What constitutes being "old school" in the military?

Old school are the senior NCO's (and their methods) who experienced the war previous to your enlistment. For me those were the WW2 and Korean War vets. These included Vietnam era vets who did TDY tours in Laos and Vietnam from 1957 to 1964.

How about being issued brown combat boots that you had to dye black? Fort Jackson basic, 1960. An old Field First who hated any one with education ("Youse guys can take all dose college degrees and jam them all the way to your shoulder"). Old School. indeed.

WWII barracks, plain green fatigues and cap, PT uniform was blue shorts/white t shirt/low quarter tennis shoes with white socks (no such thing as running shoes), spit shined boots and low quarters.

You didn’t go far enough back. In 1964 there was no such thing as issued PT clothes.

The guy in front of you in the chow line.

Mentally harder training, more physical and challenging, Army Must Stop Giving away MOS's, advance training, etc Certificates, awards etc...Army does not hold Soldiers to Standards, USMC Never gives it away. That is till first Women became Grunt PL...

Being "issued" an M-14 auto-selector.
PT in full fatigue uniform. Boots bloused. no shorts or t-shirts, in Fort Gordon in July.
Sleeping in pre WWII barracks. Doing a fire watch.
Wearing an overseas cap.
Flying on standby in uniform and getting upgraded to First Class.
Paying 25 cents for a mixed drink and 15 cents for a beer at the EM club.
I could go on, but I'm old and forgot.

You may be “old school”; If you ever requested your “microfiche” sonyou could validate your file before a board; If you had an “I love me” book so you could validate your 201 file atbthe PSB; If you ever had to type an award or NCOER on a type writer and hand sign it before it was mailed to PERSCOM (now HRC); If you were ever informed that you were on orders to PCS by a PERSAGRAM; If you had to report to the pay officer to sign for your monthly pay and ten convert all you money into money orders because there was no direct deposit; If you ever used emnue and edge dressing to blacken your rank and the soles of your boots and low quarters; If you’ve ever had to pull Guard Duty in the Field and use challenge and password because we had no radios; If you have driven or used an 800 series 5-ton Wrecker; If you fielded the “new” HEMETT and LMTV; If having six ribbons made you look like a General; If PT involved no stretching but did include running 10 miles...every....day; If you took part in an “Alert”, which was the CQ knocking on your door at 0400. Then you may be considered “Old School”.

I am in my 50s, started service in 1983, served every President since Reagan and still serving. I am old school lol.

I joined the US Army in 1979 where boys went in and men came out. I had two tours to Iraq and retired in 2006. I went through some tough training during my career but it made a good man out of me. They need to go back to that type training and maybe we would not have a bunch of spoiled babies playing games all the time. Just saying.