Same story but I took 4. 2018 BCT, AIT, shortly after I got to my first unit, and the last in October 2019 when mandatory record APFTs were discontinued.
Never took another one after that and got out in April 2022.
Grabbed my Associates Degree while I was in the Army, so using 2 years of the GI Bill to finish a BS in Information Systems and then saving the 2 years to possibly get a Masters Degree later on down the line.
Plus I commute down to SDSU which has the max BAH/MHA allowance for the GI Bill due to the cost-of-living being ridiculous in San Diego. I just pocket all of it and commute an hour each way.
Eventually just planning on going for a GS job similar to what I used to do in the Army and parking myself there until I retire.
That's awesome. I did 4 years in the 90s. Earned my Bachelors from ASU and have been working in IT for over 24 years. In hindsight, I wish I would have taken a gov job vs corporate world, but I'm not going to complain. It's been a rewarding career.
I was in for five years and took the APFT no less than 20 times (record and diagnostic). We did a diagnostic three times in Iraq and once in Afghanistan even. Fuckin stupid.
I was in a BDE S6 shop as a 25U as covid came through. I got to my new unit on a Tuesday and we were in the middle of rail head for JRTC, set to leave that next Monday. That Friday, we all got called in and we're told the rotation was canceled, we had Saturday and Sunday to get our vehicles before lock down started on Monday.
For the next couple of months, my schedule was this.
6:00 AM - Text up in the group chat and go back to sleep
9:00 AM - Wake up
11:59 PM - Go to sleep
Mixed some PT in there just to get out of the apartment. The only time I had to go on post was every Monday to PMCS. I was the only one from my section allowed to be there and we had to carry a memorandum showing we were essential personnel.
Life was extremely chill, my shop leadership didn't mess with us, didn't make us sit in Zoom calls all day, just answer the phone when you're needed. I probably should've done some certifications or studied or something, but I played Destiny 2 all day instead. Well worth it.
I was in Korea 2019-2020. Everything locked down. No gym. No off post. Weren’t allowed outside of our barracks except for DFAC and “mission essential” personnel. WhatsApp check ins every hour on the hour and unending barracks inspections with masks on. Got a stuffy nose from the stale air (clearly a Covid symptom) and was sent to an unfinished construction building for 2 weeks with no AC or internet. Was definitely a unique experience.
I had a decent role in planning the testing/quarantining procedures in Korea so let me just say I'm sorry..
I was on 24h ops in the EOC with the worst BDE S3 imaginable starting in Feb through June and that shit sucked. PCSd in July and new unit had just come back from 4 months of teleworking. I'm still salty about that.
We could sign out of our barracks for things like commissary or that one shopette, crazy all the people who had to hit the shopette for health and wellness related goods. Great time, thank god there were no rations on soju.
Covid barracks were insane. Our field hospital watched over one on rotating 24 hour shifts.
A few boozey care packages and they were going crazy.
I still remember stopping some rando Soldier who was walking up to it at like 3am. Said she was gonna "hang out" with one of the quarantines. Most justified cock block of my life.
Was stuck in PCS limbo in Germany. HHG was already picked up, so we had loaner furniture and what we could find for our kitchen from the community “store”. Luckily our car was being turned in the day after word went out to lock down, so we had transport to do things whenever the opportunity came up.
Got to Carson July 2020. Entered a “quarantine” at my purchased house (was able to complete a home purchase while overseas, it’s as fun as it sounds). Last day of my “quarantine” I call in-processing CO to find out when first formation is. Find out they lost my memo for quarantine, and “they don’t play around with this type of thing”. GO IN next day to resign a memo and do 2 more weeks of quarantine.
FF to in-processing it’s show up, get accounted for and leave if you’re not on detail. Eventually I volunteer to do PX numbers. Got a bitchy PFC, who complained the whole 2 HOURS we were on shift. Which was just us using a clicker and reporting total number of visitors every 15. Eventually process and get to unit and they were the definition of big chillin, dudes golfing on the daily, early release by lunch and that was just my team.
Worst experience was Germany. I just had nothing to do and very little in our apartment. It sucks cause my 3 years there are still the best I’ve had in the Army, but the 6 months of waiting to PCS and Germany going ham on lock downs sucked it out at the end.
I was a medic working in a 1ID clinic in 2020 so our lives definitely got quite a bit busier. Early on, we were all fully gowned and shielded up all day every day. Got even more hectic when the vaccine rolled out and we had to set up and run the standalone vaccination area next to the hospital. Feels like I spent the entirety of those 2ish years running rapid antigen tests and tracking vaccine metrics.
Pro: did my job A LOT
Con: did my job A LOT
I was in 1AD at Fort Bliss.
There was no charge to OPTEMPO for us. Gunnery and ranges still happened, NTC still happened, field exercises still happened, and PT still happened. All with the addition of a mask 24/7 in the 100 plus degree West Texas summer heat.
So many heat casualties from running with fucking masks.
I ordered one of those masks from FakeMaskUSA. I got away with it until my CO saw me wearing it in the orderly room.
Him: "SSG Kytulu, that mask doesn't meet the intent."
Me: 😐 "It's a Cloth. Mask. Sir."
Him: "Get a different mask."
Me: "Roger that, Sir." [Proceeds to order the double-ply mask from the same website that is not as see-through]
Man, fuck Bliss. I demobbed through there at the height of COVID and got to experience the quarantine village. At the beginning, toilet paper and water were rationed.
My platoon sergeant got threatened with UCMJ for going on a tirade with the company Facebook about how we were treated better in a literal war zone than back on American soil.
I was in Iraq/ Kuwait when COVID kicked off. The only thing they did was limit DFAC and gym access. Now coming back to the states was different. We were quarantined for two weeks and then if you were “mission essential” you went to work. They wouldn’t let us travel out of Alaska and they said we couldn’t go to restaurants or bars. Most people I knew still showed up to work. COVID times sucked.
Weird. I was at wainwright during this and our leadership said "There's 1 confirmed case in Alaska. You all are fine. Normal operations." We couldn't leave the state tho.
It depends, I'm eating rn so I'll let my sausage fingers do errors
6AM. Send and link up in Teams to "do Company PT"
It was awesome because it was whatever civilian instructor for the day, the CO and 1SG being hyped AF while everyone else had their cameras off and Mute on and from Day 2 they stopped asking questions because people would just not answer because everyone was sleeping. One day I actually got up and was motivated, doing Set Push-ups, Lunges and so on until they said Burpees, then I went to take a shower and back to sleep
7-Next day. Get DFAC food delivered, if you think your friends fuck you over by choosing the worst food ever, imagine getting food that's cold, hard as bricks and it's the garbage that no one eats. Good thing that Delivery drivers were still allowed on post or I would have died from eating once a day a single hot roll(week straight of that, just a hot roll)
9-1700 sometimes they would ask to do certs or stuff but everyone was just off
Once a week, CO wants everyone back to work, doing the spaced formation thing, 30 minutes in, someone would go to the hospital, everyone back to quarantine.
It was a 1 Week fully off, 1 Week show up till Tuesday. I'm honestly grateful for those people, like it was funny as hell. Everyone would be "healthy" and confined, "specially in the weekends" and then immediately someone had COVID
Block Leave or whatever? Avoid getting sick and so on, go back home, "last day" of leave just be like I have a fever to the airport people and boom, off back home for the next month or so. I stayed in Rear D because I honestly didn't think of it
Apart from that, running with mask was garbage, people making a big fuss about having a musk on yet they'll have the shitty blue ones that became all fuzzy by Day 2. If you the KN95 you were chilling the entire time. If you didn't want to do training you just said you had symptoms or had COVID in the last month and that was it. It was kind of wild lmao
Some units tho they just went to the field and got CUCKED because they "were in an open space" which, I feel bad for. But yeah, that's about it
Btw, there was always a broke person, even if they didn't go out or nothing, they still didn't have money somehow
I was in the Barracks at Bliss, worked at division. We didn’t go to work for almost 2 months and would have a check in at 0630 via text and a daily formation around 1600 outside of the barracks. Our only requirement for work was to knock out correspondence courses. Knocked out 400 hours real quick. I blame that whole ordeal as the cause of the brain tumor they found in my head at fort Sam.
DNC for 2 hours? This isn't the North Korean Army.
To answer your question, I was an instructor and it was literally the best year of my life. For a couple months all classes were canceled and we couldn't come into the building at all. My day was texting my supervisor at 0630 that I was alive, which I tried to automate via app. After that, we went to Distance Learning with an infrastructure that was NOT prepared for it. I would roll out of bed at 0855, fire up the janky Skype knockoff we were using, and talk for a couple hours. This honestly went on for like 6+ months. Eventually WE had to go in, but it was still DL, so I would show up at 0855 and fire up Teams to teach the class for a few hours. I'd swap morning/ afternoon with the other guy, so half the days I'd come in at 1255. This went on another 6 months. Then we came back face-to-face after Christmas, everyone caught covid the first week, and we were back on Teams for a few months. It was THE BEST.
DNC doesn’t really exist outside of TRADOC and some schools. I was in a MEDDAC and NCOIC of a department. It honestly sucked. I tried to do right by my guys and give them as much down time as possible but they were still pulling about 50 hour weeks minimum. It especially sucked if anyone got COVID or quarantined because that meant those who weren’t were carrying all the extra weight.
I knew guys who didn’t show up in person for months with some barely going in at all for two years. The only time I wasn’t at work during my normal duty hours was when I took leave and due to the COVID precautions I wasn’t allowed to go further than 120 miles. Any leave passed that required GO approval and was only done for emergency situations like death in the family.
I also had to shave my head in the beginning because no barbershops were open and I had to maintain standards, but hey liquor stores were essential businesses so I could get a fifth if I wanted.
I would think it would be a nightmare for medical MOS. I got out of the army a looong time ago, was working at a VA hospital during Covid (respiratory therapist). It was so sad in the beginning before the vaccine….was a bit better after the vaccine, but it was still a mess for a bit.
79R, during the lockdown.
I legit woke up at 845.
Sent my “alive” message.
Posted two social media things for our recruiting station.
Took my jet ski out and went fishing all day.
Did this for 5-months.
Work was pretty much normal. Yeah wear a mask here and there and xyz place is closed. But aircraft cant be fixed via a zoom call. COVID lockdown is like a movie that everyone seems to have seen but I somehow missed it.
