after I learned how to
"paint".
On the ship, if your boots were too shiny they asked you where you
were sleeping all day. You did need a reasonable shine on your shoes
to get past the quarterdeck for liberty but they didn't go nuts about
it. Like I said a "business" shine, what a boss would expect in a
customer contact job.

===

Oh, you mean IBM wing tips. :-)

Well that kind of thing although I am not sure I ever saw a CE in "14
pound wing tips". I started out in my Hush Puppies and I was OK in
Bethesda but I had to buy shoes my first day in Endicott.
The instructor said "no bedroom slippers here". He was still unhappy
that I bought a slip on shoe but at least it was shiny black leather
so he couldn't really gripe much.
About a year in I started wearing side zipper boots and I retired in
them.

http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Retirement%...%20charlie.jpg