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Before BOHICA: A Long, Long Time Ago, In A Time Called the "80's"
🕑 Added 2020-05-19 16:00:02 +0000 UTCMan, the 1980's was a long time ago! A totally different world. I mean, I'm still one of those people that reflexively thinks the 1990's was "about 10 years ago", while at the same time I look back at the 1980's as, like, that was during the Caesar administration, right?
Anyhow, as noted before here, it was a time of Cold War, and near-constant jokes about accidentally kicking off a nuclear exchange that would obliterate global civilization and probably destroy life on Earth for all but the furthest latitudes to the north and south. Hilarious, knee-slapping times. But there was an ad campaign for Bud Light, a beer that was being made popular by the American Budweiser company at the time. There was a relatively new demand for "light" beers with less alcohol (essentially, "water +plus") as a sort of healthy alternative to our usual liquid bread.
The advertising campaign featured people asking "for a light" and at first being offered lighters or matches for cigarettes (also still a thing at the time). The person would then say, "No, Bud Light!" and get their beer. Over time, the commercials got a little stranger, with people being handed things like flaming dungeon torches, flashlights, and other things that could be considered as light-bringing devices. So why not jump to the end of the line and offer up a uranium-powered can of instant sunrise? Probably one of the saddest potential epitaphs for humanity would then be an attempt to correct a misunderstood request for a tepid, beer-like substance. BOOM!
A joke that was pretty simple but at least showed that my young, still Play-doh like mind was at least trying to reach new vistas. Of course in the Army we had to do PT (Physical Training) every morning, and we'd usually alternate days of calisthenics and resistance type exercises with various levels of running. I mean, we'd do some sort of run every morning, but if we had already done a lot of push-ups, sit-ups, and stuff like that, then we'd just do a sort of short "courtesy run" at a shuffling jog pace. But if we just did some warm-up stretches and brief exercises, that meant that the bulk of our morning PT would be some sort of big unit-formation run of some sort, and probably last for quite awhile.
Anyone who's been to a military base (especially an Army base) knows that the morning streets are usually clogged with units from squad size all the way up to Battalions. There are, occasionally, Brigade and I've even heard of Division runs, but these are super rare (at least in my experience) because it is just really, really difficult to coordinate (seriously, the units at the beginning of the run are finished with the course and breaking up when the units at the end have barely begun running).
Our Battalion Commander loved Battalion runs and did them a lot, but knew that they were considered awkward, unwieldy, and generally boring. So he tried to add spice by taking our run out to the tank trails, which are just dirt roads for tanks to use. And because tanks use them, they are usually somewhat rutted and uneven, so maintaining a tight formation run means that people are hobbling back and forth a lot, getting in each others' way, and so on.
There actually were a lot of minor injuries during the run, and we didn't have any more of them for quite awhile. Eventually, of course, the siren call of the Battalion run was heard again and they resumed, but a little less ambitions as I recall.
I've mentioned in the past that a lot of the jokes that appeared in the "BOHICA Blues" webcomic originated in old jokes passed around years before. I've used the "Four lieutenants pointing north" joke in the webcomic and it came from a long, long ago joke we used to pass around Fort Carson when I was stationed there.
Every military Division has its own patch (some independent Brigades and Commands do as well) and even Battalions have small insignia called "unit crests" worn on dress uniforms. There's always symbolism of some sort associated with the patches, badges, and such, reflecting some storied history and symbolic representations of past battles & campaigns. But the soldiers make up their own stories and apply them retroactively, and this was one of the most popular ones about the 4th Infantry Division patch.
That's all for now, more later! If you want to see more, consider joining Patreon at one of the many available levels of support and gain access to up to 1500 or more unique comics, doodles, and other images related to BOHICA Blues and past and future endeavors!