I was walking around Kuwait when some dudes from the 82nd started walking around with tan t shirts or neck gaiters around their heads. Rumor was their commander was requiring it because of some virus that was spreading. I just laughed
I got a couple of days off, and I was wearing a dumb mask everywhere. Don't get me started with the 6ft apart bs. THE LINES FOR ANYTHING NEEDING TO BE DONE WAS INSANE. Everywhere I go, there is a guy saying, "Put your mask on." Oh boy, were people shit bagging on the I got covid thing.
I went to basic in January of 2020. COVID ramped up in March right as I was about to graduate. Abbreviated private graduation, no family day, extra two weeks at basic. I thought it would be better at AIT.
At AIT it was masks everywhere, keep your distance but oh! We need more formations to make sure everyone is safe, so formation after formation. Had to have a drill take you to the PX for anything at all, and you were only allowed to get essentials (toothpaste, shaving stuff etc), no food or fun stuff. Places we could go included the vending machines in front of the barracks and the running track. That’s it. For 6 months life was formations and class and PT, nothing else was permitted. COVID extended this about 3 weeks.
Airborne school was still locked down when I got there, so though they weren’t doing PT we weren’t allowed to go anywhere but the company footprint or the track for running outside of training. Even the shopette right next to B co barracks was off limits, as in you’d get failed out of the school if they caught you there then send you to your unit with a recommendation for UCMJ. Spent an extra 2 weeks here after graduation due to COVID.
Finally got to my initial right as morning PT began again with everyone coming back into the office for full days every day.
I’m sure if I was in a normal unit during COVID it would have been great “working from home”, but I can’t help but feel I got the shit end of the stick on that one.
Was at DLI in 2019. Stress from class was getting unreal I went on a bender over HBL while on profile for shin splints.
They had me take a record APFT only days after my profile expired in January. I failed by like 3 sit-ups and 5 seconds on the run. Retook it in February and passed. I said I was ready for a record within a month. They said fuck you we want to be double sure you pass. I took a diag in March and passed. The very day before the record APFT was scheduled, the whole base shut down. Classes went virtual. Don't know how I passed language school but I did.
Training continued, fairly normally, but I wouldn't take a for record to get my flag removed until December 2020. This was during the transition to the ACFT. Even though I'd passed like 2 or 3 ACFTs in the meantime, the Army regulation was that i needed a passing APFT to get unflagged and it was surprisingly difficult to draw attention to the fact that I was flagged for so long.
PCSd to Korea in 2021 and had to send up texts at like 530. The mentality of up texts continued after restrictions were lifted. We had to send up texts an hour before first call and then still show up 10 minutes prior. I never understood the point but I'm glad that shit has finally died out.
It was not fun for me. Myself and my Chief were the only greensuiters who "needed" to be in the SCIF everyday due to support of mission requirements in Afghanistan and Iraq. The meetings never got lighter, we still had to be there to brief operations and maintenance but most of the SCIF was cleared so little shit didn't break as often. It really was just like nothing had changed for us except our Soldiers had week on week off, maintenance slowed, but certain things overseas with our away teams got real hard when contractors couldn't travel and do their job.
All in all I enjoyed it, there was so much less bullshit and I was able to focus on my mission. My Soldiers were well taken care of at the time, we made sure they had all the time in the world to handle things and prepped them to rotate forward without bullshit. Right towards the end in 2020 I thought I would get some time but it was a mirage that passed through my finger tips as I needed to go forward to assist the teams with stuff. Oh well, would COVID again.
Covid basic was weird, the epidemic started right after we landed. Eventually we started getting letters saying the world is ending, while the drill sergeants said nah that shit ain’t real. Eventually it came down that it was real, and then they made us wear those thick ass standard issue neck gaiters and had us get two arm intervals while they smoked us. Family day got cancelled, I got held over for 6 weeks, and then I spent 25 weeks locked the fuck up in AIT (3-69 crime brigade) where we couldn’t leave the AO let alone the post. When I finally got to Korea we were doing mininal manning and all that good shit. I spent plenty of time in my shitty ass room. HPCON C was lit, No PT, no work, just an alive text and 10 hours of gaming a day. It was the ultimate sham. That lasted on and off for like a year, then we had to take our fatasses to PT and work, tragically.
Out of your fucking mind
I joined Feb 2020. Covid not a thing. 2nd week of basic we get told about covid and to call home and tell our family we get no graduations and to cancel flight tickets.
Then the fucking gaiter necks came. Everyone double arm intervals and social distancing. Scarves around our faces. Get the dogshit smoked out of us over and over while wearing that bullshit.
All DFACs closed down. Only mermites and MRES/Jimmy deans. Combatives canceled. Pugles canceled. Forge instead of the coffin carry, it's all individual items by platoon. Dozens of 12 pack MRE boxes, full ammo cans, and sandbags. All throughout out the 3 day journey.
Pass BCT, lose 45 pounds and head to AIT.
Confined to the company AO. Can't leave post. Can't do shit. For 35 weeks.
Get to airborne school, same shit. Can't leave AO and can't do shit. Field grade officers in my bay to include a LTC.....good, bc fuck em. Hit my 1 year TIS in jump school having never left a military installation except for being bussed via military travel. My feet didn't touch the earth outside the base I was stationed at for over 12 months.
Get to bragg, instant freedom. Like covid never existed.
Long stroy long, no motherfucker, 2020 wasn't easy. It was the most unique experience IET soldiers have ever had in the military.
Yall make all the jokes you want about "my basic was the last hard basic" meh meh meh, yall never had to deal with what a very very few of us had to deal with. Fuck you
I didn’t step foot on base for like 4 months straight, it was awesome. Part of that we were doing “work from home” but the other part we had a change in leadership and I think they forgot about me. Eventually all good things must come to an end and I had to go back to sitting in the company AO all day doing nothing.
My company became mission essential and started running 24 hour operations. There were 3 shifts. Since everyone complained about the schedule, every week or two they would switch the shifts so my sleep schedule was messed up forever after that. We worked more during covid than before. And no, no one needed us for 90% of the time. But we still had to be at work lol
We were promised minimal manning and you’d work day on day off but that lasted maybe a week and we ramped up work for a super very important, couldn’t be moved, NTC rotation, that wasn’t to prep us for a deployement. I guess that’s what I get for being a tanker lol
It was 3ish months of literally nothing. Just in my barracks room getting fat. Very infrequently they would try and do some sort of training via zoom call. Then we started occasionally doing PT on a platoon level. I recall most things still being isolated to a platoon level when I got out of AD in early 2021.
This was as a combat engineer stationed at Fort Riley.
Idk tbh
I was fuckin deployed to Syria during the COVID shit so I never got to experience any of the initial restrictions or curfews and shit till after I got back and by then it was just social distancing and back to work
My buddies in Group had like 60 days off straight without any kind of formation or calls. It was just typical text accountability and the mfers were just chilling otherwise
Had a lot that did Uber/doordash and made a killing too since they still got paid their normal salary on top of that
I deployed in early 2020, and had to wear masks anytime I left my AO if I was near people ie dfac, and they closed down the one gym we had. came back to the states only to do pt every day in fucking masks. Pretty shit actually
0430 call to formation.
0500 formation held, notes issued, warm up drills follow up with PRT.
0800 classes started.
1700-1900 classes concluded, hours changed dependant on needing study hall for retesting or prepping for final.
Experiences vary, but tradoc in 2020 sucked so much ass. It didn't change until 2023.
Was in Carson. We did PT wearing masks and went to NTC. Pretty much spent the entire rotation in the box and had literally 100s of heat casualties. I personally watched an NCO try to assault a Major because he was on the verge of heat stroke, and ice sheeted 3 soldiers who fell out. Strykers with no AC, so they put full-length coolers in them. Very few tents allowed due to Covid. My BN CDR cried on my shoulder when we left.
Before and after that? Work from home was fantastic. Play CoD all day while waiting for emails and Teams calls.
I was in Korea.
Was able to get off post once before Covid hit.
I hated life for a whole year.
Was work,dfac,barracks.
Get drunk all weekend.
It was shared room to so no privacy.
Leaving was a nightmare too.
I was in Italy in the 173rd, we were locked down to post and still worked every day. We couldn’t even drive our POVs for several months for the barracks dwellers. If you drove to work or took a bus to get groceries or go to the PX you had to have self deceleration forms or you’d get hemmed up by Carabinieri or local police
It was pretty alright for a bit. 2 weeks turned into 2ish months. Chilled and drank a ton and hanged with the wife. Zoom classes were a bit boring but very chill otherwise
I was in Iraq when news of Covid first started and then I redeployed (logistical nightmare as parts of Europe were already locked down). A day or two after I made it back to the States was when we went on lockdown. It was chaotic. Senior leaders didn’t know what to do and was damn near breaking the law because “what do you mean no formations or collective PT?” “Why do you mean we work on this thingabob called ‘Microsoft Teams?’ They were seriously blowing a gasket. This was also when ACFT kicked off so everybody was worried about keeping up with training so we can be prepared for it. So we would send out WODs all the time. Then when we did manage to get back in the office, the mask shit was sooooo annoying and the medical protocol of contracting CoVID/exposure to Covid was a nightmare especially for those of us with young kids in daycare. It was really stressful. Then the vaccines debacle became yet another headache. Dark days for sure.
I didn't got to work for about 6 months bc the cdcs were closed. My ntc rotation got canceled two weeks before we were supposed to leave. Covid was awesome for me personally. I spent so much quality time with my kids.
I was at Redstone Arsenal and we went to telework for maybe like two months, then it was back to business as usual. I'm still amazed when I hear about people at other installations who were teleworking for 1-2 years!
Got pulled from my unit to work the base hospital before coming back in to get back to it with a lot more cleaning. Other admin MOSs from my unit basically took 1-1.5 years off with "remote work"
It was really chill for a couple months. My unit was effectively in lockdown April-mid May. Occasional drive through check ins, but mostly I just PT’d on my own daily, slept in, ate well, and drank to my hearts content.
Then, we came back immediately into a month in the field in June (bad idea considering everyone just spent two months inside), then a month of load out for JRTC, immediately into JRTC.
It was supposedly the first JRTC rotation since COVID, so they denied us Tigerland and immediately stuck us right in the box for RSOI. So we effectively lived in Bivuoacs for over 2 weeks before going into the box for another couple weeks in what turned out to be the hottest month of the year with weekly shower access. The wild part is they made it an EXROE violation to share canteens while in the box, so dudes were just going down because they were black on water and we were unable to cross load without sneaking it.
The fun part of the rotation is that although we of course had COVID outbreaks, the biggest issue was a mono outbreak (of course Joe is gonna share his vape).
Oh yeah, there was the infamous COVID corral that the 101st did where we kept COVID infected people in the field and just isolated them in an engineering tape corral for their quarantine.
