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Originally Posted by CSB
Almost 15 years ago I posted this in a sister SOC thread:
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As a lieutenant/captain, I used to carry at the top of my ruck an ammo can, not the thin one from the 7.62 MLB 1-4, but the fat one like for the 5.56. Inside was a Ranger Handbook, Pathfinder Handbook, Jumpmaster Handbook, SAVSERSUP3 with trigraphs (SF commo stuff), GTA's on everything I could steal from the TASC (Demo Card, Mine Card, Bridge Card, Route Recon Card, etc.), a pilot's E6B calculator, firing tables for the M60 MG and the 81mm mortar, a bunch of those little green "memorandum" notebooks, pens, pencils, grease pencils, a spare compass, spare flashlight bulbs, earplugs, a slide rule (later a calculator when calculators were invented), tracing paper, map sheets, P38 can openers, and so on. I called it my "magic box."
Whenever a need arose, I could drop to one knee and somebody could lift the top flap on the ruck and open the "magic box," get what we needed, then reseal the box. It was totally waterproof, and even floated.
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CSB,
Even with manuals, TTP's, AAR's etc. nothing beats an "old hand" explaining how we did something, and most importantly WHY. As an example is your "magic box,"
I was just thinking how much institutional knowledge is lost every 20-30 years.
Hard times in 62-65, as all WWII were retiring (they even tried in retreads (WWII E7 promoted to E8) to try and fill the gap.... didn't work... Different Army. (Theirs enlisted were grammar school and some HS grads). 1962 had most HS grads, and many Jr/4yr college. The Sputnik era.
Army in 82-85 had its problems, when those that "saved" the service from the 1970's (race, drugs, etc.) were retiring. Norman Schwarzkopf wrote about this in his autobiography.
I suspect that the same was true in 1985/2005, and will be in 2005/2025.
It's good to know that we are preserving more than we did, and that the "old hands" are around longer giving their sage advice.
SnT