Son back from the Army on leave

[Stomper]

30% H2O2, full strength (~30%) ammonium hydroxide, strychnine, ferric chloride, iodine crystals, KCN, NaOH, Carbon Tetrachloride, quicksilver, and on and on. Now, a lot of these you need to go through special channels to buy.

I remember the HUGE mercury thermometers in high-school science class that we'd "accidentally" break so we could get to that mercury and goof around with it!

 

[gmerkt]

Theyre still doing the strict haircuts

The army might've gone back to buzz cuts in BCT, but I seem to recall that in the early days of the AVF, they did away with the buzz cut. That was an era of long hair, this was supposed to be an aid to recruitment. It was short, but not a buzz cut.

Soldiers I see now seem to have very short cut hair by choice, and the moustaches are gone. So a buzz cut in BCT isn't the stigma that it was in the 70's.

 

[1911Fanatic]

The army might've gone back to buzz cuts in BCT, but I seem to recall that in the early days of the AVF, they did away with the buzz cut. That was an era of long hair, this was supposed to be an aid to recruitment. It was short, but not a buzz cut.

Soldiers I see now seem to have very short cut hair by choice, and the moustaches are gone. So a buzz cut in BCT isn't the stigma that it was in the 70's.

My son had a mustache for awhile while he was in. A couple years ago when he was a DI. After I told him it looked too much like Hitler's \stach\e,
He shaved it off.

 

[wired]

30% H2O2, full strength (~30%) ammonium hydroxide, strychnine, ferric chloride, iodine crystals, KCN, NaOH, Carbon Tetrachloride, quicksilver, and on and on. Now, a lot of these you need to go through special channels to buy.

You mean Amazon

 

[wired]

The army might've gone back to buzz cuts in BCT, but I seem to recall that in the early days of the AVF, they did away with the buzz cut. That was an era of long hair, this was supposed to be an aid to recruitment. It was short, but not a buzz cut.

Soldiers I see now seem to have very short cut hair by choice, and the moustaches are gone. So a buzz cut in BCT isn't the stigma that it was in the 70's.

They still cut them right down to nothing and charge $25 for the pleasure. Not women though? You can still do the moustache but few do anymore. Just personal choice. Looks dumb and harder to maintain by reg standards than it's worth. Just out of fashion.

Weight standards are out the window.

 

[Spitpatch]

They still cut them right down to nothing and charge $25 for the pleasure. Not women though? You can still do the moustache but few do anymore. Just personal choice. Looks dumb and harder to maintain by reg standards than it's worth. Just out of fashion.

Weight standards are out the window.

"Aerobics qualification". In theory, EVERYONE was required to run/walk a mile and a half once a year, and to be done in a time allotment commensurate with the soldier's age.

I noticed right off the bat no one of any rank at all ever had to run. NCO beer bellys were stark evidence.

Then a chum pulled a gig at the orderly room, in charge of the Aerobics roster AND the random drug test roster.

No more runnin' and pissin' for me! (OR him).

 

[wired]

"Aerobics qualification". In theory, EVERYONE was required to run/walk a mile and a half once a year, and to be done in a time allotment commensurate with the soldier's age.

I noticed right off the bat no one of any rank at all ever had to run. NCO beer bellys were stark evidence.

Then a chum pulled a gig at the orderly room, in charge of the Aerobics roster AND the random drug test roster.

No more runnin' and pissin' for me! (OR him).

They're still pretty hot on piss tests. My sons gets one when he gets back tomorrow . He has a PT test every 3 weeks at least through AIT. After that depends on the unit which will likely be a hospital so who knows?
The women though? Bunch of chunky girls walking around. Maybe they figure they're just admin anyway , who cares?

 

[gmerkt]

They still cut them right down to nothing and charge $25 for the pleasure. Not women though? You can still do the moustache but few do anymore. Just personal choice. Looks dumb and harder to maintain by reg standards than it's worth. Just out of fashion.

I still remember that first haircut, it was down to the bone and took all of a couple of minutes. I'm thinking those PX "barbers" were retired lifers and the haircutting thing was a sinecure. Being as it was a training establishment, they had little stand-alone PX barbershops out in the battalion areas.

Yeah, that moustache thing has mostly faded away. I had one for about 25 years. Mrs. Merkt now wonders how it lasted so long. Around 2010, I regrew it just for laughs. Then she said it looked ridiculous as in the meantime, my facial hair had turned white. It then went away.

I started out with the moustache right out of high school. Of course when I joined the army, it had to go. When I'd completed my training, I started in growing it again. I hadn't been at my first permanent duty station very long when a captain at battalion S-1 saw it and ordered me to shave it off. The next morning, I trimmed it real good and my duties again took me down to battalion HQ. The same captain saw me again, and he ripped me a new one, telling me to shave it all the way off. Which I did. That afternoon, my CO, also a captain, casually asked me what happened to the moustache. I told him straight out. He went ballistic. He got in a huge whizzing contest with the captain at battalion HQ. One of those, "You don't tell any of MY people what to do" kinda thing. In fact, the moustache as I wore it clearly was authorized. The captain at battalion was just being an AH, part of that harassment thing I mentioned above. Which was usually reserved for trainees, rather than cadre but seeing as how I was still a "mosquito wing" private at that time, I guess I was fair game. My CO came around and told me, "You grow that back within regs if you want to and if anyone says anything more about it, come to me soonest."

Weight standards are out the window.

Huh. I'll be darned. I was under the impression that the army was into fitness and all these days. They've got that new PT test that when I read about it, made me doubt there was any way I'd pass. With kettle bell weights, tow sleds and stuff. Oh, and the leg tuck. Which I think is gone now. I think the test (now called ACFT) comes in different levels of scoring based on your military job. I've also read that it's been modified, now (if I can remember the words), "age and gender performance normed" which I think means they handicap age and gender.

Later when I was in the Army National Guard (73-79), I discovered that soldiers over age 40 were exempt from the PT test. Which made sense to me considering many of the Technicians I worked with were over 40, and some significantly. Many of those I doubted would be mobilized in any event.