Last Friday, I went with Jordan on post while he did some of his clearing. He has to clear out of Ft. Benning and the Army, and it takes many days of running around post to different offices. Anyways, I realized it's the last time I would be on Ft. Benning so I thought I'd share some of the funny and unique things about an Army post. These are things that are very normal to me now, but at first struck me as odd or shocked me a little.
Seeing Jordan's subordinates salute him or seeing Jordan salute higher-ranking officers. I never really did get accustomed to this though. It's so funny to me to see people salute Jordan!
When you go the movie theater on post, they play the National Anthem before the movie, and everyone stands up and all the Army guys salute the flag that is displayed on the movie screen. The first time I went, I got really tickled because who would've thought?!
The sound of gunfire is a normal sound, and the sight of a soldier shooting a machine gun is a normal sight. There are several ranges along a main road and there are all these Army guys huddled on the ground shooting machine guns. It's right next to the road so it's extremely visible. The picture below is actually me shooting a M240B! They let the wives come out one day to shoot; it was a one-of-a-kind experience!
Army vehicles drive on the same roads everyone else does on post. I guess I never really thought that I would see so many of them just driving around! And the passenger in them usually has his feet propped up on the dash. It's quite a funny site seeing a huge combat vehicle with a guy in uniform all relaxed and everything with his feet up on the windshield! Here are a few that we see a lot:
We aren't sure what this one is called, but we know it is used by engineer units.
An M1114 HMMWV (High Mobility Multi Wheeled Vehicle)
An M1078 LMTV (Light Medium Tactical Vehicle)
An M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle (used by Mechanized Infantry Units)
If Jordan is backing out in his truck, if there is another Army guy standing nearby, he almost always guides Jordan in backing up his truck out of a parking space. It's called your "ground guide."
The sight of one higher-ranking man chewing out another man, and I mean really chewing him out! I have witnessed this 3 different times when a subordinate did something incorrectly, the higher-ranking person yells and chews the subordinate out even if other normal people like me are around.
I can't remember exactly what time this happens...I think it's at 5:00 pm, but everyday they play some song through these really loud speakers and all the Army people on post that can hear it stop and salute toward the source of the noise. I was with a friend I met out here when we first heard this. Everyone around us stopped and saluted toward the noise, and we weren't really sure what was going on or if we were supposed to stop also!
Anywhere I go on post, I sign in by Jordan's pay grade (which is his rank) or his last 4 of his social security number. The other wives that I met out here and I joked that we don't have names according to the Army because they always ask for our husband's pay grade or his last 4.
EVERYTHING has an acronym. Pay grades as I was talking about before are O1, O2, etc. for officers and E1, E2, etc. for enlisted. Jordan's hat he wears to work is called a PC (personal cap) instead of hat. I could go on and on... It's so ridiculous and tough to learn them all!
You are banned from talking on the cell phone or using radar detectors while driving on post.
There is a bunch of hunting ground and training fields off away from main post. When you drive back there, there are signs posted that say, "unexploded ordnance-keep out" and "within 300m of fire, take caution."
If I were to get a speeding ticket, it would go on Jordan's military police record.
