As a kid before I was in the US Army, I'd heard veterans talk about the practical jokes in the barracks and cadre hazing, etc.
I was reminded of one of the mindless episodes of my own service lately when I was selecting a belt. Because of changes in my body shape over the years, mostly I wear suspenders with trousers these days. But I have a few pairs of trousers that do fairly well when held in place by a belt.
When I first joined the army, we were wearing bright brass belt buckles with dark navy almost black web woven waist belts. I think it was around the middle of 1969 when the US Army decided on subdued this and that parts of the uniform. The belt buckle was one such. I have one belt buckle left from that time. Below is the bright brass buckle that I was issued in basic training, much scratched up from low-crawling and so on. Much polished in its time but not lately. We still retained the bright buckle for Class A uniform and khakis but I didn't keep any of those.
When we went to subdued buckles on the fatigue (work) uniform, below is an example of what was handed out:
However, when I was posted at the Presido of Monterey, one day I walked into town to one of those military stores that used to flourish off-post from army forts. I went into this store, and found a subdued belt buckle. And this is where the problem started. What I bought was this:
Basically what it is, is a black painted version of the older, brass, bright buckle. I liked the design because it worked the same way as the old one. I had no problem wearing this buckle at Monterey. Maybe because it was a joint service type school, plus foreign nationals were in the ranks. There were even grizzled SF guys there learning Hmong or whatever, I'd never seen uniforms like they were wearing. Nor did I again after that. However, I next went to Fort Huachuca, AZ and that's where the trouble began. Right away, I got braced by an NCO for wearing this buckle. The rather one-way conversation went something like this, "Whattayou think you in? The (F-word) -ing Coast Guard? Get rid of it." That happened a couple of more separate times. I quietly put it away.
Okay, then I got to my next duty station in CONUS. There were several companies in the battalion I was sent to. When I reported to the battalion personnel sergeant, he spoke these words: "Boy, I'm gonna send you to the (N-word) company" and I knew this meant trouble. And it did. In my company, there was a very rare (at the time) black captain in command, also a black first sergeant and a black field first sergeant. I will avoid the politics of this, but I will say that the major civil rights legislation of the 1960's wasn't very long in effect yet and some attitudes were dying hard. The Good Old Boys at battalion HQ gave all of us in the company, black and white, as hard of a time as they could. Including calling me out for wearing my (C-word) cap in a way that they didn't like. I'd grown a within-regulation moustache; the battalion personnel officer braced me and ordered me to shave it off. I trimmed it on the ends, just because. The next day when I was at battalion HQ, this same officer jumped me big time, whereupon I shaved the moustache completely off. Later, my company commander asked me what happened to the 'stache (he had one also) and I innocently told him what had happened at battalion HQ. He went through the roof, this caused a major pissing contest between the two captains. The upshot of it was the bn. pers. officer had stepped on my CO's toes by ordering one of "his people" to lose the 'stache, etc, etc. The moustache was never a problem thereafter, but in this attitude of contention, I decided not to introduce the belt buckle as a possible match to gasoline.
Once I got to my overseas assignment, I discovered that's where the real army started. With exceptions like the Berlin Brigade, the Seventh Army Honor Guard, some other hard-A units, etc., something like this was rarely an issue. Nobody ever again cared when I wore this buckle. Including a few general officers. Which got repainted a few times. When my army and later ARNG days were over, I still wore this buckle off and on with blue jeans.
I was reminded of one of the mindless episodes of my own service lately when I was selecting a belt. Because of changes in my body shape over the years, mostly I wear suspenders with trousers these days. But I have a few pairs of trousers that do fairly well when held in place by a belt.
When I first joined the army, we were wearing bright brass belt buckles with dark navy almost black web woven waist belts. I think it was around the middle of 1969 when the US Army decided on subdued this and that parts of the uniform. The belt buckle was one such. I have one belt buckle left from that time. Below is the bright brass buckle that I was issued in basic training, much scratched up from low-crawling and so on. Much polished in its time but not lately. We still retained the bright buckle for Class A uniform and khakis but I didn't keep any of those.
When we went to subdued buckles on the fatigue (work) uniform, below is an example of what was handed out:
However, when I was posted at the Presido of Monterey, one day I walked into town to one of those military stores that used to flourish off-post from army forts. I went into this store, and found a subdued belt buckle. And this is where the problem started. What I bought was this:
Basically what it is, is a black painted version of the older, brass, bright buckle. I liked the design because it worked the same way as the old one. I had no problem wearing this buckle at Monterey. Maybe because it was a joint service type school, plus foreign nationals were in the ranks. There were even grizzled SF guys there learning Hmong or whatever, I'd never seen uniforms like they were wearing. Nor did I again after that. However, I next went to Fort Huachuca, AZ and that's where the trouble began. Right away, I got braced by an NCO for wearing this buckle. The rather one-way conversation went something like this, "Whattayou think you in? The (F-word) -ing Coast Guard? Get rid of it." That happened a couple of more separate times. I quietly put it away.
Okay, then I got to my next duty station in CONUS. There were several companies in the battalion I was sent to. When I reported to the battalion personnel sergeant, he spoke these words: "Boy, I'm gonna send you to the (N-word) company" and I knew this meant trouble. And it did. In my company, there was a very rare (at the time) black captain in command, also a black first sergeant and a black field first sergeant. I will avoid the politics of this, but I will say that the major civil rights legislation of the 1960's wasn't very long in effect yet and some attitudes were dying hard. The Good Old Boys at battalion HQ gave all of us in the company, black and white, as hard of a time as they could. Including calling me out for wearing my (C-word) cap in a way that they didn't like. I'd grown a within-regulation moustache; the battalion personnel officer braced me and ordered me to shave it off. I trimmed it on the ends, just because. The next day when I was at battalion HQ, this same officer jumped me big time, whereupon I shaved the moustache completely off. Later, my company commander asked me what happened to the 'stache (he had one also) and I innocently told him what had happened at battalion HQ. He went through the roof, this caused a major pissing contest between the two captains. The upshot of it was the bn. pers. officer had stepped on my CO's toes by ordering one of "his people" to lose the 'stache, etc, etc. The moustache was never a problem thereafter, but in this attitude of contention, I decided not to introduce the belt buckle as a possible match to gasoline.
Once I got to my overseas assignment, I discovered that's where the real army started. With exceptions like the Berlin Brigade, the Seventh Army Honor Guard, some other hard-A units, etc., something like this was rarely an issue. Nobody ever again cared when I wore this buckle. Including a few general officers. Which got repainted a few times. When my army and later ARNG days were over, I still wore this buckle off and on with blue jeans.
