February 29, 2024 • 21 mins
Step into the exclusive realm of military life as we reveal the perks and practicalities that come with residing on a base. From fully-equipped gyms and serene pools to the on-base shopping convenience, our latest episode grants you VIP access to a world that mirrors a self-sufficient city.
Just kidding. About the VIP access. I don't think any of us feel very VIP.
But our exploration doesn't stop at material comforts – we immerse you in the vibrant community life woven into the fabric of military installations. Discover clubs and educational programs that cater to personal development and camaraderie, ensuring that the service members and their families thrive not just in duty but in spirit. With insights into the CSP Skill Bridge at the Education Center, this episode is a treasure trove for those in uniform seeking to chart their next career move. So, buckle up and join us on this journey, where we celebrate the intricate mosaic of military existence and the support structures that keep it standing strong.
I hope you make your next vacation to a Air Force Base !
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, welcome back to the Joe show.
What up y'all?
It is a fantastic Friday.
I'm feeling captastic, if youknow what I mean.
I got my little spurs on mystetson on it, I'm just feeling
spectacular.
But anyhow, thanks for comingout to the show.
Thanks for checking us out.
As you know, on Fridays we tryto do it for your information.
(00:38):
So today we are going to betalking about if you are on a
military installation or you areon a brand new vacation, is
something on the one?
I mean, it's like you're in thearmy of the Marines and you go
to an air force base.
That is a really nice newvacation city If you know what
I'm talking about.
(00:59):
But for the rest of y'all thatcome from the civilian world,
firstly, no military base thatI've really seen.
I've seen eight of them.
Please, please, be mindful.
Yeah, none of them are probablya new vacation city and I get a
lot of questions on what peoplethink and I get a lot of
questions on what is a militaryinstallation like and how do
(01:19):
people call it a city.
Before we get into that, I justwant to let y'all know.
Thank y'all for voting on theInstagram channels, the email
feed and on the show kind ofreaching out to me.
So a couple things.
The giveaway next one we'regoing to do is going to be more
closing an apparel.
We're going to get some coolstuff.
We're going to get some fannypacks, because summer's coming
(01:41):
so we got to sneak our minibottles into the concerts.
Some trucker hats, becauseeveryone loves a good trucker
hat we can all wear back, slickback whatever.
We're going to get some teasDefinitely not hoodies.
In Texas it was 100 degreesyesterday.
I ain't doing hoodies, we ain'twith that.
How do you get entered into this?
If you stream, download,subscribe, like the show, that's
(02:06):
one entry for each thing.
If you share the show and ifyou have me on Instagram, you
tag me Facebook, tag me Twitter,tag me LinkedIn, tag me.
That will be five entries intothe giveaway and with the
giveaway I hope we can grill theshow, as I want to update y'all
(02:27):
.
Usually I do.
We are still in the top 50%, socorrection, not top 50 were top
50% worldwide.
We are no longer top 10 in anycountry, so we need to get back
on that.
If y'all could help me out,I'll have y'all out, please, and
thank you.
Going back to what a militaryinstallation base post naval
(02:50):
quarters is like.
Well, if you knew anythingabout the barracks that we've
talked about, they'redilapidated, their age and poor
building codes and metrics.
Also, they're kind of fallingapart and poor planned right.
Some things, though, on amilitary installation can be
better than average, or I wouldon some things I would say are
(03:14):
top tier.
I really would say some thingsare.
All installations have somereally basic need amenities.
So this is like gyms, pools,libraries, education centers,
health centers, shop at mallscalled the PX.
They have grocery.
There's a grocery store,sometimes two or three gas
(03:35):
station, clothing store,military clothing store.
If really someone wouldn'treally need to ever leave post
base store whatever, to behonest, they really wouldn't
need to leave.
However, you don't geteverything on a base, so let's
start through the basis.
(03:55):
Let's talk about the gyms forgyms.
General average of gyms on ainstallation are about eight and
a half.
Okay, you can't do enough.
Usually eight to nine gyms onevery military installation.
Some places have 24 hours, someplaces don't have 24 hours.
I think it's in the bestinterest that gyms should be 24
(04:19):
hours, because you do have toscan in with your cat card or
whatever ID gets you on onto abase.
Example, like there's a reallynice gym I go to down here in
Texas and it is only open from 5am to 4 pm.
Well, if you are in the armyand you do PT and you work a
(04:39):
normal workday, you're notleaving at 1300.
You're not an SFAB, you're nota warrant, you're not in finance
.
Yes, you do not ever have achance to go to the gym, and
it's a really nice gym, it's avery top tier gym.
