...the best part.
I had to live with the army for 2 1/2 years…. It was a very unique experience for an Air Force guy in the 1980s.
I’d get yelled at for being out of uniform… more than once I had to say something like “With respect Command Seargent Major, Air Force regulation 35–10 clearly stipulates the use of a conservative black or blue umbrella with all duty uniforms.” (at that time it was true)
(Literally, the guy starts yelling his ass off at me, and then I say “Air Force,” and the sergeant major immediately change is demeanor like a college professor from Harvard “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I thought you were an army, numb, nuts. Carry on airman.” Totally surreal….
One time a MP came and harassed me because I wasn’t wearing a hat in the parking lot. Literally walking from my car to the barracks and I had lost my hat in the field. Then the guy in question can’t tell my rank because it’s on my sleeves and he’s totally confused, and attempts to garb my badges out of the pocket on the front of my BDUs. “You don’t have a need to know what’s on those badges. Let me get this straight, you came over here to give me a hard time at 1 o’clock in the morning for not wearing a hat, while walking from my car to the barracks less than 25 yards away? … and it never occurred to you that I might’ve lost my hat? Do you seriously not have anything better to do private?”
Another time… Some pyromaniac army guy lights the fucking barracks on fire, intentionally. … And because I was the one who saw the flames outside the main door, pulled the fire alarm, and ran down the hallway screaming ”fire” to get everybody out of the building, somehow I was the person who started the fire. So then I had to deal with the MPs, asking me ludicrous questions trying to pin the arson on me for some reason… Now, it might’ve been they were unhappy with me because there were a bunch of hot [surprisingly, army] chicks outside in the cold with the rest of us waiting for the building to be cleared before we could go back inside. …and I might’ve had a Fosters Oil Can in my hand that ladies gave me while walking back up to the upper floor, but still.
Now the Marines, I had a lot more fun with Marines. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy some aspects of being with the Army, but the Marines were hard-core and a lot of fun. It sucked for everybody equally….
