Barracks life; the military/civilian divide
You may have missed the story about some travelers who were unexpectedly delayed in their journey and they had to lay up at Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay overnight. The one hundred and seventy six passengers weren’t happy about their accommodations according to the Military Times.
One passenger among those stranded because of aircraft mechanical problems told CNN: “While there was a bed, there were no blankets … and there was no heating in the particular barracks building I was assigned to. So it was quite cold for quite a few hours while we waited for breakfast to be served.”
Passengers received the full military experience, dining in the mess hall the next morning before being flown to Newark, New Jersey, en route to their connecting flight at London Heathrow, according to reports.
Yeah, they should stay at Hohenfels or Grafenwohr sometime for a real barracks experience. CNN says that the flight crew stayed at a hotel, instead of taking advantage of the free military facilities.
Category: Who knows
They have barracks at Graf??
I remember quonset huts with oil-fired stoves and unheated latrines that seemed about a mile down the road. That is when we had the rare privilege of being in garrison.
That describes the 47th Air Police Squadron barracks at RAF Schweinfurt in 59-62. 13 man open bays and there was always some smart SOB who peed on the oil stove rather than go out back because the latrine was a long block away.
Make that RAF Schulthorpe. This program should have an edit option.
I was at Graf in 2010, place was nicer than Camp Lejeune.
TO barracks on Onslow Beach. Un-insulated,single pane windows,open squad bays and even more open latrines. The furnace would occasionally go out. I’m from NE and had no idea it got that nippy in NC. The wind off the ocean was a ripper.
Let’s not forget the gray moon dust at Graf that gets into every single thing you own.
HUH? No Fire Watch, GI Parties, or having to wake up at 0-dark-thirty for PT? I bet they didn’t even have to mop and buff the floors!
Yep, the baton in the trash can, all lights on, at 0-dark-thirty would have been something to see them experience. Then, the few minutes for a SS&S, make your bunk, square away the barracks and then fall your sorry asses out and form in on the parade ground for chow.
And taking a Bernath along with your other buddies on shitters all lined up along the wall.
The first S in Shit-Shower and Shave.
Some people would bitch if you hung ’em with a new rope.
Is it just me, or does there seem to be a more annoying form of traveler on planes than other forms of transportation?
Nah, there are a-holes on trains too. And on buses as well – though it’s been quite a while since I last took one any substantial distance.
These people sound like the type that would bawl about having no seat cushions on a lifeboat!
But did they each get a free complimentary PT BELT?!?!?
Of course, isn’t that standard issue for all personnel entering a base now?
Bummer.
Yea, kinda sucks having to see what your fighting force lives on, with and in, every damned day. And that’s just a glimpse of stateside luxury compared to life in the field. They should have shut up, said thank you and a BIG thank you to their armed forces.
I hope they gave them earplugs.
I always kept a few sets in my gear.
The snoring always drove me crazy in open racks.
I bet they had a blast to include some full frontal nudity and ass shots as dudes racked out.
Gotta love the Infantry.
One of the few places I can say that I HAVEN’T been, Goose Bay. (sigh).
But our pay and benefits need to be cut becasue we live so high on the hog.
Barracks life was a nice welcome after the field.
Even a cot feels luxurious after a week or three of sleeping on the ground.
Or sleeping sitting up in a HMMWV
while driving
AHHHHHHH the sleep of the dead. 16 hrs of pure drool and getting the indents out of your body.
I wonder if someone had their Fart Bag overflow and just blast all night, that would have been awesome to see some Civilian puke tortured by it.
We had a 1SG in my BN at Campbell that moonlighted for a pizza place. He would pass the word when we were coming back from the field and the pizza guys would show up for the moment we hit the barracks. Best pizza ever as well as a hot shower and real bed.
Oh yes, that great barracks life! What a memory. Fort Lewis, Jan. 1972. I’m being discharged. My last night in the Army, I slept in a unheated barracks with no bedding. The highlight of the night was having a wet dream! I’m serious, you can’t make that shit up!
Lol….Army…LOL….Discharge….LOL Wet Dream….LOL. I thought the Army *WAS* a wet dream.
LOL
So, between the loose skivvies and the shivering you just couldn’t contain yourself? (smile)
Yeah …. he got a “dishonorable discharge” that night.
hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
There were no loose skivvies involved.
At that point 3/17 was still going Commando.
It was a holdover RVN thing.
Smiley face icon.
Sparks…..its on a need to know basis, I think you need to know. I NEVER stopped going commando!
Smile!
Claw……the above is for you not Sparks. I’m on the pendleton blend a little early.