Now there's another gym that'sopen from 05 to 10 pm.
You could go, but essentiallythose hours outside the workday
it's going to be mobbed.
(05:00):
So is that really advantageousto go when you really can't get
a quality workout in?
No matter how nice the gym is,just it's going to be everybody
there and everybody mobbed.
Other gyms I've gone to so thiswas a Air Force installation.
They had a two-story gym, allbrand new equipment.
They had about four or fivebenches and it was all very,
(05:22):
very clean, very well kept andthey had, just, you know, a scan
, your government ID and thatgets you into the gym 24-7.
That was really nice to haveand it was actually really
convenient.
Other gyms they have them.
But then, like I understand,the concern is like, well, what
if someone gets hurt and there'sno staff there?
I mean I would hope you guyshave cameras, I would hope
there's some security systemright and like, kind of, if you
(05:46):
have more than one person in thegym, I don't think someone's
gonna sit in there and try towalk out stealing some plates
and kettlebells and barbells,like they're learning walking
their barracks and with anything.
Oh well, hey, we found the guy.
We gotta do one inspectionbecause they're not just not
gonna hide that randomly, it'sgonna be somewhere set up if, if
that ever happened.
So I mean I understand a riskand concern, so they tried to do
the right thing.
(06:08):
Next coming down is we talkedabout the PX and shop that we
mentioned.
So a PX is essentially theexchange, where it's a massive
mall.
Every installation is a littlebit different.
They do have some of the basicthings, like every single one
has like a grunt style frontstore.
Everyone has a game stop,everyone has like a subway and a
(06:30):
couple little food court spots,but then the main part is just
a massive Super store, if youwill.
So if you need a best buy,there's essentially a best
buying one.
If you need to go to a T Mobileor AT&T there's one of those in
there.
You need some like Most basichardware.
There's like a basic hardwarestore inside.
If you go to the one, the, theone in Germany, ramstein they
(06:53):
have an entire furniture storeinside the PX shopping store If
you want to find like anold-school toys or us there and
have a massive toy section,honestly bigger than any Walmart
and Target.
If you like gardening, theyhave a massive gardening center.
If you want to Get into homedecor, they have all this home
decor.
They have a jewelry section.
They have a makeup section forwomen.
(07:14):
They have a Victoria's Secretsection for women.
They have Basically like a ministorefront for American Eagle,
dickies, oakley, levi's, calvinKlein, michael Kors, chanel,
vogue or invoke.
It's like the makeup stuff.
There's another makeup brand.
I can't think of Sephora.
(07:34):
There's always a Sephora frontand just all built in massively
into this what you call the PX.
That is usually this onelocation on a installation.
Then you have what they callshoppettes, which is kind of
like a mini shop mall.
Some will call them shop, somecome malls and come shops.
Generally, if you're in theservice, you just call it a shop
(07:54):
at shoppette's gonna have yoursnacks, your gas station kind of
food.
It's gonna have some hygienestuff, like you know one.
There's one here that haspillows, blankets, paper towels,
light bulbs, batteries, likesome some small stuff.
And then pretty much everysingle one has like its own
(08:15):
Liquor store on top of theliquor store called class six,
where the class six which thisis actually kind of cool you can
order whatever alcohol you wantfrom wherever it is in the
world.
They will mail it there andthen you pick it up there
instead of mail to your house,which I think that's actually
pretty cool.
Now you can't buy in uniformtill.
I think it's 1600 MonthThursday and 1400 on Fridays I'm
(08:39):
not sure like the hours on that, so I'm probably wrong but like
, essentially, if you're inuniform you cannot go in there.
That's kind of like a.
I think that's a good idea.
I think it's generally goodspeaking, which, with liquor
stores, right, there are whatcalled the commissaries.
The commissaries are yourgrocery stores.
If you're in the Northeast andyou shop at Wegmans, the
(09:01):
commissary is gonna be dog shit,absolute trash compared to
Wegmans.
If you are Central and you goto Kroger, it I'd say it's
pretty comfortable to.
Kroger me generally has adecent selection, generally good
selection of frozen food,pantry food, just because, let's
say, someone gets deployed,just then they have to throw it
out.
They just could freeze it andsave it.
(09:22):
That prices are Some selfprices are really good.
Other things prices does itdoesn't really matter.
You're better off just Going to, rather, grab your store,
getting the name brand thingbecause you trust it and you
know it.
