I think it would be hilarious if the New Guy was told that he was supposed to wear a red tunic for all parades, and he confessed he didn't have one, so the old sweats get together and sell hime a really old one, to keep him out of trouble. The next morning, he shows up in red, but only he and the centurion are wearing red, all the rest are wearing white.<br>
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Of course, that would not happen, because everyone would probably already know that only centurions wore red (if that is the case, calm down Dan!)<br>
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We used to send new soldier's to find lazer blanks, air pressure gauges for the road wheels of the tanks, Kevlar helmet liners, Gas masking tape, and so on. The bad part is that you send them to check at another platoon. The old sweats there know the trick and say they loaned it out to the battalion supply for something, then when teh newby gets there, the Battalion supply sergeant says that a sister battalion has borrowed the item, or something....<br>
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Another fun thing was to disassemble the lieutenant's pistol, not to the basic disassembly but to each of the individual parts, springs, and pins. Then give it to them to reassemble saying I cleaned this for you sir, but you'll have to put it back together because the First Sergeant needs me. (This was very effective when he would hand it over to be cleaned, like it was a duty of his driver or something!)<br>
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If you disliked an officer, you could make sure to dismiss your class or formation when you knew he was due in, and the troops would seperate into clumps a few yards apart as they left. The officer had to salute each group, and with 400+ men, they seemed to get tired arms.<br>
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Soviet soldiers were a little rougher, they would take all the new issue equipment from the new soldier, then "trade" him their worst stuff. The tyros would have all the extra duties and also wait on the old sweats, taking acre of their equipment. The old sweats often had no hope of real promotion and were only serving their time and had no real punishments for brutality to the new troops, unless they killed or damaged one, or ran up against someone with money or connections. (rare). The NCO's and Officers were in a seperate total environment and left the "men" alone to haze and train the new soldiers in many cases, which may be more like the old Roman Army, with it's acknowledged system of immunes and buying exemptions from duties.<br>
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There are some things we used to do when I became an officer, but they probably don't fit in this list. One way to keep the attention of yourng soldiers during really boring "hip-pocket classes" was to have everyone sit on the ground, and while teaching, randomly dig in the dirt with your K-bar, and eat any grub worms or bugs that you find. They seem to find this facinating!<br>
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If you saw that film "Great Santini" You can pull the same trick with a LRRP ration or MRE soup, just put it in a clean airsick bag while bouncing along in a C-130 or CH-47. Make sure to share your "chow" with your buddy! You may get to stay behind to clean the aircraft instead of making a 20 mile roadmarch. That's a real punishment!<br>
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just a few of the things we did to keep from being bored while members of the big green machine.... of course, I never did any of this..... <p></p><i></i>