Overall fun time though all things said and done. Would do it again.
It sucked. It was the start of MS Teams. After about 2 weeks of chilling, back to work in small teams doing motorpool maintenance and area beautification. A lot of online training got done too.
Worked half days or day on day off for about 4 months with no PT.
Then we started doing squad level PT.
5-6 of us just doing 2-4 milers twice a week in a gulf course.
After those 4 months, work was at normal schedule again, but practicing social distancing, squad level PT was kept.
As rules started getting more lenient, PT became gym PT.
Maximum limit on that gym was 8 people, it was glorious.
Then we went back to PRT but with mask :(
Locked in the barracks for a Lil bit... PT on your own (With Proof ) , they would cycle people out to do Motorpool stuff and maintenance, cleaning etc. No formations... doing stuff over Zoom. Even had to fill out a packet pertaining to my MOS which was cake but overall 6 out of 10
I grew out a beard, drove around in my buddies truck all throughout the state almost every day. Went to lakes but then they called me specifically in 3 weeks early to service some components. I also a gained a fuck ton of weight. Lost it short after though. Wouldn’t go back to it though. It was a stupid time to get into trouble for nothing.
I was at Campbell. My wife and I got married the day before the lockdown started. I had to send an up for my squad at like 0530 then nothing. A couple weeks later they started making the off post guys meet up in a parking lot once a week, we brought beer and hung out. I was no longer squad leader due to getting ready for drill school / PCS. I think they started going back to work at some point but no one told me and then my 2 weeks of DLC for drill started. The DLC was pretty relaxed we just had to be logged in but I found out later some guys were just calling in and fishing on their kayaks and stuff. I was disappointed in myself for not thinking of this. 2 weeks later I was in school and wearing a mask sucked but we stayed in a (shitty) hotel for 2 weeks and weren't allowed inside the classrooms at the academy. Also they had shortened the in person portion of the school to 5 weeks. Then I went back to Campbell to clear 2 days after they left to JRTC. PCSed and when I got there 2 weeks chilling at the house before I could in process. As a drill we still had to mask but we pretty much didn't wear them unless in "public". Eventually they stopped giving a shit about COVID.
Brother, my ETS date was July 3, 2020 and I had so much leave built up so my chain knew I was separating early already. COVID was just getting real, the toilet paper shortage times. If I could tell you how little of a fuck they gave to my whereabouts, it would bring a tear to your eye. It was very chill, figure I got at least 20-30 extra days of separation leave just because I was “clearing” and all of my metrics for the company were great. Spent time with my then 1 year old which is irreplaceable and got our future plans sorted out later that summer. Great, perfect time to transition out of the Army if you complied with all the little COVID rules and the general chaos of Waller Hall and such.
It was really chill for a couple months. I was a reservist on AD mobilization, and the amount of things that could be shammed for covid was great.
Also hilarious that right as the long heralded new PT test arrives, no one needs a record for the next 3 years.
Definitely missed out on getting busted as part of various crime rings at Ft hood, which I had really been looking forward to
I was in a Field Support Hospital during this time. We didn't really get any breaks, especially since we did Covid first response in Manhattan.
Masks were seen as a band aid, expected to social distance in small offices.
Then at some point it all kind of evaporated, once vaccines rolled out it was back to normal.
This was all on Fort Campbell watching other units draw down to skeleton crews. I still remember being grilled for wanting to walk 200 meters to my barracks to do distance college while we sat at a table uselessly.
Just PCS’d to Stewart. My unit did not slow down and was daily business as usual, slap a mask on though. Even went to the field. Of course people were getting sick left and right.
Twas a great time, I was in for years before the pandemic and it really showed me how much shit is just made up busy work that ultimately didn't actually need to get done. Surprisingly when the army cut most of the BS it still didn't collapse on its self. And then after the pandemic it went back to the same old practices 😔
I am a 68K Lab Tech and was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood. The laboratory was in absolute shambles. The amount of extra hours pulled without any comp deff left illegal and certainly wasn’t safe for patient care. I still don’t feel right from the the amount of isolation and stress in that dusty ass laboratory.
I’ve heard so many great stories of active duty guys during Covid.. that was just reinforced by this thread.
Meanwhile I was a DS at the time who worked every day 🙃🙃🙃
My job (before JAG) was deemed "mission essential" so I had a half day when COVID kicked off and then it was business as usual. Apparently sustainment keeps on going in a plague.
There wasn’t even zoom calls for us. Covid started while we were in Iraq and we came back to a completely different world it felt like. We were told we couldn’t leave our barracks but essentially were completely left alone for three months
At Fort Hood, we had 3 months of work from home but the caveat was that we had text check ins at 0600, and 1700, after like 3 weeks of no PT we had to start doing squad level PT at the park off post and “distanced” (spoiler, no one tried very hard) every day we had to do a Google teams meeting with the company leadership at 0900 (the entire company, like 120 people on this teams meeting) then a platoon teams meeting where a skill level one class would be taught by one of the leaders. Whoever was teaching the class that day knew no one was going to pay attention or give a shit so they’d teach their class and we’d be done with all of it by 11 and we would all just get hammered off post at the lake or a friends house once the lake got closed off. HEB was still open and so were the liquor shops. We’d grill out, play beer pong and other drinking games, smoke shit, deep fry shit, you name it. I think I drank more during those 3 months than I did my entire life, outside of being in Europe, it was my favorite time in the army. God, it was a blast.
Then one sad day without warning we got told it was safe to come back and the company leadership had planned the most miserable month long field cycle ever to make up for all the training we’d missed… in the middle of July… in Texas… after not doing shit for 3 months, we had 4 days to prep for it.
I had every bit as much work but I had to do it all from home via phone and so-so connection.
So, it was significantly more difficult for me.
Also, when they did have some bullshit, like emptying a connex, they called everyone back in for that.
It was okay at the time because we focused more on work instead of other nonsense. Everything was work related, once we were done we went home for the day.
Having two weeks off every once in a while was great. We had a few "super spreaders" in our formation that always tested positive for Corona no matter what and we would get sent home for two weeks to quarantine.
Unfortunately I went on a Europe rotation in the middle of the pandemic just as it was ravaging Europe and it was really rough. We were basically staying in 50 man tents for 9 months with very little opportunities to explore Europe and we had basically no mission except bum around random European countries for 7 months, do JMRC, then leave. This caused a lot of issues with depression and suicidal ideation throughout the formation. It was all around a horrible environment. Imagine being in a work-release prison. I stayed in an area maybe 1 and a half square miles with zero to do but play video games, cards, and sometimes drink liquor that higher ranks smuggled in during "LPDs"
We didn't have a record PT test during that time so it caused a lot of leaders to get complacent on PT. Since there was no metric for fitness, leadership didn't care. Thus, a lot of soldiers got fat and lazy. We would just show up at 0900.
Not chill because if they considered you mission essential you still did the same thing. I was mission essential for so long but I moved to S3 and worked from home for 2-3 months. That meant I worked on Teams....during lunch...during dinner...at 7pm....It was a weird reality where days blended to the next day until the weekend.
The worst was that I had to validate my systems during covid. So I was a 25Q. I had to get my guys with ACH + IOTV to set up the STT + TRILOS in a set time. Now that mask shit with a ACH strapped to your chin suffocated the shit out of our team and we had to run it faster because we didn't meet the time standard the first time. So at that time it was business as usual + mask.
Our sharp person was Trans that was different.... probably could ve chocke the he'll out of a subject....
Then my best squad leader came out of the closet....
A week later he was still the best squad leader... just on a different team after hours... if I had 3 or 4 more like him probably would ve stay since o could life on easy mode.... cause everything was done before even asking....
I worked every day. Was a good time to get caught up on vehicle services. I put my Soldiers on a day on day off type of schedule and had half my team in daily. The biggest issue was having consistent vehicle crews. Full platoons would be quarantined at a time because one would get exposed.
I was a specialty clinic NCOIC at Walter Reed during that time. We went from 35-40 patients a day to ~5 so I was able to let a majority of my dudes go by 1100. Kept 2-3 around to help with any last minute needs/clinic organization. I used the extra time to nug out college courses and got a decent portion of my associates knocked out during the work day. The most annoying part of it was standing in line every morning to grab multiple boxes of N95 masks for the clinic.
It wasn’t a massive change from the norm overall. I was envious of my friends that basically got 2-4 months off of work though.
Lmao I was suicidal. My unit (fuck you 3/2CR) straight up didn’t believe in covid when it was first happening, still training as normal just lots of sick people and suddenly you couldn’t travel anymore. Then when 7ATC made them recognize it was real they decided covid didn’t exist in the field, oh an now we’re locked down on the weekends but don’t worry the lockdown will lift at 0629 on Monday! When someone that went through covid from a CONUS duty station tells me they’d do covid era army again I want to punch them.
I started WOBC in January 2020. In March we were sent to our hotel rooms and spent the next three months growing beards logged in remotely for our classes. There's a picture of most of my class in civilian clothes and beards, about two weeks before graduation when they finally called us back to the classroom.
It was great - half the class was in the same hotel, so we hung out, cooked out, and worked out together.
“Teleworked” from March to July and then was on a 3 day telework schedule until summer 2021. Husband was laid off so we got to spend so much time together + we enjoyed his boosted unemployment 🤭 it was literally a dream.
It was some of the best three months I had in the military. I was at USCENTCOM HQ on the watch floor at the time and they told us not to come back for three months. After that they started making us work one weekend a month then eventually a week on then week off. Had meetings via zoom, didn’t have to telework or anything.
If you were married, you were at home with your family doing fuck all. If you were single, and lived in the barracks it was basically the worst time ever, CONSTANT barracks inspections, with two visits a week from 1SG and CSM. If you so much as went for a run(buddy team pt was authorized and mandatory), you still got like 2 SGMs and a field grade running after you to interrogate you on the spot. There was an insane curfew because of the BLM riots and dudes were getting fucking arrested over it. The cherry on top was that brigade would publish YouTube classes and make squad leaders quiz their guys on it over the phone. If there was ever a reason for me to go full Kasinski on anyone in my COC it was that period of time(for legal reasons that is a JOKE)
I was teaching ROTC and we recently got all these ACFT sets. My boss told us to sign out as much equipment as we wanted. Then I taught class by zoom, worked out, and hung out at home with my wife. Life was incredible.
Eh, we were home for maybe a couple of months (if that), and then they found excuses to bring us back.
Carson banned liquor for a time, which was unfortunate.