Though what it is reallyinteresting and in a thing, this
is actually a big problem withthe commissaries, like, so you
(09:44):
essentially can get on a basewhich means you are Part of the
DoD, you're a worker for the DoD, or maybe you are visiting your
son, daughter, dad, uncle,brother, cousin, whatever right.
And let's say, you realize,like you know they don't have
anything in their fridge Like,let me help them out.
So I'm gonna go to the grocerystore and get them something.
Can't the commissary people Ithink they're volunteers, I
(10:08):
don't know why, but they are themost strictest a holes For the
easiest job in the world withtheir like, hey, I'm trying to
get this from my son.
No, you can't do that.
You can't shop here, like and Ithink that's ridiculous like
there's a lot of soldiers thatdo struggle with good, getting a
good diet and food plan, thatwhen a parent or relative tries
(10:28):
to get that soldier food tosupply their fridge so they can
get Adequate food, adequate mealand adequate nutrition, and you
just kind of shut it down.
I Don't think that's right.
I really think there needs tobe a better plan in place For
that, because I there are times,like even when I used to live
in the barracks, that I wish soif someone visited me I Do, was
(10:49):
they would buy me food,sometimes Like food to have in
my fridge.
I can make myself.
Not just buy me like Chipotleor buy me like to go food, no,
no, like I want to buy someactual food to make it home.
That's something I really dowish happened for me.
Now, speaking about to go foodand what kind of to go food
there is.
So for fast food, this is kindof like the generality that you
(11:11):
usually get.
It's going to be Popeyes,burger King, chipotle, jimmy
John's and then I've seensomeplace with Cudoba and Some
places have like different pizzashops.
However, I do generally seeDomino's on every military
installation.
Some places have Marcos, butI've only really seen Domino's,
(11:34):
to be honest with you.
Then I've seen a couplesit-down restaurants.
This includes Sam Adams, whichis actually more of just a brew
house and they'll have like barsnacks and one or should be like
a full Sam Adams restaurantdraft house, if you will.
Chilies there is a David, butwell, okay, it's not call it's
not David bussers, but it's likeDavid bussers, like it has two
floor arcade, a restaurant, arock climbing wall and this is
(11:57):
that.
This is an air force base, ofcourse.
Then there's iHop, johnnyRockets, and then there's, uh,
some, some installations havelike small local restaurants.
So, uh, for bending or Fortmore has like it's called the
infantry bar and it's attachedto this Mexican restaurant.
The Mexican restaurant isactually really good, I forgot
what it's called.
Then, um, for, uh, forca vaseshas like these little like Guam
(12:24):
truck.
It's a guam truck and then aKorean soul food truck.
So it's not like a sit-downrestaurant but they do set up
like a little cafe area for youto go sit and eat there.
Um, then I've seen five guys andI've seen five guys on a couple
installations and that's all Iknow off top of my head that I
could find and research betweenlike what I've, what I've
(12:46):
experienced and seen.
Um, then we pull up listsonline, like all these lists say
all these other places, butsome of them, like example, like
uh 404, kvasso, says there's aPanera, there's a Panera
construction but that size hasbeen up for a minute and there's
never been a Panera there.
So that's, that's something.
That's like I don't know howmuch, how much, to believe Some
(13:08):
of these lists.
That's why I just kind of tellyou what I've seen in you know
my experience.
Another thing that's kind oflike a myth is uh, movie
theaters.
So Every installation on theirmwr page say they have a movie
theater.
I went at Fort Benning.
There's a movie theater there.
Then most other ones, it's kindof they had one like it has a
(13:32):
building says movie theater butit's not actually in use anymore
.
It's used for like ceremonialstuff, like nco Charges,
promotion ceremonies or timeceremonies, stuff like that is
not actually used as a movietheater anymore.
So what they do for soldiers tosee the movies is there's a
thing called boss and bosseslike a group organization that's
(13:54):
better opportunity for singlesoldiers.
So what they'll do is they'lloffer extremely discounted
tickets for soldiers to go see amovie.
They'll get a bus, they'll, youknow, say hey, like tickets are
five dollars and whatever,whatever, and you'll see a movie
which I mean, if you don't havea car which I know a lot of
lower and less the guys don'tit's kind of nice, it's kind of
(14:15):
something to do, at least it's.
It's there.
It's better than some otherthings they offer.
Then Recreation is a really bigthing.
On a lot of installations, atThree of the bases I've been to,
there's been a golf course, aGod and run hug, sorry, gun and
rod club, which is kind of likea hunting club.
But you do get only a certainamount of tags, just like any
(14:39):
most state licenses, and thereis like a hey, you can't shoot
this animal, you can't shootthis animal, we.
