I was in my shower today thinking of tales of horror of sailors that only have 2 minutes to shower. Then, I got to thinking about the towels. What is protocol for dirty towels, washcloths for soldiers? How about the personal clothing? Take it back to bunk? Give it to a towel boy?
Toss it in a laundry bin and have the soldier on shower cleaning duty dispose of it?
I can’t see the military making too many accomodations for one’s showering pleasures, but, this has me curious.
Thanks,
hh
In the Air Force, late 80s, we were issued a laundry bag. We were also told that items in a laundry bag did not have to be displayed or maintained to inspection standards. Every so often, a laundry detail would wash everything. All of your stuff had your last initial and last 4 digits of your SSN written on the band. This was for tshirts, drawers, towels, socks–which were pinned together on a giant safety pin with a tag with your id as for other stuff.
Uniforms were kept in the base laundry most of the time. The regulations said at least one complete set of each uniform had to be maintained according to standards and displayed in our locker. You wore one set of BDUs, had one for display you never wore, and one of each other combination. Everything else was in the laundry. They’d tell us the day before if we needed to get some combination out to wear the next day.
Back in my day…
Stencil your name and SSN on everything…throw into large community hamper…send to laundry. It all comes back in a huge wad, semi clean…recruits sort, then fold to spec.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
We washed our own - a challenge when you have a limited number of machines. Laundry bag could only have your morning PT stuff in it, towel hung to dry over your footboard.
“A military unit can either be ready for combat, or ready for an inspection. It cannot be both simultaneously.” - Anon.
From what I remember (Orlando NTC 1984), we had to write our names on everything, throw it in some bins, and a laundry detail would come and get it. Then they’d bring it back, dump it all in a pile on the floor in the middle of the barracks, and we’d have to find the shit with our names on it, fold it, stow it.
In defense of what we all felt was total BS at the time, there is a very serious purpose to teaching recruits how to place their undershirts precisely one quarter inch from the edge of the locker shelf and all that jazz: it teaches attention to detail.
If a recruit cannot learn to follow seemingly arbitrary, but clear and consistent rules in boot camp, then can the military trust that they will, for example, be capable of safely following the rules to run a nuclear power plant or maintain jet aircraft?
In the Mid-60s Army, the quartermaster laundry would do up to 25 pieces each week. A pair of sox counted as one item. If you could make a fatigue uniform last two or three day you were all right. Otherwise you spend part of Sunday at the Laundromat.
Clothing items were all marked with your serial number and barracks number e.g. 3-B-1-4-34 (third platoon, Company B, first battalion, fourth brigade, bunk 34). Soiled stuff went into a green laundry bag tied to the foot of your bunk. Laundry was turned in and picked up at the company supply room each week with a one day turn around. At turn-in everything went into an individual mesh bag with a metal tag with barracks number stamped on it and fastened with a huge safety pin. AFAIK the stuff was washed and dried in the mesh bag.
Towel (issued) was draped over the head of the bunk to dry – or over the foot if you had early morning duty so that the Charge of Quarters could find you. Sheets, pillow case and two towels and wash cloths were turned in and reissued at the company supply room once a week.
As they put it with us, “if you can’t even fold your fucking underwear how can we let you run a goddamn fucking nuclear submarine?”*
The words “attention to detail” were drilled into our heads, It wasn’t about the clothes (or God help you, the “catch edges” on the sheets), it was an exercise in following detailed instructions. The fact that it was tedious and mind killing was part of the point. You learned how to perform fussy, micro-detailed tasks under stress, while exhausted, etc.
*Verbatim quote from my CC.
USMC Boot Camp, 1969: Washed everything by hand on concrete wash sinks. No problem.
Same for Navy boot camp in 1967. Large concrete wash tables, buckets and scrub brushes. Scrub the uniforms with soapy water and hang on clotheslines to dry. No clothespins, either: only pieces of string. God help you if you tied your strings with anything other than a squareknot. At some point in the whole process, they started taking clothing to the base laundry, which was a huge relief.
At the maritime academy on the training ship everyone was given a laundry number. You stensiled your laundry number on all your clothes except socks. You were issued a “ditty” bag (a net bag with a darw string at top) and a large safety pin with your laundry number. You dump your laundry clothes in the laundry bag. Put your socks in the ditty bag and put safety pin on it. In a day or two go back to the laundry the clothes sorted by number. If I remember right it was third class deck midshipmen who had to do the sorting.
Gee, it sounds like I missed a lot of fun!
Thanks for all the good replies, guys.
hh
U.S. Army boot camp 1989. Laundry service was contracted. We had to fill out a form listing every item and maybe a week later we got it back and had to have it in our locker ready for inspection.
Simular situation when I was downrange the second time (at a really large FOB) except for the inspection part. Though I did note that even 16 years later I still folded my shirts and socks the way I was taught in Basic Training.
My mom washed mine.
Regarding Navy showers, unless someone is waiting for you to get out of the shower, it’s not quite as bad as a 2-minute shower. You actually get 2 minutes of water flow–which is not quite as bad. This means you run the water to 30 seconds to get wet; lather up with the water off, then 30 seconds to rinse. Shampoo your hair, then use to rest of the time for a final rinse.
Regarding laundry on a submarine at sea, we had one commercial-grade front-loading washer and one dryer for the whole crew (~140 sailors). Each division had an assigned day to use the laundry facilities, and each crew member was expected to get their laundry done on their assigned day or wait until the following week.
Officer’s laundry was done by the steward assigned to the wardroom. I tried to do my own laundry once and got yelled at by the XO.
If the main evaporator that produced fresh water from seawater was down (which it was 10-20% of the time), then all showers and laundry were secured until it was fixed–except for the Mess Specialists (i.e. cooks) for hygienic reasons. This might be for a few days or a week or more.
This thread has turned out to be surprisingly interesting!
I always just assumed that the showers, toilets, laundry etc. on Navy vessels would work on filtered seawater. (i.e. still salty, just free of detritus.) why the need to use fresh water?
Salt is actually beneficial for skin, but does leave a residue. The effects on machinery and piping may be a larger problem.
Dried salt in your underwear is not a pleasant thing.
Just to clear things up for you folks—Alessan isn’t pulling your leg here.
Believe it or not, that’s the way it works in the Israeli army. 