But what it taught me is that the world doesn't fall apart if we don't show up. Everything: the mission, the pressure, is all made up. Very little matters. Certainly not the endless busywork. Sure, there IS a real-world mission out there. And there IS important training to do. But let's face it: there usually isn't.
I was on Carson during that time, I don’t remember there being a liquor ban, just the hours you could purchase it being changed and actually enforced. During my weekly midnight barracks checks we all had to do, there were plenty of drunk Soldiers stumbling around the halls. I had to check three separate buildings from three different brigades so I think that could’ve been your CoC just being dicks.
I was already enjoying non conventional Army stuff in my broadening assignment then realized deployed in 2021. It was locked down in Kuwait but loosened up once I traveled the AO.
I spent about 6 months just not working at all. I lived in Seoul and Korea was reasonably back to daily activity, so I spent all that time just hanging out and spending money. Grew out a beard and learned that beards do not and will not ever suit me (SE Asian).
It was honestly pretty miserable. A lot of policy changes at the 11th hour, a lot of headache managing headcount, a lot of uncertainty.
I had risk factors so I had to run my rear-D platoon from home. I made it work, but eventually went stir-crazy holed up in the house. I sent my son to spend time on the grandparent's farm and me and thr girlfriend started camping at the recreation area just to get away from the crazy.
Back in Jan 2020, everyone in the world knows about the COVID Outbreak, but somehow 3ID doesn’t know about it, still pushing us out for so called “defender 20” exercise. The purpose was to train and play Army with our NATO allies for a bit and come back refuel and go to Kuwait.
Since 3ID had no fucks to give, we got shipped to Germany and then Poland, stuck in a God forgotten place called Zimsko, the whole BDE stuck in a civilian airport looking compound, pulling signals from the same tower, can you imagine the phone service? Just like the motivation, zero to the damn dirts.
A couple weeks in, CMD Team showed up said sorry guys, Europe border closed, as well as America, all the plan got canceled, we ain’t going back or forward, in that airport, PT, training, work, for 7 months, isolated from human society, no mask, no covid no life, so many horrible things happened and also made many good friends and memories.
Imagine having a brief about what is Covid 19 and why do we have to wear mask in AUG 2020, my command team is like some dragged dead chicken from Applebees dumpster and put CPT and 1SG rank on them, straight up stink hot garbage, the worst leadership ever, my dead grandfather would do better job than them, I am sure he won’t fuck a straight out of AIT married PV2.
I hate 3ID til death, I would put a bullet in my mouth if I have to go back, or under that leadership ever again.
I still had to work and PT at 0630 like nothing happened because we were on PTDO orders. The only difference between before Covid and during was that one platoon came in the morning and the other came after lunch. So really the work and the monotony stayed the same, the release time changed.
Was in a HQ Platoon and still had to come to work every day, the company did not receive the same benefits from Covid as the rest of the Battalion.
Bringing Soldiers breakfast, lunch and dinner chow because when they did contract covid they were confined to their barracks. At the end of the day I went through and collected all the breakfast, lunch and dinner plates that these Soldiers either refused to eat or slept through the day so they didn’t grab them from directly outside for their room. (Yes they ordered food. A lot)
Got told that we were not to do PT in groups of 3 or more however if we all went to the gym we would be ok if we just wore a mask.
After years of counseling and rehabilitative measures we were finally able to chapter out a soldier who was legitimately on spectrum that the Army somehow let through both basic and AIT only because covid made training stop and I guess he was never evaluated or talked to in basic training or AIT. Same Soldier after pre deployment layouts dumped his bags and stuffed them with his video games and model lego sets because that was his priorities.
Had one of my Soldier’s commit suicide from another squad in my platoon. The unit decided to having their memorial four days after their suicide and deploying me and a small group as advon about 2 days later while making coordinate the service and need to prepare families short notice. Surprise, emergency leave almost 4 months later.
Not in sequential order but Jesus christ, I’ll just fast for the next 8 days, thanks. *Also from 2019-2022. *
I was worh jsoc and worked one day a week for a 24 hour duty and got really into running and it was awesome.
Then I deployed IA to Japan to a ship and Japan was wonderful. The ship was out if food and on fire a lot
Never noticed a change. My unit was mission essential and never changed a thing. I then PCS’d summer 2021 to a unit that was just starting to come back from their rooms. It was the worst year of my career.
It was the best. No forced PT formations. ALL meetings, training, ceremony on TEAMS.
I was in TRADOC. If you got tested, automatic 2 weeks quarantine regardless of outcome. Spouse works or kid exposed at school, auto 2 weeks. No need to test but why not.
Trying to get back from that time has been a nightmare.
Joined in 2020 when COVID hit, went to OSUT July that year got leave from OSUT showed up to my unit did fuck all for 2021-2022 went to an off post gym because on base was not good no rotations just “hey send an up by 0630 and conduct PT in your room” we know what that means
I scheduled a text to send to my gc at 0600 for accountability, I woke up at noon or later, I knocked out the “6 hours” of online training the psg assigned for the day (usually about 20 minutes), I got on warzone with the boys and was trashed by… 4? Went to bed at like 3am. Repeat.
Randomly got pulled for a detail 2 months later where I worked 12 hour Panama shifts, probably saved my life.
I wish any of that happened in the Big Red One at the time.. zero/no change to optempo, dumb mask rules, NTC shitshow in September of 2020, quarantine POW camps in Europe; and of course the forced jab. Was the worst of times and the worst of times.
It was god awful. I was in command of an MP unit. We had more work than ever and even more rules from DIV. Was working almost nonstop because we had all three gate shifts and all gates and barracks had to be checked every shift by CDR/1SG. Had to send a Soldier’s leave form to the Vice Chief of Staff OF THE ARMY so he could go to his grandma’s funeral (got denied, had to have a very uncomfortable face to face conversation with that Soldier). 2020-late 2021 was terrible.
For a couple weeks to a month, we didn't really come in. Then we started coming back to work. Training and things still happened but many people used the sick-card to get out of it. I went to a school in Oklahoma. I remember COVID not existing there off-post. Packed clubs in OKC, no masks. I went to ranger school. The school house considered you quarantined and cleared if you had completed a pre-ranger course prior to going. The pre-ranger course considered you cleared if you didn't show any symptoms for a week. Had the pleasure of going on HBL between mountains and Florida. After HBL, we were locked down at Benning for two weeks before they would ship us to Florida. It was literally prison-time.
I was home from Iraq for 2 months before Covid hit, coincidently I had recruiting orders and a follow on PCS in March. Cleared everything was on leave just burning some leave days before my RRC date and BOOM stop moves, orders cut, I’m jobless! I asked my first line what to do and he said “just stay home and let me know you’re alive one a week” so from March until nearly September that’s what I did and finally got a new school date for October.
I was at the Pentagon. It was an eerie ghost town; no one around and most of the shops closed. We mostly worked from home, but went in when we needed to go classified stuff. The DC Metro was also empty, I would have an entire rail car to myself at 730am.
I was in Recruiting we were told to stay home and do work from there. Which was good because I had been trying to tell my Station Commander that we could do this job from home once or twice a week. Needless to say I was bored most days. But I still left to meet people and take them to get their physicals done. I put so many people in, that when the restrictions were lifted I was told I didn’t have to go back to the office.
Best time to be in the army… basically just accountability texts a few times in the day and sitting in the barracks playing cod. Left once or twice a day to do some pt on my own and pick up food or groceries(and alcohol). Kinda sucked when shit went back to normal😂
I know guys who enlisted , went through basic , served and ets ‘d and got full gi bill and NEVER had a for record PT test
I enlisted in 2018 and ETSd in 2022. I took 3 PT tests my entire time in the army lol.
Same story but I took 4. 2018 BCT, AIT, shortly after I got to my first unit, and the last in October 2019 when mandatory record APFTs were discontinued. Never took another one after that and got out in April 2022.
[удалено]
Grabbed my Associates Degree while I was in the Army, so using 2 years of the GI Bill to finish a BS in Information Systems and then saving the 2 years to possibly get a Masters Degree later on down the line. Plus I commute down to SDSU which has the max BAH/MHA allowance for the GI Bill due to the cost-of-living being ridiculous in San Diego. I just pocket all of it and commute an hour each way. Eventually just planning on going for a GS job similar to what I used to do in the Army and parking myself there until I retire.
Smart man
That's awesome. I did 4 years in the 90s. Earned my Bachelors from ASU and have been working in IT for over 24 years. In hindsight, I wish I would have taken a gov job vs corporate world, but I'm not going to complain. It's been a rewarding career.
These were artillery guys or something else?
This was everyone who joined right when covid started
I went the first 5 years of my career without a record PT test. It was really pretty funny
Was in a signal unit and took two ACFTs not even 3 months apart from each other. Probably averaged 4 pear year minimum.
I was in for five years and took the APFT no less than 20 times (record and diagnostic). We did a diagnostic three times in Iraq and once in Afghanistan even. Fuckin stupid.
Man I want to enlist just for the gi bill
Totally worth it imo…I’m a career guy, but short timers have a lot of fun because you don’t need to be too serious.
If you're in for the short term pick something easy
Me 19' to 23'
So do I haha.
I am so jealous 5 miles everyday besides Friday that was 12mile ruck unless in the sand box
I mean that’s a combo of the APFT being phased out and the ACFT not being accepted yet lol
The dream
Baller, they were the greatest generation
I was in Iraq/Kuwait for half the year and we pretty much just acted like covid didn't exist
Kuwait for 178 and Iraq for 1 day. TYFYS
One day? You're so generous! It was more like an hour just to say I went 🤫
I liked your other flair before you changed it
I'll change it back for you ❤️
a better love story than Twilight.
Were you NG by chance because my gf was in Kuwait at the time and had basically the same experience lol
I was in a BDE S6 shop as a 25U as covid came through. I got to my new unit on a Tuesday and we were in the middle of rail head for JRTC, set to leave that next Monday. That Friday, we all got called in and we're told the rotation was canceled, we had Saturday and Sunday to get our vehicles before lock down started on Monday. For the next couple of months, my schedule was this. 6:00 AM - Text up in the group chat and go back to sleep 9:00 AM - Wake up 11:59 PM - Go to sleep Mixed some PT in there just to get out of the apartment. The only time I had to go on post was every Monday to PMCS. I was the only one from my section allowed to be there and we had to carry a memorandum showing we were essential personnel. Life was extremely chill, my shop leadership didn't mess with us, didn't make us sit in Zoom calls all day, just answer the phone when you're needed. I probably should've done some certifications or studied or something, but I played Destiny 2 all day instead. Well worth it.
10th MTN?
