Civilian Life vs. Military Life
Being in the Army has huge differences compared to being in the civilian life. There are many differences and there are some things that are the same, being in the Army and being in civilian life.
The average day for a US Army Soldier consists of waking up at 0400 hours in the morning being to first formation; accountability formation by 0630 hours. Then from 0630 to 0730 hours a Soldier will do Physical Readiness training (PRT), wear as the average wake up time for a civilian would be around 0630 to 0700 hours. The Soldier will wake up, do PRT eat breakfast and go to first work call formation by 0900. The average civilian would wake up, eat breakfast, and go to work.
The average Soldier would have already done a lot of things that a civilian wouldn’t have done before 0900 hours. The phrase from the old 1980’s US Army recruiting commercials were no lie, when they said, “We do more by 9am then most people do all day long.”
People say that the Army owns you, that you have no life and are stripped of all rights when you join the Army. I can say, having 19 years of experience at the Army being my life that they don’t to a point. Yes you have rules and regulations that you have to follow but that is the same as living in civilian life. For example: Drugs are a zero tolerance issue in the Army. They say that you are not allowed to do drugs. If you work for the police department in civilian life you are not allowed to do drugs as well. When they go to work in the morning, Soldiers do not have to “clock-in” to let their boss know that they are at work, but they do have formation for accountability. In civilian life you have to clock in to let the employer know that you are there.
A similarity that the civilian life has and that the US Army has is in a sense a rank structure. In the Army you have the Specialist and below that do the work and work for the Non Commision Officers (NCO), and the NCO works for the Senior Enlisted NCO, which works for the officers. In the
The average day for a US Army Soldier consists of waking up at 0400 hours in the morning being to first formation; accountability formation by 0630 hours. Then from 0630 to 0730 hours a Soldier will do Physical Readiness training (PRT), wear as the average wake up time for a civilian would be around 0630 to 0700 hours. The Soldier will wake up, do PRT eat breakfast and go to first work call formation by 0900. The average civilian would wake up, eat breakfast, and go to work.
The average Soldier would have already done a lot of things that a civilian wouldn’t have done before 0900 hours. The phrase from the old 1980’s US Army recruiting commercials were no lie, when they said, “We do more by 9am then most people do all day long.”
People say that the Army owns you, that you have no life and are stripped of all rights when you join the Army. I can say, having 19 years of experience at the Army being my life that they don’t to a point. Yes you have rules and regulations that you have to follow but that is the same as living in civilian life. For example: Drugs are a zero tolerance issue in the Army. They say that you are not allowed to do drugs. If you work for the police department in civilian life you are not allowed to do drugs as well. When they go to work in the morning, Soldiers do not have to “clock-in” to let their boss know that they are at work, but they do have formation for accountability. In civilian life you have to clock in to let the employer know that you are there.
A similarity that the civilian life has and that the US Army has is in a sense a rank structure. In the Army you have the Specialist and below that do the work and work for the Non Commision Officers (NCO), and the NCO works for the Senior Enlisted NCO, which works for the officers. In the