So there are a lot of the samelegal rules that you get with
hunting in civilian Republicland.
There's kayak rentals.
Usually some places actuallyhave the kayaking area.
I've seen rock climbing on acouple installations.
(15:00):
Then I've seen Bowling alleys ata lot of the installations.
You know, okay, don't be wrong,it's like bowling the 1950s.
They don't sell certain likeyou can't.
You can't go there and getdraft beer, draft pictures, like
it was normal bowling, like abowling league.
But you can usually get acouple beers like usual bowling.
Snacks like pizza, nachos,nothing crazy, but I like the
(15:22):
fact that it's there and I likethat there is things to do
besides sit in your barracksroom.
And then the last I think thereally last really good thing
that every installation has is aeducation center.
So now I'm speaking for thearmy on this one.
I'm, I know, on the Marineepisode we talked about there's
like a, an ed center, but it'snot the same.
(15:44):
So at least in the army theeducation centers I've seen are
a place where there are civiliancounselors and then they advise
you on whether you want to gothe college route or if you want
to go the trade route.
If you want to go trade,they'll help set you up, getting
certifications, setting up CSP,skill bridge programs, which is
career skill based programswelding, mechanics, wind farming
(16:08):
, carpentry, truck driving.
Then academic you can name anyacademic college you want to go
to.
You get accepted to and then,when you get accepted, you meet
with your.
You meet one of the counselorsyou never really assigned one
and then from there you Sit in,you go through like, hey, what's
your education plan?
Go through your joint servicetranscript is gonna have X
(16:28):
amount of credits and even say,hey, this is probably your best
opportunity at pursuing thisdegree.
So the army has tuitionassistance, which is really good
.
You get four thousand dollars ayear which kick in before your
financial aid.
So the four thousand will payfor college and then your
financial aid will kick in afterand that there's any money left
over your financial aid youpocket that money.
(16:48):
Love that.
It's actually really huge forthe army.
It's a great selling point forthem if they really want to try
helping recruiting numbers.
And I do recommend that if youare in the army you need to meet
with your Education centerpeople if you have a year left,
six months left or you're gonnastay in for 20, because once you
hit e7 the OML actually helpsif you have a degree.
(17:11):
You know sometimes you don'talways have an opportunity to go
get a EIB.
You know you might only haveone chance in eight years.
You may not be in a unit thatcan send you to aerosol or Any
kind of badge producing schoolwhere your best option is
getting a degree.
It will help.
And you know, do all the othercertification courses like Umo
(17:33):
has, matt, upl, all that goodstuff, do that.
But college will get you a hugeadvantage amongst your peers, at
least in my experience, fromwhat I've seen, most bases do
have a pool.
With the pools there's usuallyno lifeguard.
How it works is you have to geta memorandum from your
(17:53):
commander saying, hey, we havepermission to swim here and do
whatever we want to do, ifyou're doing training, if you're
doing water survival or, likeyours, going there on a weekend
to hang out.
Bases also with pools will havemultiple kid centers and
daycare centers.
On the daycare centers theysend your work to other men,
elementary schools and you canbring kids to the pool.
(18:16):
They'll have workshops for them, arts and crafts centers.
The library always has amassive kids section, very like
heavy on the family oriented,which I think is good if you're
religious.
There's at least one massivechurch on a post in my
experience and then there's acouple of smaller churches that
(18:37):
you can meet at where they mightbe having a special kind of
service or whether you'reBuddhist or if you're Hindu or
so it's not a very commonreligion like Islam or
Christianity here, or I thinkProtestants like another big one
.
Pretty much they'll have likespecial areas where they'll be
conducting worship and, you know, follow your religious practice
(18:59):
at that building at whatevertime they think the most
soldiers for that religion cango to.
Obviously they will give you agrant, like they'll give you.
Like, hey, if you're gonna goto religious services, go to
your thing, you're good.
That's another big thing Ithink the army is really good on
is like being very accepting ofmultitude of religions.
(19:20):
So on on To.
To wrap this up here, if youthought you're at your next
vacation city, obviously youweren't.
However, if you are thinkingabout joining or you are Gonna
be PCSing for the first time andhit up the NWR site on every
military installations Websiteis like a WW dot for drummil or
(19:46):
for more dot mil, for kovosso'sdot mil and get to their mwr
link.
Their MWR link will give youlinks to upcoming events, events
going on who to contact, whatkind of Physical fitness centers
are are, what kind ofrecreation programs are are, and
we'll get you in touch with.
Like hey, if you're a singlesoldier going to the barracks,
hey, there's like this bossprogram here.