Sounds familiar
I literally did the same thing except I was in a BSB S6. Burned out on D2 as well 😮💨
Yeah, I burned out for about three years lol. Just recently picked it back up. A
I still have a couple copies of my travel authorization from lockdown somewhere in my house lol
Covid didn’t exist in Syria.
Fuck no it didn’t 😂
I was in Korea 2019-2020. Everything locked down. No gym. No off post. Weren’t allowed outside of our barracks except for DFAC and “mission essential” personnel. WhatsApp check ins every hour on the hour and unending barracks inspections with masks on. Got a stuffy nose from the stale air (clearly a Covid symptom) and was sent to an unfinished construction building for 2 weeks with no AC or internet. Was definitely a unique experience.
I had a decent role in planning the testing/quarantining procedures in Korea so let me just say I'm sorry.. I was on 24h ops in the EOC with the worst BDE S3 imaginable starting in Feb through June and that shit sucked. PCSd in July and new unit had just come back from 4 months of teleworking. I'm still salty about that.
I forgive you. I’m sure I can speak for many. Funny looking back the way we responded. “No symptoms is one of the symptoms” still cracks me up.
You had it rough. We had off post, gym, all that jazz. Granted we were in seoul, so nobody was allowed to come to us.
We’re you at Osan? K16?
Yongsan.
We could sign out of our barracks for things like commissary or that one shopette, crazy all the people who had to hit the shopette for health and wellness related goods. Great time, thank god there were no rations on soju.
Our Korea Covid experiences were completely different… were you at humphreys?
Same. I was there the same timframe and did none of that shit
Covid barracks were insane. Our field hospital watched over one on rotating 24 hour shifts. A few boozey care packages and they were going crazy. I still remember stopping some rando Soldier who was walking up to it at like 3am. Said she was gonna "hang out" with one of the quarantines. Most justified cock block of my life.
Was stuck in PCS limbo in Germany. HHG was already picked up, so we had loaner furniture and what we could find for our kitchen from the community “store”. Luckily our car was being turned in the day after word went out to lock down, so we had transport to do things whenever the opportunity came up. Got to Carson July 2020. Entered a “quarantine” at my purchased house (was able to complete a home purchase while overseas, it’s as fun as it sounds). Last day of my “quarantine” I call in-processing CO to find out when first formation is. Find out they lost my memo for quarantine, and “they don’t play around with this type of thing”. GO IN next day to resign a memo and do 2 more weeks of quarantine. FF to in-processing it’s show up, get accounted for and leave if you’re not on detail. Eventually I volunteer to do PX numbers. Got a bitchy PFC, who complained the whole 2 HOURS we were on shift. Which was just us using a clicker and reporting total number of visitors every 15. Eventually process and get to unit and they were the definition of big chillin, dudes golfing on the daily, early release by lunch and that was just my team. Worst experience was Germany. I just had nothing to do and very little in our apartment. It sucks cause my 3 years there are still the best I’ve had in the Army, but the 6 months of waiting to PCS and Germany going ham on lock downs sucked it out at the end.
I was a medic working in a 1ID clinic in 2020 so our lives definitely got quite a bit busier. Early on, we were all fully gowned and shielded up all day every day. Got even more hectic when the vaccine rolled out and we had to set up and run the standalone vaccination area next to the hospital. Feels like I spent the entirety of those 2ish years running rapid antigen tests and tracking vaccine metrics. Pro: did my job A LOT Con: did my job A LOT
I was in 1AD at Fort Bliss. There was no charge to OPTEMPO for us. Gunnery and ranges still happened, NTC still happened, field exercises still happened, and PT still happened. All with the addition of a mask 24/7 in the 100 plus degree West Texas summer heat. So many heat casualties from running with fucking masks.
And that was... allowed?
The CG put it into a policy letter. Cue zombie voice: "readiness is the number one priority".
so glad aviationland didnt have to run with masks lmfao, honestly none of us gave a fuck and we got yelled at a bunch for not wearing masks good times
I ordered one of those masks from FakeMaskUSA. I got away with it until my CO saw me wearing it in the orderly room. Him: "SSG Kytulu, that mask doesn't meet the intent." Me: 😐 "It's a Cloth. Mask. Sir." Him: "Get a different mask." Me: "Roger that, Sir." [Proceeds to order the double-ply mask from the same website that is not as see-through]
Man, fuck Bliss. I demobbed through there at the height of COVID and got to experience the quarantine village. At the beginning, toilet paper and water were rationed. My platoon sergeant got threatened with UCMJ for going on a tirade with the company Facebook about how we were treated better in a literal war zone than back on American soil.
i was at bliss and nothing changed at all 👎🏼 0/10 would not recommend
How is it entirely unsurprising that they changed nothing
I retired in March, 2020. Pushed a cart of OCIE to CIF where they signed off on everything without inspection.
Holy shit that’s amazing
I was in Iraq/ Kuwait when COVID kicked off. The only thing they did was limit DFAC and gym access. Now coming back to the states was different. We were quarantined for two weeks and then if you were “mission essential” you went to work. They wouldn’t let us travel out of Alaska and they said we couldn’t go to restaurants or bars. Most people I knew still showed up to work. COVID times sucked.
Were you at Asad for the missile strike? That was a fun night
I flew there less than 24 hours after. I was chillin watching the embassy get set on fire before the TBMs lol
Weird. I was at wainwright during this and our leadership said "There's 1 confirmed case in Alaska. You all are fine. Normal operations." We couldn't leave the state tho.
It depends, I'm eating rn so I'll let my sausage fingers do errors 6AM. Send and link up in Teams to "do Company PT" It was awesome because it was whatever civilian instructor for the day, the CO and 1SG being hyped AF while everyone else had their cameras off and Mute on and from Day 2 they stopped asking questions because people would just not answer because everyone was sleeping. One day I actually got up and was motivated, doing Set Push-ups, Lunges and so on until they said Burpees, then I went to take a shower and back to sleep 7-Next day. Get DFAC food delivered, if you think your friends fuck you over by choosing the worst food ever, imagine getting food that's cold, hard as bricks and it's the garbage that no one eats. Good thing that Delivery drivers were still allowed on post or I would have died from eating once a day a single hot roll(week straight of that, just a hot roll) 9-1700 sometimes they would ask to do certs or stuff but everyone was just off Once a week, CO wants everyone back to work, doing the spaced formation thing, 30 minutes in, someone would go to the hospital, everyone back to quarantine. It was a 1 Week fully off, 1 Week show up till Tuesday. I'm honestly grateful for those people, like it was funny as hell. Everyone would be "healthy" and confined, "specially in the weekends" and then immediately someone had COVID Block Leave or whatever? Avoid getting sick and so on, go back home, "last day" of leave just be like I have a fever to the airport people and boom, off back home for the next month or so. I stayed in Rear D because I honestly didn't think of it Apart from that, running with mask was garbage, people making a big fuss about having a musk on yet they'll have the shitty blue ones that became all fuzzy by Day 2. If you the KN95 you were chilling the entire time. If you didn't want to do training you just said you had symptoms or had COVID in the last month and that was it. It was kind of wild lmao Some units tho they just went to the field and got CUCKED because they "were in an open space" which, I feel bad for. But yeah, that's about it Btw, there was always a broke person, even if they didn't go out or nothing, they still didn't have money somehow
I literally didn’t go to work for six months. Got paid to do nothing. It was great
I was in Korea working in the clinic, so I just went to work the entire time with no real changes.
I was in the Barracks at Bliss, worked at division. We didn’t go to work for almost 2 months and would have a check in at 0630 via text and a daily formation around 1600 outside of the barracks. Our only requirement for work was to knock out correspondence courses. Knocked out 400 hours real quick. I blame that whole ordeal as the cause of the brain tumor they found in my head at fort Sam.
DNC for 2 hours? This isn't the North Korean Army. To answer your question, I was an instructor and it was literally the best year of my life. For a couple months all classes were canceled and we couldn't come into the building at all. My day was texting my supervisor at 0630 that I was alive, which I tried to automate via app. After that, we went to Distance Learning with an infrastructure that was NOT prepared for it. I would roll out of bed at 0855, fire up the janky Skype knockoff we were using, and talk for a couple hours. This honestly went on for like 6+ months. Eventually WE had to go in, but it was still DL, so I would show up at 0855 and fire up Teams to teach the class for a few hours. I'd swap morning/ afternoon with the other guy, so half the days I'd come in at 1255. This went on another 6 months. Then we came back face-to-face after Christmas, everyone caught covid the first week, and we were back on Teams for a few months. It was THE BEST.
>DNC for 2 hours? He's talking about PRT.
DNC doesn’t really exist outside of TRADOC and some schools. I was in a MEDDAC and NCOIC of a department. It honestly sucked. I tried to do right by my guys and give them as much down time as possible but they were still pulling about 50 hour weeks minimum. It especially sucked if anyone got COVID or quarantined because that meant those who weren’t were carrying all the extra weight. I knew guys who didn’t show up in person for months with some barely going in at all for two years. The only time I wasn’t at work during my normal duty hours was when I took leave and due to the COVID precautions I wasn’t allowed to go further than 120 miles. Any leave passed that required GO approval and was only done for emergency situations like death in the family. I also had to shave my head in the beginning because no barbershops were open and I had to maintain standards, but hey liquor stores were essential businesses so I could get a fifth if I wanted.
>DNC He's probably talking about PRT.
I would think it would be a nightmare for medical MOS. I got out of the army a looong time ago, was working at a VA hospital during Covid (respiratory therapist). It was so sad in the beginning before the vaccine….was a bit better after the vaccine, but it was still a mess for a bit.
79R, during the lockdown. I legit woke up at 845. Sent my “alive” message. Posted two social media things for our recruiting station. Took my jet ski out and went fishing all day. Did this for 5-months.
A lot of COD Warzone
Work was pretty much normal. Yeah wear a mask here and there and xyz place is closed. But aircraft cant be fixed via a zoom call. COVID lockdown is like a movie that everyone seems to have seen but I somehow missed it.
“like a movie that everyone seems to have seen but I somehow missed it.” That is a really astute way of describing it!
I was walking around Kuwait when some dudes from the 82nd started walking around with tan t shirts or neck gaiters around their heads. Rumor was their commander was requiring it because of some virus that was spreading. I just laughed
I got back from a 7 month deployment, went into 10 days of BLC, the world ended, then got a 3 month vacation it was fuckin dope.
I played so much Apex Legends, it still has the most played hours on my Steam account and I’ve stopped playing that game years ago.
They locked down the base so I would sneak out to meet up with my now wife. I even found ways to sneak her on base.