July is coming , be sure to remind me when the day of the toast is near!
3/17, I knew you were replying to me and not Sparks.
Remember, we had the Commando discussion when you came here for the visit in March.
The toast day for WO1 Aston will be on 18 July, but I’ll remind you again as we get closer.
Some of the comments posted here are simply priceless.
SO you had a happy discharge the night before you were discharged, that must have made it twice as nice! Did you feel gay afterward, or were you just extra-happy to finally be out?
Proud………I was so happy to be out, I felt like I was walking on Air! I did not care for Army life all that much. However, I will say I was a damn fine troop. My pride and competiveness would not let me do it any otherway!
Accidental or Negligent discharge??
Hopefully you weren’t squeezing the trigger…
nbc…. Nothing accidental about it! I was dreaming of ” Helen” my girlfriend before I was drafted. Why I’m dreaming of her at that time I’m not sure? Self centered little bitch wrote me about six times in eleven months+
I’ve spent many a night on a cot set up with hundreds of others in an aircraft hangar with nothing but the clothes on my back while enroute to some final destination. What they got was not the full military experience; they had it better.
You had a cot!?!? Elitist!
Every member of Congress, the white house, and SES in the gummint should have to live in a barracks for 2 weeks and eat army food so they know how we live. (I wouldn’t make them eat Marine food, that’s just cruel and unusual punishment.)
Hey now!
Why do you think we are always angry, pissed off and hate everybody?
Marines don’t get food…they just eat their young, the old and the infirm.
Not all of them, we allow 1 in 10 to live, to serve as warnings to the rest.
Nah. Lock ’em in Cheyanne Mountain for about a month.
without their sleeping pills.
I took an SES I worked with out to NTC during a rotation. The unit (a Test and Eval team) was going to DV him. I said no, he needs the full Monty so he can see what soldier’s equipment that he was responsible for buying went through. He slept in the quarters with everyone else; up at 0300 and a 2 hour hummer ride in blackout to the war (3rd vehicle in the convoy so lots of dust). Even better, he got gassed in the TOC! He came away very impressed and talked about it for the rest of the time he served. He also bought the beer for the hot wash.
Interesting. In Baghdad in ’05 we had a “Blue Jeans Diplomat” from the State Dept who would come to meetings with us. He carried a paratrooper AK and liked going with us because he could see how things really are out there.
He had to leave about 6 months in and was replaced with a big fat guy who went out with us once and then never again. It was a shame really because that blue jeans diplomat got some damn good info / intel riding with us.
I think the correct response is boo, fucking, who…the silly bastards ought to be super pleased that their mechanical problems didn’t drop them into the countryside in a flaming ball of death for everyone on board…
Roger that !!
Much like the Arrow Air Flight 1285.
RIP to all the 3/502 INF troopers from the 101st Airborne.
A hardstand barracks?
Hell, they need to do just one redeployment area German circus tents routine after a winter REFORGER just once to get the full experience. You know, the one where the contract for the portable heaters only called for keeping the inside temperature at a balmy, tropical 34 degrees in mid February.
Woosies !!
Obviously no prior service on the aircraft. First thing I would have done is B&E the utility room.
Since reports indicate they were dumped and run.
That’s an open invitation.
And, assigned fire watches for monoxide monitoring.
You want heat, you do your shift.
Hellz yeah! I went through C4-A at Camp Bullis in Dec 89 (as an Ensign). I was the lone MSC and the only prior service enlisted. The 0-5/0-6 AF nurses and docs wanted heat, but wouldn’t stand a watch on the gas/oil heaters. The Army 0-6 dentist from Alaska and I were the only ones who brought -30 sleeping bags and heated socks, so he said fuq ’em. I swear, I heard them crying in the night.
There’s nothing like eight guys trying to sleep in a gama goat that was crammed full of four-deuce mortar and supporting gear on the truck bed after a night fire FTX while it was raining so hard that no one could build an outside lean-to sleep in. It was so jammed inside that we were literally using each other’s butts and backs as pillows…
Annnnnnnnnnnd Obligatory…
I’m fuming and pacing the floor.
He mentioned a Gamma Goat.
Where’s my ARCOM?
I see your ‘gama-pig’ and rase you a ‘GOER’ (Trk, Cgo, 8Ton, 4X4)!!
OK, I’ll see your GOER and let you know I was once the Battalion PLL repair parts guy for a Towed Vulcan outfit that had 50 some plus of those POS M561 Gamma Goats.
Tell me my life didn’t suck at times, especially in the winter.
Two words: hot racking.
In the torpedo room, next to a Mk 14.