(20:06):
There's other programs you cando.
If you have any question onthat, there's a car mechanic on
base, like someplace havefirestone and mention that, but
that's the thing they have.
If you are looking to get Intosome sort of club.
They'll have club organizationthings going on.
They'll have, you know, yourvideo game tournaments and the
end of your set will Give you alot of information if you want
(20:27):
to travel I say you have afamily when you go travel,
leisure, looking information onlike theme parks nearby, family
resorts nearby, where at leastyou're not going somewhere.
You just don't know anything.
So take advantage of theresources that are around.
Hope this at least can educatesome people on what a military
installation can offer and whatit has.
If you are thinking aboutjoining, I'm not trying to
(20:49):
recruit you, I'm just tellingyou what options there are here
if you do join.
If you are getting out, man,hey, hit up that CSP skill
bridge at the Ed Center and getworking on that and do something
for your career getting out.
Okay, I hope to catch y'all onSunday, charlie, mike.
Hello, welcome back to the Joe show.
What up y'all?
It is a fantastic Friday.
I'm feeling captastic, if youknow what I mean.
I got my little spurs on mystetson on it, I'm just feeling
spectacular.
But anyhow, thanks for comingout to the show.
Thanks for checking us out.
As you know, on Fridays we tryto do it for your information.
(00:38):
So today we are going to betalking about if you are on a
military installation or you areon a brand new vacation, is
something on the one?
I mean, it's like you're in thearmy of the Marines and you go
to an air force base.
That is a really nice newvacation city If you know what
I'm talking about.
(00:59):
But for the rest of y'all thatcome from the civilian world,
firstly, no military base thatI've really seen.
I've seen eight of them.
Please, please, be mindful.
Yeah, none of them are probablya new vacation city and I get a
lot of questions on what peoplethink and I get a lot of
questions on what is a militaryinstallation like and how do
(01:19):
people call it a city.
Before we get into that, I justwant to let y'all know.
Thank y'all for voting on theInstagram channels, the email
feed and on the show kind ofreaching out to me.
So a couple things.
The giveaway next one we'regoing to do is going to be more
closing an apparel.
We're going to get some coolstuff.
We're going to get some fannypacks, because summer's coming
(01:41):
so we got to sneak our minibottles into the concerts.
Some trucker hats, becauseeveryone loves a good trucker
hat we can all wear back, slickback whatever.
We're going to get some teasDefinitely not hoodies.
In Texas it was 100 degreesyesterday.
I ain't doing hoodies, we ain'twith that.
How do you get entered into this?
If you stream, download,subscribe, like the show, that's
(02:06):
one entry for each thing.
If you share the show and ifyou have me on Instagram, you
tag me Facebook, tag me Twitter,tag me LinkedIn, tag me.
That will be five entries intothe giveaway and with the
giveaway I hope we can grill theshow, as I want to update y'all
(02:27):
.
Usually I do.
We are still in the top 50%, socorrection, not top 50 were top
50% worldwide.
We are no longer top 10 in anycountry, so we need to get back
on that.
If y'all could help me out,I'll have y'all out, please, and
thank you.
Going back to what a militaryinstallation base post naval
(02:50):
quarters is like.
Well, if you knew anythingabout the barracks that we've
talked about, they'redilapidated, their age and poor
building codes and metrics.
Also, they're kind of fallingapart and poor planned right.
Some things, though, on amilitary installation can be
better than average, or I wouldon some things I would say are
(03:14):
top tier.
I really would say some thingsare.
All installations have somereally basic need amenities.
So this is like gyms, pools,libraries, education centers,
health centers, shop at mallscalled the PX.
They have grocery.
There's a grocery store,sometimes two or three gas
(03:35):
station, clothing store,military clothing store.
If really someone wouldn'treally need to ever leave post
base store whatever, to behonest, they really wouldn't
need to leave.
However, you don't geteverything on a base, so let's
start through the basis.
(03:55):
Let's talk about the gyms forgyms.
General average of gyms on ainstallation are about eight and
a half.
Okay, you can't do enough.
Usually eight to nine gyms onevery military installation.
Some places have 24 hours, someplaces don't have 24 hours.
I think it's in the bestinterest that gyms should be 24
(04:19):
hours, because you do have toscan in with your cat card or
whatever ID gets you on onto abase.
Example, like there's a reallynice gym I go to down here in
Texas and it is only open from 5am to 4 pm.
Well, if you are in the armyand you do PT and you work a
(04:39):
normal workday, you're notleaving at 1300.
You're not an SFAB, you're nota warrant, you're not in finance
.