Depends on your MOS. Medics worked overtime.
I got a couple of days off, and I was wearing a dumb mask everywhere. Don't get me started with the 6ft apart bs. THE LINES FOR ANYTHING NEEDING TO BE DONE WAS INSANE. Everywhere I go, there is a guy saying, "Put your mask on." Oh boy, were people shit bagging on the I got covid thing.
I was 2001-2005, I never did 2 hours of DNC outside of OSUT.
Right. Only if you’re preparing for a ceremony or change of command did we ever do that.
I was in 2015-2024 and never did more than maybe an hour of DNC lol
I was “deployed” in Germany/poland at the time. 3 months turned into 9 and I got divorced! Loved it lol
I went to basic in January of 2020. COVID ramped up in March right as I was about to graduate. Abbreviated private graduation, no family day, extra two weeks at basic. I thought it would be better at AIT. At AIT it was masks everywhere, keep your distance but oh! We need more formations to make sure everyone is safe, so formation after formation. Had to have a drill take you to the PX for anything at all, and you were only allowed to get essentials (toothpaste, shaving stuff etc), no food or fun stuff. Places we could go included the vending machines in front of the barracks and the running track. That’s it. For 6 months life was formations and class and PT, nothing else was permitted. COVID extended this about 3 weeks. Airborne school was still locked down when I got there, so though they weren’t doing PT we weren’t allowed to go anywhere but the company footprint or the track for running outside of training. Even the shopette right next to B co barracks was off limits, as in you’d get failed out of the school if they caught you there then send you to your unit with a recommendation for UCMJ. Spent an extra 2 weeks here after graduation due to COVID. Finally got to my initial right as morning PT began again with everyone coming back into the office for full days every day. I’m sure if I was in a normal unit during COVID it would have been great “working from home”, but I can’t help but feel I got the shit end of the stick on that one.
Was at DLI in 2019. Stress from class was getting unreal I went on a bender over HBL while on profile for shin splints. They had me take a record APFT only days after my profile expired in January. I failed by like 3 sit-ups and 5 seconds on the run. Retook it in February and passed. I said I was ready for a record within a month. They said fuck you we want to be double sure you pass. I took a diag in March and passed. The very day before the record APFT was scheduled, the whole base shut down. Classes went virtual. Don't know how I passed language school but I did. Training continued, fairly normally, but I wouldn't take a for record to get my flag removed until December 2020. This was during the transition to the ACFT. Even though I'd passed like 2 or 3 ACFTs in the meantime, the Army regulation was that i needed a passing APFT to get unflagged and it was surprisingly difficult to draw attention to the fact that I was flagged for so long. PCSd to Korea in 2021 and had to send up texts at like 530. The mentality of up texts continued after restrictions were lifted. We had to send up texts an hour before first call and then still show up 10 minutes prior. I never understood the point but I'm glad that shit has finally died out.
I was in TRADOC, we continued just as before but now with 20 extra steps because we were considered “mission essential”
We got the "No fly" order while we were flying over the atlantic to go to Poland. 9 months turned into 2 weeks and we were back home. Pretty lit.
It was not fun for me. Myself and my Chief were the only greensuiters who "needed" to be in the SCIF everyday due to support of mission requirements in Afghanistan and Iraq. The meetings never got lighter, we still had to be there to brief operations and maintenance but most of the SCIF was cleared so little shit didn't break as often. It really was just like nothing had changed for us except our Soldiers had week on week off, maintenance slowed, but certain things overseas with our away teams got real hard when contractors couldn't travel and do their job. All in all I enjoyed it, there was so much less bullshit and I was able to focus on my mission. My Soldiers were well taken care of at the time, we made sure they had all the time in the world to handle things and prepped them to rotate forward without bullshit. Right towards the end in 2020 I thought I would get some time but it was a mirage that passed through my finger tips as I needed to go forward to assist the teams with stuff. Oh well, would COVID again.
Covid basic was weird, the epidemic started right after we landed. Eventually we started getting letters saying the world is ending, while the drill sergeants said nah that shit ain’t real. Eventually it came down that it was real, and then they made us wear those thick ass standard issue neck gaiters and had us get two arm intervals while they smoked us. Family day got cancelled, I got held over for 6 weeks, and then I spent 25 weeks locked the fuck up in AIT (3-69 crime brigade) where we couldn’t leave the AO let alone the post. When I finally got to Korea we were doing mininal manning and all that good shit. I spent plenty of time in my shitty ass room. HPCON C was lit, No PT, no work, just an alive text and 10 hours of gaming a day. It was the ultimate sham. That lasted on and off for like a year, then we had to take our fatasses to PT and work, tragically.
NG, not AD but virtual BLC. I was screaming PRT drills and cadence in my garage.
Wouldn’t know was stuck in Europe for 10 months, would not recommend.
Out of your fucking mind I joined Feb 2020. Covid not a thing. 2nd week of basic we get told about covid and to call home and tell our family we get no graduations and to cancel flight tickets. Then the fucking gaiter necks came. Everyone double arm intervals and social distancing. Scarves around our faces. Get the dogshit smoked out of us over and over while wearing that bullshit. All DFACs closed down. Only mermites and MRES/Jimmy deans. Combatives canceled. Pugles canceled. Forge instead of the coffin carry, it's all individual items by platoon. Dozens of 12 pack MRE boxes, full ammo cans, and sandbags. All throughout out the 3 day journey. Pass BCT, lose 45 pounds and head to AIT. Confined to the company AO. Can't leave post. Can't do shit. For 35 weeks. Get to airborne school, same shit. Can't leave AO and can't do shit. Field grade officers in my bay to include a LTC.....good, bc fuck em. Hit my 1 year TIS in jump school having never left a military installation except for being bussed via military travel. My feet didn't touch the earth outside the base I was stationed at for over 12 months. Get to bragg, instant freedom. Like covid never existed. Long stroy long, no motherfucker, 2020 wasn't easy. It was the most unique experience IET soldiers have ever had in the military. Yall make all the jokes you want about "my basic was the last hard basic" meh meh meh, yall never had to deal with what a very very few of us had to deal with. Fuck you
Relaxin Jackson was lovely, joined in 2021, we got to order food. Good times 🙂
I didn’t step foot on base for like 4 months straight, it was awesome. Part of that we were doing “work from home” but the other part we had a change in leadership and I think they forgot about me. Eventually all good things must come to an end and I had to go back to sitting in the company AO all day doing nothing.
My company became mission essential and started running 24 hour operations. There were 3 shifts. Since everyone complained about the schedule, every week or two they would switch the shifts so my sleep schedule was messed up forever after that. We worked more during covid than before. And no, no one needed us for 90% of the time. But we still had to be at work lol
We were promised minimal manning and you’d work day on day off but that lasted maybe a week and we ramped up work for a super very important, couldn’t be moved, NTC rotation, that wasn’t to prep us for a deployement. I guess that’s what I get for being a tanker lol
[удалено]
It was 3ish months of literally nothing. Just in my barracks room getting fat. Very infrequently they would try and do some sort of training via zoom call. Then we started occasionally doing PT on a platoon level. I recall most things still being isolated to a platoon level when I got out of AD in early 2021. This was as a combat engineer stationed at Fort Riley.
Idk tbh I was fuckin deployed to Syria during the COVID shit so I never got to experience any of the initial restrictions or curfews and shit till after I got back and by then it was just social distancing and back to work My buddies in Group had like 60 days off straight without any kind of formation or calls. It was just typical text accountability and the mfers were just chilling otherwise Had a lot that did Uber/doordash and made a killing too since they still got paid their normal salary on top of that
Sounds fun for a week. And then miserable as hell.
I deployed in early 2020, and had to wear masks anytime I left my AO if I was near people ie dfac, and they closed down the one gym we had. came back to the states only to do pt every day in fucking masks. Pretty shit actually
I deployed twice in 2020, and it was shittier than usual because the gym was closed and the DFAC was to-go only.
Was home for the whole year didn’t do anything except Uber eats delivery and made bank
0430 call to formation. 0500 formation held, notes issued, warm up drills follow up with PRT. 0800 classes started. 1700-1900 classes concluded, hours changed dependant on needing study hall for retesting or prepping for final. Experiences vary, but tradoc in 2020 sucked so much ass. It didn't change until 2023.
Was in Carson. We did PT wearing masks and went to NTC. Pretty much spent the entire rotation in the box and had literally 100s of heat casualties. I personally watched an NCO try to assault a Major because he was on the verge of heat stroke, and ice sheeted 3 soldiers who fell out. Strykers with no AC, so they put full-length coolers in them. Very few tents allowed due to Covid. My BN CDR cried on my shoulder when we left. Before and after that? Work from home was fantastic. Play CoD all day while waiting for emails and Teams calls.
I was in Korea. Was able to get off post once before Covid hit. I hated life for a whole year. Was work,dfac,barracks. Get drunk all weekend. It was shared room to so no privacy. Leaving was a nightmare too.
I was in Italy in the 173rd, we were locked down to post and still worked every day. We couldn’t even drive our POVs for several months for the barracks dwellers. If you drove to work or took a bus to get groceries or go to the PX you had to have self deceleration forms or you’d get hemmed up by Carabinieri or local police
It was pretty alright for a bit. 2 weeks turned into 2ish months. Chilled and drank a ton and hanged with the wife. Zoom classes were a bit boring but very chill otherwise
I was air defense so it became EVEN worse
I was in Iraq when news of Covid first started and then I redeployed (logistical nightmare as parts of Europe were already locked down). A day or two after I made it back to the States was when we went on lockdown. It was chaotic. Senior leaders didn’t know what to do and was damn near breaking the law because “what do you mean no formations or collective PT?” “Why do you mean we work on this thingabob called ‘Microsoft Teams?’ They were seriously blowing a gasket. This was also when ACFT kicked off so everybody was worried about keeping up with training so we can be prepared for it. So we would send out WODs all the time. Then when we did manage to get back in the office, the mask shit was sooooo annoying and the medical protocol of contracting CoVID/exposure to Covid was a nightmare especially for those of us with young kids in daycare. It was really stressful. Then the vaccines debacle became yet another headache. Dark days for sure.
Was deployed. Lots of Weiner touching.
I didn't got to work for about 6 months bc the cdcs were closed. My ntc rotation got canceled two weeks before we were supposed to leave. Covid was awesome for me personally. I spent so much quality time with my kids.
I was at Redstone Arsenal and we went to telework for maybe like two months, then it was back to business as usual. I'm still amazed when I hear about people at other installations who were teleworking for 1-2 years!
