igor
Member
Oh boy... speechless. 
Army learns which end is dangerous?
- Thread starter hillbilly
- Start date
- Status
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
Lotta changes in 50 years. In Basic Training at Fort Bliss in 1954, we lived in five-man huts. We kept our Garands in a rack in the hut. (Ammo was issued only when at a firing range. I don't recall any post-firing inventory, however.)
During Occupation Duty in South Korea in '54/'55, I was with an ack-ack outfit. Our personal weapons were M2 Carbines. We had ammo for both the vehicles and our personal weapons. Except on actual guard duty, no rounds were chambered. I don't recall any inventory controls.
Art
During Occupation Duty in South Korea in '54/'55, I was with an ack-ack outfit. Our personal weapons were M2 Carbines. We had ammo for both the vehicles and our personal weapons. Except on actual guard duty, no rounds were chambered. I don't recall any inventory controls.
Art
Balog
Member
MarineTech, thanks for the info. It's hard to get solid intel on what's actually happening over there.
Abominable No-Man
Member
Well, different commands have different regs as far as privately-owned weapons or going to the range whenever you want to shoot. Depends where you are. As far as annual qualifications times being too far apart and so forth, well a lot of that depends on the unit's individual work load, too.
I can only really speak with authority regarding the aviation units these days. In your standard Chinook unit, for example, you're talking quite a few man-hours of work per hour of flight. Figure you start your day at 0630 with PT, roll in for work call at around 0830-0900, go until lunch (which technically starts at 1130, but you know how that goes. I personally take a lot of my meals standing up.....), and keep going until the workload for the day is done, which is normally anywhere from 1600-1830. No I'm not kidding.
I agree with the General; we need more range time. Okay, I'm greedy and I love to shoot on someone else's dime, too, but it's true. But as has been pointed out before, there's a difference between admitting there's a problem and being able to fix it right away.
As far as the REMF's acting like civilian contractors, well, in some cases that's unfortunately true. OTOH, walk a mile in their shoes once and maybe you'll see something you haven't before. Had a Sergeant Major one time who absolutely HATED aviation. Was convinced that aviation companies in general (and Flight Platoons in particular) were a pack of lazy REMF's. If you flew late the night before, you still had to come in for PT, or division runs, or whatever was on the training calander for that day, in addition to keeping the Chinooks flying. We worked long hours and weekends, too (yeah, it comes with the territory, but we all like our time off...). Anyway, we convinced him to come down and spend a day with us. Early flight, 0500 takeoff, translates into a 0300 show (mission updates, preflight, weather call, etc.) Flight was out to the middle of nowhere to pick some stuff up. With the requisite time needed to load and secure the cargo, plus a lot of the usual paperwork, mission updates, refueling, waiting for the last-minute stuff that always shows up, and THEN flying to the DZ dropping the load and pax, and THEN flying home. We rolled in to the airfield about 1600 (had to call for a mission extension). The SMaj hopped out and started walking away. "Hey, Sergeant Major, where you off to?" "Going home, we're done, right?" "Nope, we still gotta postflight, refuel, clean the bird up, do the logbook....". We finished up about 1800 that day.
We pretty much got left alone after that.
My 2 cents.
ANM
I can only really speak with authority regarding the aviation units these days. In your standard Chinook unit, for example, you're talking quite a few man-hours of work per hour of flight. Figure you start your day at 0630 with PT, roll in for work call at around 0830-0900, go until lunch (which technically starts at 1130, but you know how that goes. I personally take a lot of my meals standing up.....), and keep going until the workload for the day is done, which is normally anywhere from 1600-1830. No I'm not kidding.
I agree with the General; we need more range time. Okay, I'm greedy and I love to shoot on someone else's dime, too, but it's true. But as has been pointed out before, there's a difference between admitting there's a problem and being able to fix it right away.
As far as the REMF's acting like civilian contractors, well, in some cases that's unfortunately true. OTOH, walk a mile in their shoes once and maybe you'll see something you haven't before. Had a Sergeant Major one time who absolutely HATED aviation. Was convinced that aviation companies in general (and Flight Platoons in particular) were a pack of lazy REMF's. If you flew late the night before, you still had to come in for PT, or division runs, or whatever was on the training calander for that day, in addition to keeping the Chinooks flying. We worked long hours and weekends, too (yeah, it comes with the territory, but we all like our time off...). Anyway, we convinced him to come down and spend a day with us. Early flight, 0500 takeoff, translates into a 0300 show (mission updates, preflight, weather call, etc.) Flight was out to the middle of nowhere to pick some stuff up. With the requisite time needed to load and secure the cargo, plus a lot of the usual paperwork, mission updates, refueling, waiting for the last-minute stuff that always shows up, and THEN flying to the DZ dropping the load and pax, and THEN flying home. We rolled in to the airfield about 1600 (had to call for a mission extension). The SMaj hopped out and started walking away. "Hey, Sergeant Major, where you off to?" "Going home, we're done, right?" "Nope, we still gotta postflight, refuel, clean the bird up, do the logbook....". We finished up about 1800 that day.
We pretty much got left alone after that.
My 2 cents.
ANM
Al Thompson
Moderator Emeritus
That's what you get for bringiing in a former SF guy for CSA.
Sort of illuminates the old "Two Army" issue. One to fight (Combat Arms) and the rest. Perhaps if we get away from the Basic Training tailoered to branch concept we can get better. IMHO, all Basic Trainig graduates should be 11B10 qualified.
Or maybe we should just let the Marines run our Basic Trainig.....
Sort of illuminates the old "Two Army" issue. One to fight (Combat Arms) and the rest. Perhaps if we get away from the Basic Training tailoered to branch concept we can get better. IMHO, all Basic Trainig graduates should be 11B10 qualified.
Or maybe we should just let the Marines run our Basic Trainig.....
- Status