Yes, you do not ever have achance to go to the gym, and
it's a really nice gym, it's avery top tier gym.
Now there's another gym that'sopen from 05 to 10 pm.
You could go, but essentiallythose hours outside the workday
it's going to be mobbed.
(05:00):
So is that really advantageousto go when you really can't get
a quality workout in?
No matter how nice the gym is,just it's going to be everybody
there and everybody mobbed.
Other gyms I've gone to so thiswas a Air Force installation.
They had a two-story gym, allbrand new equipment.
They had about four or fivebenches and it was all very,
(05:22):
very clean, very well kept andthey had, just, you know, a scan
, your government ID and thatgets you into the gym 24-7.
That was really nice to haveand it was actually really
convenient.
Other gyms they have them.
But then, like I understand,the concern is like, well, what
if someone gets hurt and there'sno staff there?
I mean I would hope you guyshave cameras, I would hope
there's some security systemright and like, kind of, if you
(05:46):
have more than one person in thegym, I don't think someone's
gonna sit in there and try towalk out stealing some plates
and kettlebells and barbells,like they're learning walking
their barracks and with anything.
Oh well, hey, we found the guy.
We gotta do one inspectionbecause they're not just not
gonna hide that randomly, it'sgonna be somewhere set up if, if
that ever happened.
So I mean I understand a riskand concern, so they tried to do
the right thing.
(06:08):
Next coming down is we talkedabout the PX and shop that we
mentioned.
So a PX is essentially theexchange, where it's a massive
mall.
Every installation is a littlebit different.
They do have some of the basicthings, like every single one
has like a grunt style frontstore.
Everyone has a game stop,everyone has like a subway and a
(06:30):
couple little food court spots,but then the main part is just
a massive Super store, if youwill.
So if you need a best buy,there's essentially a best
buying one.
If you need to go to a T Mobileor AT&T there's one of those in
there.
You need some like Most basichardware.
There's like a basic hardwarestore inside.
If you go to the one, the, theone in Germany, ramstein they
(06:53):
have an entire furniture storeinside the PX shopping store If
you want to find like anold-school toys or us there and
have a massive toy section,honestly bigger than any Walmart
and Target.
If you like gardening, theyhave a massive gardening center.
If you want to Get into homedecor, they have all this home
decor.
They have a jewelry section.
They have a makeup section forwomen.
(07:14):
They have a Victoria's Secretsection for women.
They have Basically like a ministorefront for American Eagle,
dickies, oakley, levi's, calvinKlein, michael Kors, chanel,
vogue or invoke.
It's like the makeup stuff.
There's another makeup brand.
I can't think of Sephora.
(07:34):
There's always a Sephora frontand just all built in massively
into this what you call the PX.
That is usually this onelocation on a installation.
Then you have what they callshoppettes, which is kind of
like a mini shop mall.
Some will call them shop, somecome malls and come shops.
Generally, if you're in theservice, you just call it a shop
(07:54):
at shoppette's gonna have yoursnacks, your gas station kind of
food.
It's gonna have some hygienestuff, like you know one.
There's one here that haspillows, blankets, paper towels,
light bulbs, batteries, likesome some small stuff.
And then pretty much everysingle one has like its own
(08:15):
Liquor store on top of theliquor store called class six,
where the class six which thisis actually kind of cool you can
order whatever alcohol you wantfrom wherever it is in the
world.
They will mail it there andthen you pick it up there
instead of mail to your house,which I think that's actually
pretty cool.
Now you can't buy in uniformtill.
I think it's 1600 MonthThursday and 1400 on Fridays I'm
(08:39):
not sure like the hours on that, so I'm probably wrong but like
, essentially, if you're inuniform you cannot go in there.
That's kind of like a.
I think that's a good idea.
I think it's generally goodspeaking, which, with liquor
stores, right, there are whatcalled the commissaries.
The commissaries are yourgrocery stores.
If you're in the Northeast andyou shop at Wegmans, the
(09:01):
commissary is gonna be dog shit,absolute trash compared to
Wegmans.
If you are Central and you goto Kroger, it I'd say it's
pretty comfortable to.
Kroger me generally has adecent selection, generally good
selection of frozen food,pantry food, just because, let's
say, someone gets deployed,just then they have to throw it
out.
They just could freeze it andsave it.
(09:22):
That prices are Some selfprices are really good.
Other things prices does itdoesn't really matter.
You're better off just Going to, rather, grab your store,
getting the name brand thingbecause you trust it and you
know it.