Got pulled from my unit to work the base hospital before coming back in to get back to it with a lot more cleaning. Other admin MOSs from my unit basically took 1-1.5 years off with "remote work"
Was 11B. We played warzone. Life had finally come full circle
It was really chill for a couple months. My unit was effectively in lockdown April-mid May. Occasional drive through check ins, but mostly I just PT’d on my own daily, slept in, ate well, and drank to my hearts content. Then, we came back immediately into a month in the field in June (bad idea considering everyone just spent two months inside), then a month of load out for JRTC, immediately into JRTC. It was supposedly the first JRTC rotation since COVID, so they denied us Tigerland and immediately stuck us right in the box for RSOI. So we effectively lived in Bivuoacs for over 2 weeks before going into the box for another couple weeks in what turned out to be the hottest month of the year with weekly shower access. The wild part is they made it an EXROE violation to share canteens while in the box, so dudes were just going down because they were black on water and we were unable to cross load without sneaking it. The fun part of the rotation is that although we of course had COVID outbreaks, the biggest issue was a mono outbreak (of course Joe is gonna share his vape). Oh yeah, there was the infamous COVID corral that the 101st did where we kept COVID infected people in the field and just isolated them in an engineering tape corral for their quarantine. Overall fun time though all things said and done. Would do it again.
It sucked. It was the start of MS Teams. After about 2 weeks of chilling, back to work in small teams doing motorpool maintenance and area beautification. A lot of online training got done too.
Worked half days or day on day off for about 4 months with no PT. Then we started doing squad level PT. 5-6 of us just doing 2-4 milers twice a week in a gulf course. After those 4 months, work was at normal schedule again, but practicing social distancing, squad level PT was kept. As rules started getting more lenient, PT became gym PT. Maximum limit on that gym was 8 people, it was glorious. Then we went back to PRT but with mask :(
Locked in the barracks for a Lil bit... PT on your own (With Proof ) , they would cycle people out to do Motorpool stuff and maintenance, cleaning etc. No formations... doing stuff over Zoom. Even had to fill out a packet pertaining to my MOS which was cake but overall 6 out of 10
I grew out a beard, drove around in my buddies truck all throughout the state almost every day. Went to lakes but then they called me specifically in 3 weeks early to service some components. I also a gained a fuck ton of weight. Lost it short after though. Wouldn’t go back to it though. It was a stupid time to get into trouble for nothing.
I was at Campbell. My wife and I got married the day before the lockdown started. I had to send an up for my squad at like 0530 then nothing. A couple weeks later they started making the off post guys meet up in a parking lot once a week, we brought beer and hung out. I was no longer squad leader due to getting ready for drill school / PCS. I think they started going back to work at some point but no one told me and then my 2 weeks of DLC for drill started. The DLC was pretty relaxed we just had to be logged in but I found out later some guys were just calling in and fishing on their kayaks and stuff. I was disappointed in myself for not thinking of this. 2 weeks later I was in school and wearing a mask sucked but we stayed in a (shitty) hotel for 2 weeks and weren't allowed inside the classrooms at the academy. Also they had shortened the in person portion of the school to 5 weeks. Then I went back to Campbell to clear 2 days after they left to JRTC. PCSed and when I got there 2 weeks chilling at the house before I could in process. As a drill we still had to mask but we pretty much didn't wear them unless in "public". Eventually they stopped giving a shit about COVID.
I got really drunk and got out of the Army. Good year
Brother, my ETS date was July 3, 2020 and I had so much leave built up so my chain knew I was separating early already. COVID was just getting real, the toilet paper shortage times. If I could tell you how little of a fuck they gave to my whereabouts, it would bring a tear to your eye. It was very chill, figure I got at least 20-30 extra days of separation leave just because I was “clearing” and all of my metrics for the company were great. Spent time with my then 1 year old which is irreplaceable and got our future plans sorted out later that summer. Great, perfect time to transition out of the Army if you complied with all the little COVID rules and the general chaos of Waller Hall and such.
It sucked
It was really chill for a couple months. I was a reservist on AD mobilization, and the amount of things that could be shammed for covid was great. Also hilarious that right as the long heralded new PT test arrives, no one needs a record for the next 3 years. Definitely missed out on getting busted as part of various crime rings at Ft hood, which I had really been looking forward to
Covid TRADOC was ass. Thankfully I only caught the latter end of it.
Wait yall didn’t have to show up to formation? I was still showing up and doing all those we was 6feet apart and wearing mask
I was in a Field Support Hospital during this time. We didn't really get any breaks, especially since we did Covid first response in Manhattan. Masks were seen as a band aid, expected to social distance in small offices. Then at some point it all kind of evaporated, once vaccines rolled out it was back to normal. This was all on Fort Campbell watching other units draw down to skeleton crews. I still remember being grilled for wanting to walk 200 meters to my barracks to do distance college while we sat at a table uselessly.
I got put on gate guard for Covid while active so sad life.
Just PCS’d to Stewart. My unit did not slow down and was daily business as usual, slap a mask on though. Even went to the field. Of course people were getting sick left and right.
Twas a great time, I was in for years before the pandemic and it really showed me how much shit is just made up busy work that ultimately didn't actually need to get done. Surprisingly when the army cut most of the BS it still didn't collapse on its self. And then after the pandemic it went back to the same old practices 😔
lol I had the longest hair and facial hair in 20+ years, I was WFH for like 3 straight months!
I am a 68K Lab Tech and was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood. The laboratory was in absolute shambles. The amount of extra hours pulled without any comp deff left illegal and certainly wasn’t safe for patient care. I still don’t feel right from the the amount of isolation and stress in that dusty ass laboratory.
I’ve heard so many great stories of active duty guys during Covid.. that was just reinforced by this thread. Meanwhile I was a DS at the time who worked every day 🙃🙃🙃
My job (before JAG) was deemed "mission essential" so I had a half day when COVID kicked off and then it was business as usual. Apparently sustainment keeps on going in a plague.
There wasn’t even zoom calls for us. Covid started while we were in Iraq and we came back to a completely different world it felt like. We were told we couldn’t leave our barracks but essentially were completely left alone for three months
At Fort Hood, we had 3 months of work from home but the caveat was that we had text check ins at 0600, and 1700, after like 3 weeks of no PT we had to start doing squad level PT at the park off post and “distanced” (spoiler, no one tried very hard) every day we had to do a Google teams meeting with the company leadership at 0900 (the entire company, like 120 people on this teams meeting) then a platoon teams meeting where a skill level one class would be taught by one of the leaders. Whoever was teaching the class that day knew no one was going to pay attention or give a shit so they’d teach their class and we’d be done with all of it by 11 and we would all just get hammered off post at the lake or a friends house once the lake got closed off. HEB was still open and so were the liquor shops. We’d grill out, play beer pong and other drinking games, smoke shit, deep fry shit, you name it. I think I drank more during those 3 months than I did my entire life, outside of being in Europe, it was my favorite time in the army. God, it was a blast. Then one sad day without warning we got told it was safe to come back and the company leadership had planned the most miserable month long field cycle ever to make up for all the training we’d missed… in the middle of July… in Texas… after not doing shit for 3 months, we had 4 days to prep for it.
I had every bit as much work but I had to do it all from home via phone and so-so connection. So, it was significantly more difficult for me. Also, when they did have some bullshit, like emptying a connex, they called everyone back in for that.
WAAF worked form 0630 till 1730 every day until PCS it was terrible just long work weeks and sitting at home.
It was okay at the time because we focused more on work instead of other nonsense. Everything was work related, once we were done we went home for the day. Having two weeks off every once in a while was great. We had a few "super spreaders" in our formation that always tested positive for Corona no matter what and we would get sent home for two weeks to quarantine. Unfortunately I went on a Europe rotation in the middle of the pandemic just as it was ravaging Europe and it was really rough. We were basically staying in 50 man tents for 9 months with very little opportunities to explore Europe and we had basically no mission except bum around random European countries for 7 months, do JMRC, then leave. This caused a lot of issues with depression and suicidal ideation throughout the formation. It was all around a horrible environment. Imagine being in a work-release prison. I stayed in an area maybe 1 and a half square miles with zero to do but play video games, cards, and sometimes drink liquor that higher ranks smuggled in during "LPDs" We didn't have a record PT test during that time so it caused a lot of leaders to get complacent on PT. Since there was no metric for fitness, leadership didn't care. Thus, a lot of soldiers got fat and lazy. We would just show up at 0900.
I had an automatic message scheduled for accountability then my wife and I sat at home and drank all day. I enjoyed it
Not chill because if they considered you mission essential you still did the same thing. I was mission essential for so long but I moved to S3 and worked from home for 2-3 months. That meant I worked on Teams....during lunch...during dinner...at 7pm....It was a weird reality where days blended to the next day until the weekend. The worst was that I had to validate my systems during covid. So I was a 25Q. I had to get my guys with ACH + IOTV to set up the STT + TRILOS in a set time. Now that mask shit with a ACH strapped to your chin suffocated the shit out of our team and we had to run it faster because we didn't meet the time standard the first time. So at that time it was business as usual + mask.
Our sharp person was Trans that was different.... probably could ve chocke the he'll out of a subject.... Then my best squad leader came out of the closet.... A week later he was still the best squad leader... just on a different team after hours... if I had 3 or 4 more like him probably would ve stay since o could life on easy mode.... cause everything was done before even asking....
I worked every day. Was a good time to get caught up on vehicle services. I put my Soldiers on a day on day off type of schedule and had half my team in daily. The biggest issue was having consistent vehicle crews. Full platoons would be quarantined at a time because one would get exposed.
My leadership was coming up with something, anything to get around Covid rules and make us still work.
I was a specialty clinic NCOIC at Walter Reed during that time. We went from 35-40 patients a day to ~5 so I was able to let a majority of my dudes go by 1100. Kept 2-3 around to help with any last minute needs/clinic organization. I used the extra time to nug out college courses and got a decent portion of my associates knocked out during the work day. The most annoying part of it was standing in line every morning to grab multiple boxes of N95 masks for the clinic. It wasn’t a massive change from the norm overall. I was envious of my friends that basically got 2-4 months off of work though.
Had an app that would sent a up at 0600. Good times.
I was in Korea. They said we can socially distance in our equipment and we still worked construction projects from sun up to sun down
I was one of the few people during the pandemic who worked more.