Pensacola: WWII barracks with cockroaches big enough to saddle up and ride
Orlando: steam heat in the winter OUTDOORS but no heat in the barracks. No A/C in summer. If it rained, it poured and water ran through the entire barracks, covering the floor. Cockroaches bigger than the Pensacloa bugs that would chase you out of the showers by flying at you. 8 foot female gators nesting in reeds on the beach at that murky lake. Oh, and the food? Moldy and green most of the time.
My personal favorite was, and still is, Great Lakes in the winter with the wind off Lake Michigan turning gale force and blowing you backwards down the sidewalk, and the heat failing in the barracks in the middle of one of those gales. That was fun.
We always said that if it makes you sweaty, wet, hot, cold, any other misery or combination thereof, then it’s GOOD TRAINING!
Two Words:
HARMONY CHURCH!
Yes sir. Really nice in the GA summer. That was the place I was referring to in the earlier comment about open latrines with shitters lining one wall.
Oh ya! ….. Takes some getting used to: sitting right between two other fellers to take a shit …. then look in the face of the feller in front of you on pot — on the opposite side. It only took a couple of days to get used to it. When I eventually got to my follow-on assignment that had privicy walls in the latrine, I thought I was in heaven.
And the trough-pissers! Remember those?
After graduation I was sent to the Sand Hill gym for duty. I almost took a piss in that large round pisser with the circular foot flusher. Just before I did, someone came in and started to wash his hands. That’s the first time I ever saw a circular sink.
Soooooooo glad I hadn’t yet undone my fly and begun business.
I had forgotten the round and trough pisser. Thanks for the memories!
Actually …. the “round pisser” was in fact a group sink for washing hands. I ALMOST committed a mortal sin that day….
[…forgive me Father for I have sinned….]
Believe it or not, some places still have those Trough’s….
Trough pissers …. gives a new understanding of the old phrase:
“Going to see a man about watering a horse.”
I sure remember standing side-by-side with about 8 guys …. watering the horse.
You youngsters … PAHH! You’ve got it made, what with “privicy screens” between individual urinals.
I don’t know what youse guys are complaining about.
The Romans had public open latrines with shitters on one wall before your ancestors were even heard of. They also had vomitoria, that special shop you went to after too much food and drink at a dinner party. The military never gave you that, did it! Naw.
A few more words:
Oberweis (Betard) Missile Staging Area.
Good mess hall though.
Here ya go Claw
http://www.mace-b.com/38tmw/bitburg/oberweis.htm
Yep, I know. BTDT. Spent three years there as our work site/motor pool while at Bitburg AB.
Only small drawback was the 1/2 mile hike through the woods to the mess hall.
But it was all good. Just we 90 some Army guys against the 5000 AF types. Made for some interesting conversations at the NCO Club when talking about evacuation plans if the balloon went up.
Oh FYI, that’s not mine. I’m a baby Chairforce guy 1984-2007.
I had to Google Oberweis (Betard) Missile Staging Area and found that.
WAY before my time.
Chip, I was a Bitburger from 74-77.
Got to survive the European summer drought of 76 and miss our nations’ Bicentennial.
Pretty plumb assignment. Was there while Bitburg swapped over from F-4’s to F-15’s.
I don’t remember any bitching from the hundreds of passengers who stayed in the same barracks after all commercial aircraft were ordered to land on 9/11.
How bad could it have really been? It’s an RCAF base FFS.
One newspaper article mentioned complaints about two rooms having a shared bathroom.
as a commercial passenger with over a million miles by now, having someplace horizontal to sleep during a layover would be a slice of heaven. Normally it’s dozing while sitting in an airport chair and praying you don’t miss your boarding announcement. (Luckily that hasn’t happened since, oh – yesterday.)
Last year I did not fly more than 100k miles. It was the first year in about 20. And only one overseas trip. I cannot decide if I like it or not but I think not.
I completely concur on the sleeping on something besides a floor. Marble is cold and hard and I don’t much care for using my backpack as a pillow.
I joined in 1970. Except for Fort Mickey Mouse we mostly had new brick barracks. I was married so at most of my duty stations I lived off post. I lived in wooden disaster areas at Ft MM for a few months. I do not envy you guys who had to put up with worse. My only real discomfort was the winter training in Alaska – 1 week in sleeping bags in the winter. It was … what it was.
I feel sorry for all the AOD’s & CQ’s that night! “we need all your accountable linen and retrieve linen before change of duty. You will receive statement of charges for all unaccounted linen.” Drive On!
As a civilian, I have to say I’m fairly disgusted by the level of pussyism exhibited by these people.