Though what it is reallyinteresting and in a thing, this
is actually a big problem withthe commissaries, like, so you
(09:44):
essentially can get on a basewhich means you are Part of the
DoD, you're a worker for the DoD, or maybe you are visiting your
son, daughter, dad, uncle,brother, cousin, whatever right.
And let's say, you realize,like you know they don't have
anything in their fridge Like,let me help them out.
So I'm gonna go to the grocerystore and get them something.
Can't the commissary people Ithink they're volunteers, I
(10:08):
don't know why, but they are themost strictest a holes For the
easiest job in the world withtheir like, hey, I'm trying to
get this from my son.
No, you can't do that.
You can't shop here, like and Ithink that's ridiculous like
there's a lot of soldiers thatdo struggle with good, getting a
good diet and food plan, thatwhen a parent or relative tries
(10:28):
to get that soldier food tosupply their fridge so they can
get Adequate food, adequate mealand adequate nutrition, and you
just kind of shut it down.
I Don't think that's right.
I really think there needs tobe a better plan in place For
that, because I there are times,like even when I used to live
in the barracks, that I wish soif someone visited me I Do, was
(10:49):
they would buy me food,sometimes Like food to have in
my fridge.
I can make myself.
Not just buy me like Chipotleor buy me like to go food, no,
no, like I want to buy someactual food to make it home.
That's something I really dowish happened for me.
Now, speaking about to go foodand what kind of to go food
there is.
So for fast food, this is kindof like the generality that you
(11:11):
usually get.
It's going to be Popeyes,burger King, chipotle, jimmy
John's and then I've seensomeplace with Cudoba and Some
places have like different pizzashops.
However, I do generally seeDomino's on every military
installation.
Some places have Marcos, butI've only really seen Domino's,
(11:34):
to be honest with you.
Then I've seen a couplesit-down restaurants.
This includes Sam Adams, whichis actually more of just a brew
house and they'll have like barsnacks and one or should be like
a full Sam Adams restaurantdraft house, if you will.
Chilies there is a David, butwell, okay, it's not call it's
not David bussers, but it's likeDavid bussers, like it has two
floor arcade, a restaurant, arock climbing wall and this is
(11:57):
that.
This is an air force base, ofcourse.
Then there's iHop, johnnyRockets, and then there's, uh,
some, some installations havelike small local restaurants.
So, uh, for bending or Fortmore has like it's called the
infantry bar and it's attachedto this Mexican restaurant.
The Mexican restaurant isactually really good, I forgot
what it's called.
Then, um, for, uh, forca vaseshas like these little like Guam
(12:24):
truck.
It's a guam truck and then aKorean soul food truck.
So it's not like a sit-downrestaurant but they do set up
like a little cafe area for youto go sit and eat there.
Um, then I've seen five guys andI've seen five guys on a couple
installations and that's all Iknow off top of my head that I
could find and research betweenlike what I've, what I've
(12:46):
experienced and seen.
Um, then we pull up listsonline, like all these lists say
all these other places, butsome of them, like example, like
uh 404, kvasso, says there's aPanera, there's a Panera
construction but that size hasbeen up for a minute and there's
never been a Panera there.
So that's, that's something.
That's like I don't know howmuch, how much, to believe Some
(13:08):
of these lists.
That's why I just kind of tellyou what I've seen in you know
my experience.
Another thing that's kind oflike a myth is uh, movie
theaters.
So Every installation on theirmwr page say they have a movie
theater.
I went at Fort Benning.
There's a movie theater there.
Then most other ones, it's kindof they had one like it has a
(13:32):
building says movie theater butit's not actually in use anymore
.
It's used for like ceremonialstuff, like nco Charges,
promotion ceremonies or timeceremonies, stuff like that is
not actually used as a movietheater anymore.
So what they do for soldiers tosee the movies is there's a
thing called boss and bosseslike a group organization that's
(13:54):
better opportunity for singlesoldiers.
So what they'll do is they'lloffer extremely discounted
tickets for soldiers to go see amovie.
They'll get a bus, they'll, youknow, say hey, like tickets are
five dollars and whatever,whatever, and you'll see a movie
which I mean, if you don't havea car which I know a lot of
lower and less the guys don'tit's kind of nice, it's kind of
(14:15):
something to do, at least it's.
It's there.
It's better than some otherthings they offer.
Then Recreation is a really bigthing.
On a lot of installations, atThree of the bases I've been to,
there's been a golf course, aGod and run hug, sorry, gun and
rod club, which is kind of likea hunting club.
But you do get only a certainamount of tags, just like any
(14:39):
most state licenses, and thereis like a hey, you can't shoot
this animal, you can't shootthis animal, we.