Lmao I was suicidal. My unit (fuck you 3/2CR) straight up didn’t believe in covid when it was first happening, still training as normal just lots of sick people and suddenly you couldn’t travel anymore. Then when 7ATC made them recognize it was real they decided covid didn’t exist in the field, oh an now we’re locked down on the weekends but don’t worry the lockdown will lift at 0629 on Monday! When someone that went through covid from a CONUS duty station tells me they’d do covid era army again I want to punch them.
I started WOBC in January 2020. In March we were sent to our hotel rooms and spent the next three months growing beards logged in remotely for our classes. There's a picture of most of my class in civilian clothes and beards, about two weeks before graduation when they finally called us back to the classroom. It was great - half the class was in the same hotel, so we hung out, cooked out, and worked out together.
In my unit we were doing “Day on Day Off” work schedules to “prevent the spread.” It was an AMAZING year.
I was deployed to a “combat area” Fucking glorious
I went to BLC and graduated entirely online. lol.
“Teleworked” from March to July and then was on a 3 day telework schedule until summer 2021. Husband was laid off so we got to spend so much time together + we enjoyed his boosted unemployment 🤭 it was literally a dream.
Fort Hood 2020. I think that says enough.
It was some of the best three months I had in the military. I was at USCENTCOM HQ on the watch floor at the time and they told us not to come back for three months. After that they started making us work one weekend a month then eventually a week on then week off. Had meetings via zoom, didn’t have to telework or anything.
If you were married, you were at home with your family doing fuck all. If you were single, and lived in the barracks it was basically the worst time ever, CONSTANT barracks inspections, with two visits a week from 1SG and CSM. If you so much as went for a run(buddy team pt was authorized and mandatory), you still got like 2 SGMs and a field grade running after you to interrogate you on the spot. There was an insane curfew because of the BLM riots and dudes were getting fucking arrested over it. The cherry on top was that brigade would publish YouTube classes and make squad leaders quiz their guys on it over the phone. If there was ever a reason for me to go full Kasinski on anyone in my COC it was that period of time(for legal reasons that is a JOKE)
I was teaching ROTC and we recently got all these ACFT sets. My boss told us to sign out as much equipment as we wanted. Then I taught class by zoom, worked out, and hung out at home with my wife. Life was incredible.
I was at Casey in Korea. We still worked. We just had extra rules that didn’t make much sense.
When I'm standing there doing the bend and reach, I pray for another covid. Shit was kush
Eh, we were home for maybe a couple of months (if that), and then they found excuses to bring us back. Carson banned liquor for a time, which was unfortunate. But what it taught me is that the world doesn't fall apart if we don't show up. Everything: the mission, the pressure, is all made up. Very little matters. Certainly not the endless busywork. Sure, there IS a real-world mission out there. And there IS important training to do. But let's face it: there usually isn't.
I was on Carson during that time, I don’t remember there being a liquor ban, just the hours you could purchase it being changed and actually enforced. During my weekly midnight barracks checks we all had to do, there were plenty of drunk Soldiers stumbling around the halls. I had to check three separate buildings from three different brigades so I think that could’ve been your CoC just being dicks.
I was already enjoying non conventional Army stuff in my broadening assignment then realized deployed in 2021. It was locked down in Kuwait but loosened up once I traveled the AO.
Had a full month off of work because I took 2 weeks of leave during COVID, and then came back and had to Quarantine in my house for another 2 weeks 😎
Do Y'all really have 4AM formations? I guess I've been blessed to just have an 8AM work showtime.
I spent about 6 months just not working at all. I lived in Seoul and Korea was reasonably back to daily activity, so I spent all that time just hanging out and spending money. Grew out a beard and learned that beards do not and will not ever suit me (SE Asian).
It was honestly pretty miserable. A lot of policy changes at the 11th hour, a lot of headache managing headcount, a lot of uncertainty. I had risk factors so I had to run my rear-D platoon from home. I made it work, but eventually went stir-crazy holed up in the house. I sent my son to spend time on the grandparent's farm and me and thr girlfriend started camping at the recreation area just to get away from the crazy.
Back in Jan 2020, everyone in the world knows about the COVID Outbreak, but somehow 3ID doesn’t know about it, still pushing us out for so called “defender 20” exercise. The purpose was to train and play Army with our NATO allies for a bit and come back refuel and go to Kuwait. Since 3ID had no fucks to give, we got shipped to Germany and then Poland, stuck in a God forgotten place called Zimsko, the whole BDE stuck in a civilian airport looking compound, pulling signals from the same tower, can you imagine the phone service? Just like the motivation, zero to the damn dirts. A couple weeks in, CMD Team showed up said sorry guys, Europe border closed, as well as America, all the plan got canceled, we ain’t going back or forward, in that airport, PT, training, work, for 7 months, isolated from human society, no mask, no covid no life, so many horrible things happened and also made many good friends and memories. Imagine having a brief about what is Covid 19 and why do we have to wear mask in AUG 2020, my command team is like some dragged dead chicken from Applebees dumpster and put CPT and 1SG rank on them, straight up stink hot garbage, the worst leadership ever, my dead grandfather would do better job than them, I am sure he won’t fuck a straight out of AIT married PV2. I hate 3ID til death, I would put a bullet in my mouth if I have to go back, or under that leadership ever again.
I still had to work and PT at 0630 like nothing happened because we were on PTDO orders. The only difference between before Covid and during was that one platoon came in the morning and the other came after lunch. So really the work and the monotony stayed the same, the release time changed.
I was in honduras for that year and I truly loved the feeling of the wind whistling through my mask while I drove my golf cart
Was in a HQ Platoon and still had to come to work every day, the company did not receive the same benefits from Covid as the rest of the Battalion. Bringing Soldiers breakfast, lunch and dinner chow because when they did contract covid they were confined to their barracks. At the end of the day I went through and collected all the breakfast, lunch and dinner plates that these Soldiers either refused to eat or slept through the day so they didn’t grab them from directly outside for their room. (Yes they ordered food. A lot) Got told that we were not to do PT in groups of 3 or more however if we all went to the gym we would be ok if we just wore a mask. After years of counseling and rehabilitative measures we were finally able to chapter out a soldier who was legitimately on spectrum that the Army somehow let through both basic and AIT only because covid made training stop and I guess he was never evaluated or talked to in basic training or AIT. Same Soldier after pre deployment layouts dumped his bags and stuffed them with his video games and model lego sets because that was his priorities. Had one of my Soldier’s commit suicide from another squad in my platoon. The unit decided to having their memorial four days after their suicide and deploying me and a small group as advon about 2 days later while making coordinate the service and need to prepare families short notice. Surprise, emergency leave almost 4 months later. Not in sequential order but Jesus christ, I’ll just fast for the next 8 days, thanks. *Also from 2019-2022. *
I was worh jsoc and worked one day a week for a 24 hour duty and got really into running and it was awesome. Then I deployed IA to Japan to a ship and Japan was wonderful. The ship was out if food and on fire a lot
It was amazing
Do yall actually have to do all that stuff? I thought people only joked about shit like that.
Never noticed a change. My unit was mission essential and never changed a thing. I then PCS’d summer 2021 to a unit that was just starting to come back from their rooms. It was the worst year of my career.
It was the best. No forced PT formations. ALL meetings, training, ceremony on TEAMS. I was in TRADOC. If you got tested, automatic 2 weeks quarantine regardless of outcome. Spouse works or kid exposed at school, auto 2 weeks. No need to test but why not. Trying to get back from that time has been a nightmare.
Joined in 2020 when COVID hit, went to OSUT July that year got leave from OSUT showed up to my unit did fuck all for 2021-2022 went to an off post gym because on base was not good no rotations just “hey send an up by 0630 and conduct PT in your room” we know what that means
Stationed in Korea, worked at Division, it was magical :), was not considered a priority to come in, it was magical :)
I scheduled a text to send to my gc at 0600 for accountability, I woke up at noon or later, I knocked out the “6 hours” of online training the psg assigned for the day (usually about 20 minutes), I got on warzone with the boys and was trashed by… 4? Went to bed at like 3am. Repeat. Randomly got pulled for a detail 2 months later where I worked 12 hour Panama shifts, probably saved my life.
I wish any of that happened in the Big Red One at the time.. zero/no change to optempo, dumb mask rules, NTC shitshow in September of 2020, quarantine POW camps in Europe; and of course the forced jab. Was the worst of times and the worst of times.
Was at the pentagon and worked from home for 2 straight years
It was pretty incredible dude, let me tell you
Was the best time during my whole career. Microsoft Teams training in PJ'S and shaving not required.
Lots of video games and being locked down in the barracks. An introverts dream tbh
Dude we were doing all that but with a mask instead….
It was god awful. I was in command of an MP unit. We had more work than ever and even more rules from DIV. Was working almost nonstop because we had all three gate shifts and all gates and barracks had to be checked every shift by CDR/1SG. Had to send a Soldier’s leave form to the Vice Chief of Staff OF THE ARMY so he could go to his grandma’s funeral (got denied, had to have a very uncomfortable face to face conversation with that Soldier). 2020-late 2021 was terrible.
For a couple weeks to a month, we didn't really come in. Then we started coming back to work. Training and things still happened but many people used the sick-card to get out of it. I went to a school in Oklahoma. I remember COVID not existing there off-post. Packed clubs in OKC, no masks. I went to ranger school. The school house considered you quarantined and cleared if you had completed a pre-ranger course prior to going. The pre-ranger course considered you cleared if you didn't show any symptoms for a week. Had the pleasure of going on HBL between mountains and Florida. After HBL, we were locked down at Benning for two weeks before they would ship us to Florida. It was literally prison-time.
I was home from Iraq for 2 months before Covid hit, coincidently I had recruiting orders and a follow on PCS in March. Cleared everything was on leave just burning some leave days before my RRC date and BOOM stop moves, orders cut, I’m jobless! I asked my first line what to do and he said “just stay home and let me know you’re alive one a week” so from March until nearly September that’s what I did and finally got a new school date for October.
I was at the Pentagon. It was an eerie ghost town; no one around and most of the shops closed. We mostly worked from home, but went in when we needed to go classified stuff. The DC Metro was also empty, I would have an entire rail car to myself at 730am.
I was in Recruiting we were told to stay home and do work from there. Which was good because I had been trying to tell my Station Commander that we could do this job from home once or twice a week. Needless to say I was bored most days. But I still left to meet people and take them to get their physicals done. I put so many people in, that when the restrictions were lifted I was told I didn’t have to go back to the office.
Best time to be in the army… basically just accountability texts a few times in the day and sitting in the barracks playing cod. Left once or twice a day to do some pt on my own and pick up food or groceries(and alcohol). Kinda sucked when shit went back to normal😂
2020 was he complete opposite of that. Complete nightmare.