6 activities in the infantry that are more common than combat
SUMMARY
People often associate the military with fighting wars, which makes complete sense. The infantry, which is the spearhead of the military, is the primary combat job. So, one might would think infantrymen are in every country upon which the United States is dropping bombs. The truth is: they're not. In fact, chances are, they're stuck on a boat, an island, or in a porta-john waiting for the next war to pop off so they can play in the big leagues.
Being in the infantry between wars is a lot like being on a professional sports team that only ever goes to practice. Realistically, the United States has been at war for quite some time, but what people don't know is that infantry probably aren't involved in that war.
Here are activities in the infantry that are more common than combat
Waiting
Whether it's in a line, in the field, or in a barracks room, the infantry is stuck waiting. Always. Waiting. Anthony Swafford, author of Jarhead, truthfully wrote, "...we wait, this is our labor." If that doesn't define "peacetime" military life, what does? The fact of the matter is that you'll spend most of your time waiting for something and no one knows what that something is, not even your command.
Cleaning
Everyone knows veterans are extremely organized and are good at keeping things clean. That's because we spend so much of our time cleaning everything that it becomes habit. In the military, you even clean things that can't be cleaned. In fact, most of what you do is polish turds, considering military barracks (specifically those of the Marine Corps) haven't been renovated since the day they were built.
Smoking
This isn't for everyone, but quite a few people pick up the habit because it's a great time killer. Remember how we said you spend 80% of your career waiting? Well, if you pick up smoking, you'll bring that down to 70% and use that other 10% to smoke as you combat the boredom of waiting.
In a safety stand-down
Whether it's a three-hour lecture on sexual assault, the importance of wearing a seat belt, or why the desert tortoise is sacred at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (a.k.a. Twentynine Palms), you're going to sit in the base theater for an entire day listening to one commander "piggy back" off another.
'Appreciating' adult films
If you don't pick up smoking, you might instead find yourself killing time in a porta-john doing this. If you're at Twentynine Palms during the summer (or in general), you might even challenge yourself to see if you can complete your "mission" before you pass out in the porta-john.
Just to be clear, this will probably be in addition to killing your lungs.
Video games
Remember what we said about waiting in a barracks room? This is what you'll probably do during that time. It doesn't matter if you're in a leadership position or if you're a boot rifleman (if you're a boot, you should study instead), you'll be killing time by playing video games. When you're taking a break from that, you'll probably be doing #3 or #5 instead.
Just make sure one of the first things you do in your unit is buy a small T.V. and game system or a highly efficient laptop. Even if you go on a combat deployment, you might be able to take it with you to kill time between patrols or other duties.
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