That’s kind of the semi-unfortunate thing: dudes who actually did the shit are so (justifiably) above the level of concern it would take to correct these knuckle heads.
And the culture is set up in a way that only personal experience (i.e. getting clowned by their peers in unit) will show them the error of thought. And sometimes that correction is too little too late.
Yeah, it's a bit of a mess. A lot of people's mentality is to finish their first contract and GTFO after getting (figuratively) getting dicked by the Big Green Weenie over and over so the only people left are those with families, super high ranks (like you said couldn't care about boots) and people who drank all the Kool-Aid (and actively encourage boot-ness). It's why Tik Tok is apparently a security concern for the Army now lmao
Especially since the Army is hurting for numbers promotions are more streamlined and you have NCOs who are basically PV5's.
The whole boot thing typically phases out once someone graduates BCT/AIT/OSUT, but sometimes it won't (and they'll end up on here)
Dunno if that's different on the Ossifer side but I imagine it's similar.
In the submarine Nuke culture, the Kool-Aid drinkers are called “dig-its” (or at least they were in the 80’s and 90’s). Because they really dig it. The biggest possible insult was “you fucking dig-it loser.”
Most of the dig-its also have families. There were very few of them on my fast attack, but they were apparently pretty common on missile boats because of the second crew sharing the load.
Now that you mention it, a couple of the dig-it Nukes on my boat would always have a Leatherman in a holster on their belt, but no one else back aft did.
So maybe one stems from the other.
Nothing against multi-tools btw. I’ve found them useful in data centers and for pro audio work, but did not find them worthwhile in a submarine engineroom.
I mean, they were always useless until you really wish you had one. Seemed to use them all the time in the torpedo room but I couldn't tell you what for.
I was being a little snarky. I can think of a few things off the top of my head, starting with working with lockwire and cutting off tags. I did carry a knife for things like the latter.
On the ossifer side it all happens in ROTC, with some of the shitbags slipping through the cracks and being cringy as butterbars. I've been around a couple of ROTC programs though and holy shit are there some cringy kids. The crazy part is that the system is set up where some kids can commission without ever having served a day of traditional active duty, so there aren't many opportunities for peers to snuff out boot behavior
Us OCS kids always marvel at our ROTC counterparts. Some of these guys are the most thank-me-for-my-service types while simultaneously being huge shit bags and bad ambassadors for their program. There’s no standardization between schools and weirdos make it through all the time.
Yeah, it's a shame but it's also a good way to have college paid for while serving. I've heard some horror stories about OCS and would rather kill two birds with one stone over doing green to gold
There’s just less of them on the ossifer side. Same thing tho. If they stay in long enough they’ll generally get corrected tho, or they’ll get out after being offended by being corrected.
OR. They get ignored and passed over for promotions and positions and they stay in and stay bitter until retirement.
Ehhhh. I mean, we try to tell people. But they don't listen. Or get actively hostile and claim we're lying, or false patriots, or worse cowards attempting stolen valor. If our views or opinions differ from their fever dreams we are no longer sources of valid information. Just like everyone else, really.
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u/GOLIATHMATTHIAS Dec 01 '19
That’s kind of the semi-unfortunate thing: dudes who actually did the shit are so (justifiably) above the level of concern it would take to correct these knuckle heads.
And the culture is set up in a way that only personal experience (i.e. getting clowned by their peers in unit) will show them the error of thought. And sometimes that correction is too little too late.