6 hours ago, birdguy said:

I still remember my rifle number when I was a Marine (an M-1 Garand).  It was made by International Harvester.

Noel

Yeah, I can still remember mine;

UB60A63699, a really nice BSA made FN SLR with the original Walnut stock and grip. All our equipment was hand me downs from the Royal Navy so it was ancient when I got my hands on it.

In the autumn of’82 it went into the armoury for a barrel change and that was the last I saw of it.

I wonder where it is now? I suspect someone, somewhere in the US now owns it.

Thanks Doug, I'll look into it.

I don't need hearing assistance in old movies.  I can understand every word they say.  Studios taught diction in those days.  Also hearing the dialog in those old movies is important because what the actors and actresses said in conversations was part of the plot.  They did not have special effects and CGI to carry the story line.

Another thing I like about old movies is I can identify the cars.  And they were all American made.  Remember the Nash Rambler and Metropolitan?  Packards and Hudsons (the car you step down into)?  And, of course, Studebakers...the car you didn't know if it was coming or going.

Noel

I remember them all Noel. The early-mid  '50's  was a very good year to be young. The thing I like about the headphones is that they help be to watch British and Australian movies. The accents are sometimes just too much for me...and my wife. On a British Airways flight a few years back a flight attendant asked my wife if she would like coffee, tea, or orange juice. My wife replied "yes".

23 hours ago, Paladin said:

I am 78 and despite a [somewhat] failing memory, I cannot forget my "number". 🙂

M.

I was telling my wife about this thread and she asked to see it this afternoon.  I then got severe "stick" for not mentioning that I also remembered her number too!!!  😞 Yes, we were both serving at the same time,  shame on me !!  😞 BR.

M.

My Serial Number in the Marine Corps was 1351822.  My rifle number was IH19596432.

In the Marine Corps culture back then if your Serial Number was one digit less than your partner's you were in the 'Old Corps' and your partner was a 'Pogey Bait Marine'.

By the time I joined the Air Force our Social Security Numbers became our serial numbers.

Noel

8 minutes ago, birdguy said:

 

In the Marine Corps culture back then if your Serial Number was one digit less than your partner's you were in the 'Old Corps' and your partner was a 'Pogey Bait Marine'.

In the Navy, pogey bait or gedunk was candy, like a candy bar from the gedunk machine.  "Pogey Bait Marine"??  Pogey was a term meaning hooker, so candy was used as Pogey Bait.

Any meaning for Pogey Bait Marine??  Crap!  It's only Tuesday and I'm confuddled and befused already! 🤪

Pogey Bait was the same thing in the Marine Corps.  Mostly referred to candy but also chewing gum, popcorn, cookies, soft drinks, or any such comfort food.  We were not allowed to have candy or any comfort food in boot camp and any boot who managed to sneak some in or who had some sent from home and was caught (they always were) was a Pogey Bait Marine and the stuff was confiscated by the drill instructors who ate it in their rooms at the end of the squad bay.  It was a derogatory term hung on any boot who managed to get a hold of some.  Not only was he a pogey bait Marine thereafter but also a 'candy a$$'.

Some boots would have to go to personnel for some reason or asked to see the chaplain.  They were allowed to go to the HQ building alone.  Someone might get a candybar out of the vending machine if he had some change in his pocket but he was always called into the DI office and searched as soon as he returned.

We weren't allowed to see any movies while we were in boot camp either.  But when we to Camp Mathews for marksmanship training they had an outdoor movie.  One evening it was our platoon's turn to police the area up after the movie was over.  We had our buckets with us to put in the trash we collected after the movie was over.  Our DI sat us all up in the past rows and we waited for the movie to start.  As soon as the movie started he ordered us to put our buckets over our heads.  We sat like that until the movie was over.  Then after everyone had left we policed up the area.

Noel

    

Navy Boot Camp was way different. Liberty Station, San Diego..1968, Company 263, L.L Wallis, GMGC. Company Commander, and CWO A.L Brown, Battalion Commander. We had gedunk machines right outside the barracks.  When we were on break, usually about 15 minutes, we were allowed to get something.  Usually an ice cream sandwich or candy bar.

Please don't think that was all from memory!  I had my U.S. Naval Training Center "The Anchor" sitting on my lap! 😃

I went to boot camp in San Diego too.  1951.

We had an ex-Army guy in our platoon and he would tell us what Army boot camp was like.

He had been with the 1st Cav of Chosen Reservoir when the Chinese broke through.  He had been wounded and was left behind when Army began it's retreat.  He was picked by a Marine patrol and brought back.

When his enlistment was up he got out of the Army and joined the Marines.  Even though he had been in the Army, in combat, and had been wounded he still had to go through boot camp if he wanted to be a Marine.  The DIs did give him some breaks though considering his past service.  But he still got no pogey bait.

Noel

On 7/18/2022 at 10:21 PM, jaytee73 said:

Strange that - I doubt if anyone can ever forget their number

I still use mine as my password on most things👨‍🦳

Mine is (was) RA11937707. I was proud as can be with the "Regular Army" (RA) prefix of my serial number.

I really was upset when the Armed Forces changed over to using our SSN instead. Actually, doing so is a violation of sorts, since SSN are plainly not to be used for identification!

I never even thought of using my original serial number as my password. Instead, I use a random GUID generator to create nearly uncrackable PWs. Seriously, there are more unique 128 bit GUIDs than there are stars in the Milky Way Galaxy!

There are 2¹²⁸ possible GUIDs; that’s about 40 billion billion billion unique GUIDs for every person on earth. This alone gives us the intuition that it ought to be pretty easy to ensure that two of them never collide; there are a lot of GUIDs to choose from!