When I was a senior NCO in the 1980s, one of the most common headaches/complaints I had to deal with in the barracks was noise control. For some reason, young GIs living in a room about fifteen by twenty feet with three other guys felt they needed to buy a stereo system that cost a thousand dollars with speakers that were five feet tall. These systems could blast out "tunes" at an unbelievable volume. On more than one occasion I had to walk in and touch some young'un because he couldn't hear me yelling to turn down the sound.
In one young buck sergeant's room during an inspection, I commented on his stereo system...a compact unit that fit on his desk with little speakers (this was prior to the flood of speakers atttached to computers, MP3s, whatever). Some of the others in the inspection party started giggling. I said, "Okay...what's the joke?" The sergeant's platoon sergeant told him to show me. The Buck Sergeant turned on his stereo and cranked it up... WOW ... it was the first time I had ever heard of Bose systems. Apparently there were some bigger speakers under the bed or somewhere...in any case, that was one loud stereo!
Anyway, soldiers and their sounds have definitely evolved over the years. When I was in basic training, all we were allowed to have was one of those little Japanese transistor radios. My memories of those months in the middle of 1964 seem to be accompanied by a soundtrack produced on those little, tinny-sounding speakers. Even when we got to our permanent units, we still had limited space for private possessions. Everything you owned had to fit into a space the size of a couple of shoe boxes inside your lockers. Barracks theft was a real problem, too, so I guess the bosses figured the less you had, the less you could lose. And speaking of barracks theft...that's why I started this article in the first place.
Thievery in the barracks is as old as barracks life. I don't know of anyone who has spent time living in a barracks who has not been ripped off at least once. It is always an angry and depressing feeling. You almost certainly know the thief; he's probably one of your "buddies". The Army takes the attitude that if you get ripped off, you are as much to blame as the thief. Oh, they go so far as to keep barracks guards up at night, which is fine unless the guard is the thief...they keep the doors locked after lights-out and no one gets in or out without the Charge of Quarters permission. But as a matter of practicality, the chain of command feels that the best way to control theft is to eliminate the opportunity to steal. So if you don't lock your locker (it's a LOCKER...), or if you leave something on your rack when you go to the latrine, or in any way fail to secure your belongings, then you are as guilty as the thief. And some commanders have punished victims of theft for that very reason...believe it or not.
In the 1970s, at the truck driving school at Fort Ord, CA, trainees lived a fairly spartan life. On the weekends, they couldn't go off-post, or even to the on-post facilities until their third week. They mostly hung around the barracks, wrote letters, read comic books, played cards, or - the most popular activity -napped.
It was summer and all the windows were opened wide to let what little breeze was available waft through. One of the Joes had put his new boombox on the window ledge to pick up KMBY, the Rock of the Monterey Bay, and dozed off on his bunk. Boomboxes were the 70s answer to the little transistor radios we had in the 60s. A little radio/tape player nestled between two big speakers, the boomboxes of the 70s were not a whole lot different than the ones you see today; they just didn't have the computer power. So when this Joe woke up, he noticed the music sounded wrong. He looked over to the window at his boombox and saw...a Japanese transistor radio!!! Someone had walked up on the outside of the window, tuned his little radio to KMBY, and then switched with the boombox. The Charge of Quarters was called in and a report was made, the MPs were notified of a barracks thief operating in the area (not that they would do anything about it), and everyone resumed their peaceful weekend laze...except for one very unhappy Joe, who now listened to his tunes through one of those tinny, little Japanese speakers while his insides churned over not only being "got", but also because everyone told him it was his fault he got "got".
My buddy Willie was the CQ and on Monday when we got back to work, Willie came in laughing and telling me, "Hey Stoney...you gotta hear 'bout dis guy...some clever bastard stole dis kid's radio...but he left da music!"
Over the years I have seen and heard of some inventive thieves, some clever anti-theft measures, and even caught a thief or two. But the radio thief has to rank near the top...he left the music.