75 Things I Hate About the Army

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

75 Things I Hate About the Army

  1. It’s not the Air force.
  2. The brown T-shirts.
  3. Having to carry a card around with the “7 Army Values” on it. Apparently, when faced with a tough situation, we’re supposed to take out our 7 Army Values card and be reminded of how we’re supposed to act.
  4. "He whose name shall not be mentioned on my website". 
  5. Having to take crap from idiots and a**holes because they outrank you, not because they’re smarter, more mature, or more responsible than you.
  6. Working late (or weekends) for absolutely no reason.
  7. Paperwork.
  8. Bureaucracy
  9. Having to wear a “7 Army Values” tag on your dog tags. For those times when you accidentally forget to carry your 7 Army Values card.
  10. Guard Duty
  11. Lack of intellect/common sense.
  12. Too many hypocrites in leadership positions. They slam you for stuff that you see them do all the time.
  13. Having someone else in control of your personal life. For instance, can you believe that you actually have to get your chain of command’s permission to get married?!  I was 31 years old, and I actually had to ask permission to marry my wife. I’m not kidding.
  14. Lack of culture.
  15. Arrogant officers that think having a higher position and making more money than you, automatically makes them a better person than you.
  16. Similar to #14 – officers/NCOs that think that a higher rank automatically makes them right all the time.
  17. Full battle rattle
  18. Grafenwoer Training Area
  19. Head count
  20. “Work harder, not smarter”
  21. KP
  22. Hey You details
  23. Condescension from those that outrank you
  24. The class A cap
  25. POV inspections. You get your vehicle inspected yearly like normal people, but then you also must have your supervisor do an additional inspection every time there is a long weekend or holiday coming up.
  26. Too many rules protecting us from ourselves
  27. Multi-tasking. This is the newer, kinder way of saying “additional duties”, which means that they’ll pile so much crap on you that you never get a chance to do the things you’re supposed to do, and even better, you’re doomed to failure. 
  28. The mandatory flu shot. I never had a flu shot until I joined the Army, and hadn’t had the flu since I was a kid. Then the Army tells me that I have to get one whether I like it or not. Then guess what happens next? Every year that I’ve gotten it, I’ve gotten the flu within 2 weeks after getting the shot. Every single year.
  29. Hooah.
  30. Promotion/Soldier of the Month Boards
  31. FMs
  32. TMs
  33. Pot belly stoves
  34. Recovery from field problems
  35. Camo netting
  36. The IPFU (“improved physical fitness uniform”). The only thing improved about it is that it looks better than the old ones. It’s not very comfortable though.
  37. Double standards. They’re so plentiful that you’d think they teach it in basic training.
  38. It’s not the Air Force
  39. Mass punishment. One guy in a company of 200 does something wrong, so do you punish him? Noooo, you punish all 200 of them. What a great idea! That’ll teach him a lesson!
  40. Incompetence with important paperwork. There have been times when I’ve had to get a shot again a few months after getting it the first time because the person giving it didn’t annotate it on my shot record. If that happened in the real world, that guy would be looking for a new job.
  41. The “only one starch” rule in the dining facility. God forbid I should have potatoes and rice in the same meal…
  42. Change of command ceremonies
  43. Standing at parade rest
  44. The coffee
  45. Shining my boots (this one is obvious to those that I work with!)
  46. Regulations that don’t make sense – I swear, sometimes the Army comes up with regs for no good reason.
  47. Officers with a sense of entitlement. I’ve had officers tell me to do stuff like fill a copier after it runs out of paper – after looking at it for 5 minutes. How hard would it have been to fill it yourself?
  48.  It’s not the Air Force
  49. Grass drills (now called “circuit training”)
  50. Berets
  51. Warmongers – I swear, there are people in the Army who need to go into combat to validate their existence.
  52. Idiots who think that the answer to every disagreement is to beat someone up
  53. Acronyms – Remember the great scene from Good Morning Viet Nam? – “Sir, since the former VP is such a VIP, shouldn’t we keep the PC on the QT? Because if it falls into the hands of the VC, he could end up an MIA, then we’d all be put on KP…” Classic. And so true.
  54. Lack of privacy
  55. If you don’t like your job, tough. It pretty much takes an act of Congress to change your MOS.
  56. Packing lists
  57. FRAGO’s
  58. PMCS
  59. Performing services on vehicles. The reason I didn’t choose the job of mechanic when I enlisted is because I know NOTHING about working on vehicles. But nowadays, the Army has decided that most of the routine maintenance on the vehicles is “operator level”. That’s a recipe for disaster.
  60. Having to “sound off” (yell like an idiot) when performing mundane tasks.
  61. Government propaganda commercials on AFN
  62. The Dress Greens. No matter how many medals or badges you wear, it’s just not possible to look cool and tough in green.
  63. Retired Army people working as contractors who think that they still “outrank” you. Guess what? The minute you got out, I stopped having to listen to you!
  64. Having to shave every day
  65. Xenophobia
  66. NCOs/Officers that create “phantom regulations”. For example, the regulation states that you are allowed to have a moustache, as long as it’s in line with the corners of your mouth. But then you’ll have some guy in charge who thinks that moustaches don’t look good, so bye-bye facial hair
  67. Can’t get away from the car racing
  68. Creativity and ingenuity are discouraged in favor of “this is the way the Army has always done things”. In the Air force, if you come up with a better way of doing things, they actually pay you. In the Army, you’ll get ignored, or maybe even a nice counseling statement
  69. Catering to the lowest common denominator. For example, at my last unit, whenever we would run as a company, they would always put the slowest people up front, so the entire company would have to run at their pace. So instead of trying to get the slow people trying to improve their run, we make everyone else run slower! No wonder the Army has so many people on the overweight program!
  70. Only one type of Sam Adams sold at the shoppette. And sometimes not even that…
  71. “Train as You Fight”. This is another slogan that the Army uses to try to explain why they do some the asinine things they do.
  72. “Suck it up and Drive on”. This started out as a great motivational slogan, but now it's become one that Army people use simply to mask the reality of how miserable everyone is. For example, it’s 97 degrees and all the enlisted troops have to stand on the field for a change of command ceremony. Some one in a position of authority will say “suck it up and drive on”, and magically, everyone becomes motivated and forgets that they have to stand at attention in Africa hot weather for over an hour.
  73. "How dare you tell me that this is wrong - I've been doing this for 26 years, so you're gonna do this my way!"***
  74. It's not the Air Force
  75. Most Army people aren't smart enough to realize that I said "It's not the Air Force" multiple times on purpose!

*** An actual quote from a Major in the US Army, after being told that he was doing things absolutely wrong. Hmm...26 years and he's still a Major...

To those who are/were in the Army...Care to add yours to the list?

If so, email them to me: rikthib@gmail.com

Also check out the 15 Things I Love About the Army

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