First, the Canadian Military has no obligation to accommodate them at all, but did anyway to the best of their ability on zero notice. Second, how long was it, 5 hours? Bitch, please! No heat? I know Goose Bay is in the great white north of the great white north, but it’s the middle of June, for Christ’s sake! Nobody was going to freeze to death. Hell, anybody who would bitch about this has clearly never spent a night in fire camp!
Ft Polk north fort, that would make them real happy
North Fort Hood, TX or Camp Shelby, MS would have made them go full turbo-bitch-and-bawl as well.
Oh shit. North Fort. Thats just cruel. I’ll raise you a Ft. Chaffee.
I’ll see your raise with McGregor Range,NM.
The old McGregor Range (circa 1972), not the new completely redone since 1990 one.
Oro Grande Range Camp (White Sands) 1961-1962.
WW II Quonset Huts, scorpions, rattlesnakes, …
Still better than Ft. Sill.
Fibber, how’s Molly getting along?
Let’s see here… how about:
Quonset huts with pot belly stoves and no fuel. Showers down the street.
Tarp draped across tank main gun tube (all weather conditions)
Pup tents, small tents, big tents, all tents… green eggs and ham optional.
Cots in a foot of dust down range – Australian showers optional.
Poncho shelter, fox holes, drivers compartments, turret, back deck, fenders…
Quonset huts with mattress covers stuff with straw for mattresses (insects no extra charge).
Rain, sleet, snow, heat, wind, tornados, dirt devils, frozen tracks, insects, snakes, wild animals… oh my!
Fort Lost-in-the-Woods, winter, early nineties. Sleeping In a pup tent during bivouac when an ice storm hits and the FTX gets canceled then having to knock the ice off the tent in order to take it down with DS’s screaming at you, GOOD TRAINING!
NTC Dustbowl, day after Christmas 1985.
Rummaging thru the Dempsty Dumpsters looking for CONEX inserts to use as a windbreak/something to sleep in.
NTC 1982-85 (Green Team). The Obverserver-Controllers didn’t have it much better.
Okay … that’s not really true. We always circled the wagons [APCs … later jeeps … much later Sheridans and jeeps] then had our chow; some had a BBQ. I can tell you how comfortable the Sheridan gunner’s area is for sleeping.
Speaking of steel pots …. do you know how high one will fly in the air when when an artillery simulator, placed underneath, explodes? About 200 feet. What a shot!
Blue Team 82-83 then Live Fire. Remember that rainy November night when we had to take the windshields off the jeeps? Cold and wet. Good times though.
Ft Lost in the Woods, summer 1980. I would have traded with you API. That summer kicked our asses and I was from Missouri.
I grew up in Kansas, and the same thing was said about KS and MO weather, “If you don’t like it, just wait five minutes and it’ll change.” One day it was 60 degrees and the next afternoon it was twenty and snowing with sleet.
Camp Fuji in November. Best thing about the place was the view of Fuji through the window at one end of the Quonset hut I was in. We put the Christmas tree decorated with beer cans at the other end.
By far, better’n the Holiday Inn Express!!
I slept under the wings of a 130 with my parachute as a pillow at San Isidro Air Base whilst we were waiting for peace to break out in Santo Domingo (Operation Power Pack, 1965). We were supposed to jump in but peace started happening and they parked us at San Isidro for many hours.
Peace didn’t happen so we launched but at the last minute the airfield was deemed secure so we air landed…really a LAPES because the AF wasn’t into the secure airfield shit. But, alas, the vehicles were on honeycomb and we had no forklifts etc to get them off. Grunt power. Airborne!
So in about 1995 I was driving around on the ridge above the Air Force Academy and I came upon a large group of young men and some sergeants all in woodland uniforms. Turns out that before a young man joins the freshman class at the Academy, they do a little summer campout on the ridge. I am chewing the fat with one of the sergeants when a fine strapping youngster saunters over and asks, “do we really have to dig these holes three feet deep?” The sergeant replies, “Well I would. Your sleeping in it tonight.” The young fella looked a bit crestfallen and sauntered back to a hole that could seen from half a mile by a sun-blind gopher. I suspect that he might have improved that hole a little before the next night. That ridge is about 9,500 feet so even in the summer it gets a little nippy in the evening. A couple weeks later there was a very large fire in that area and the Air Force had to pull their class off the ridge. Good times.
It’s like camping indoors; where’s their sense of adventure?
-40F…ok MAYBE -30F Happy Camper School aka Snowcraft Survival training…somewhere on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
2 person tents, ground pads, one seriously heavy duty sleeping bag AND IT WAS STILL FREAKING COLD.
Thank God that was only an overnight trip.