What constitutes being "old school" in the military?

OG"s and brown boots

Met SP5 Elvis Presley across a Jeep hood in Germany while on alert. His Company TOC was adjacent to ours.

Doing PT in fatigues and combat boots, there was no shorts and tennis shoes

If you attended Ranger before the Ranger standard that “will never change”, changed.
If you know what a Goat is.
If you don’t understand the word “offensive”.
If you are aware that the “first” female ALREADY attended the “Q” along time ago.
If your 1SG was more in shape at 40 than the boot straight out of basic.
If you were not a “soldier in training” but were a basic trainee.
If you have ever used “offensive language” in a cadence and were pissed off you no longer could.
If you never needed to ask permission to kill the enemy.
If you have never seen a stress card.
If you watched a Drill tell a washout that all he needed to do was say he was a fag and he’d be on a flight home.
If you remember when civilians didn’t run every damn office on post.
If you are dumbfounded that co-Ed basic training even exists.
If you earned that funny little black hat and understand everyone wears one now because some officer couldn’t earn it.
If you completely believe not everyone earns a trophy, because not everyone can rise to the occasion.

PT uniform was on blouse OD green fatigues combat boots black. White T-shirts OD green baseball cap. Stood in line until it was your turn.Entered the room saluted the officer and stated your name And rank reporting for pay.Order to drop and do push-ups without a Maximum number that you could do. Understood the meaning of teamwork come Ratterree in America. Understood unit cohesiveness and served because you love this country not because he wanted to go to school for free.

Old school, how about eating C rations that were manufactured during the Korean war? Scrambled eggs in a can, Which brings up the P38, if you know what a P38 looks like, and can remember trying to use one with frozen fingers, you're old school.

Spit-shining the "Autobahn" at 7th Army NCO Academy in Bad Tölz.

Navy version:
Were ever on a ship without a/c
Smelled like NSFO regardless of where you worked
Took the salt pills next to the scuttlebutt
Bought cartons of cigs for a buck at sea
Wore a Seiko watch and when it quit just threw it over the side
Viewed women on ships as something that would never happen
You only had 3 uniforms: whites, blues, and dungarees along with boondockers
Lots more that can't be written here!

PT in fatigues and boots

I’m old school.

I signed up originally in 1991.

As a Private I feared my Team Leader, Squad Leader, and Platoon Sergeant. And I thought that my Platoon Leader, who was an SFC (E-7) because there were never enough Lieutenants, was a god.

My 1SG was a mean sonofabitch who we all loved.

My Company Commander was a complete dickhead, who we all hated mainly because he was an Officer.

The only person we didn’t trust was the Supply Sergeant, because that motherfucker was the biggest thief in the Army.

We trusted everyone else, whether they were a shithead or not, with our lives. But not with our girlfriends or wives.

We knew that the Chaplain’s Assistant had the best porn collection anywhere.

We ate whatever the chow hall made. And if you asked later what we had for breakfast or lunch, we’d say “chow hall,” because that was code for whatever the fuck we ate while talking shit to each other.

If you were ate up, you got chewed up. That meant extra PT if you were a fat body, extra duty if you were a fuckup, and if you didn’t straighten up your shit after that you were DX’d.

Our Company was better than any other Company in the Battalion and we often got into fistfights between Companies in the barracks when one Company would try to steal our “Cherries” to haze them or we tried to steal theirs.

We hated every other Battalion because we were the best fucking Battalion in the Division and would (and DID) get into fights, usually at local bars, when ANYONE would talk shit about their Battalion or even mention that theirs was the best.

And NOONE talked shit about our Division. That was some death penalty shit right there.

We knew how to drive a stick, civilian and military. Because deuces were stick. We wore some funky cotton PTs that sagged like a 90 year old man’s balls when they got rained on. We wore white socks to PT and green socks the rest of the time, and if we got caught wearing anything else we got smoked.

When you put on a new uniform it cracked from the starch, and if you did it right you could wear that bitch for three days.

Your boots were spot shined for first formation after PT at 0900. Then you went and changed them to brush shined ones to work on weapons or vehicles.

No matter what the CSM said, you knew DAMN WELL that there WERE two different kinds of BDUs - your clean, starched ones for garrison and the ones that sometimes had more sewing that fabric for the field.

If you wanted to advance in rank, you did those stupid correspondence courses that your Squad Leader had the answers to, you worked your ass off to get a better PT score, and you prayed to God that the Army dropped your MOS’s promotion score.

You smoked, or dipped, or sometimes both, and when you weren’t on duty you were always near alcohol.

The barracks was the best place to drink if you were under 21, and the worst place to bring your date. And the latrines in the barracks were horrifying but you didn’t notice until after you got out and looked back.

If you were a Cherry, your ass was getting hazed. Like beaten, thrown in the showers, covered in every liquid that came in an MRE, and possibly duct-taped to a telephone pole. I know. I was.

The worst part of life was all of the other assholes in my Unit.

The best part of life was all the other assholes in my Unit.