So there are a lot of the samelegal rules that you get with
hunting in civilian Republicland.
There's kayak rentals.
Usually some places actuallyhave the kayaking area.
I've seen rock climbing on acouple installations.
(15:00):
Then I've seen Bowling alleys ata lot of the installations.
You know, okay, don't be wrong,it's like bowling the 1950s.
They don't sell certain likeyou can't.
You can't go there and getdraft beer, draft pictures, like
it was normal bowling, like abowling league.
But you can usually get acouple beers like usual bowling.
Snacks like pizza, nachos,nothing crazy, but I like the
(15:22):
fact that it's there and I likethat there is things to do
besides sit in your barracksroom.
And then the last I think thereally last really good thing
that every installation has is aeducation center.
So now I'm speaking for thearmy on this one.
I'm, I know, on the Marineepisode we talked about there's
like a, an ed center, but it'snot the same.
(15:44):
So at least in the army theeducation centers I've seen are
a place where there are civiliancounselors and then they advise
you on whether you want to gothe college route or if you want
to go the trade route.
If you want to go trade,they'll help set you up, getting
certifications, setting up CSP,skill bridge programs, which is
career skill based programswelding, mechanics, wind farming
(16:08):
, carpentry, truck driving.
Then academic you can name anyacademic college you want to go
to.
You get accepted to and then,when you get accepted, you meet
with your.
You meet one of the counselorsyou never really assigned one
and then from there you Sit in,you go through like, hey, what's
your education plan?
Go through your joint servicetranscript is gonna have X
(16:28):
amount of credits and even say,hey, this is probably your best
opportunity at pursuing thisdegree.
So the army has tuitionassistance, which is really good
.
You get four thousand dollars ayear which kick in before your
financial aid.
So the four thousand will payfor college and then your
financial aid will kick in afterand that there's any money left
over your financial aid youpocket that money.
(16:48):
Love that.
It's actually really huge forthe army.
It's a great selling point forthem if they really want to try
helping recruiting numbers.
And I do recommend that if youare in the army you need to meet
with your Education centerpeople if you have a year left,
six months left or you're gonnastay in for 20, because once you
hit e7 the OML actually helpsif you have a degree.
(17:11):
You know sometimes you don'talways have an opportunity to go
get a EIB.
You know you might only haveone chance in eight years.
You may not be in a unit thatcan send you to aerosol or Any
kind of badge producing schoolwhere your best option is
getting a degree.
It will help.
And you know, do all the othercertification courses like Umo
(17:33):
has, matt, upl, all that goodstuff, do that.
But college will get you a hugeadvantage amongst your peers, at
least in my experience, fromwhat I've seen, most bases do
have a pool.
With the pools there's usuallyno lifeguard.
How it works is you have to geta memorandum from your
(17:53):
commander saying, hey, we havepermission to swim here and do
whatever we want to do, ifyou're doing training, if you're
doing water survival or, likeyours, going there on a weekend
to hang out.
Bases also with pools will havemultiple kid centers and
daycare centers.
On the daycare centers theysend your work to other men,
elementary schools and you canbring kids to the pool.
(18:16):
They'll have workshops for them, arts and crafts centers.
The library always has amassive kids section, very like
heavy on the family oriented,which I think is good if you're
religious.
There's at least one massivechurch on a post in my
experience and then there's acouple of smaller churches that
(18:37):
you can meet at where they mightbe having a special kind of
service or whether you'reBuddhist or if you're Hindu or
so it's not a very commonreligion like Islam or
Christianity here, or I thinkProtestants like another big one
.
Pretty much they'll have likespecial areas where they'll be
conducting worship and, you know, follow your religious practice
(18:59):
at that building at whatevertime they think the most
soldiers for that religion cango to.
Obviously they will give you agrant, like they'll give you.
Like, hey, if you're gonna goto religious services, go to
your thing, you're good.
That's another big thing Ithink the army is really good on
is like being very accepting ofmultitude of religions.
(19:20):
So on on To.
To wrap this up here, if youthought you're at your next
vacation city, obviously youweren't.
However, if you are thinkingabout joining or you are Gonna
be PCSing for the first time andhit up the NWR site on every
military installations Websiteis like a WW dot for drummil or
(19:46):
for more dot mil, for kovosso'sdot mil and get to their mwr
link.
Their MWR link will give youlinks to upcoming events, events
going on who to contact, whatkind of Physical fitness centers
are are, what kind ofrecreation programs are are, and
we'll get you in touch with.
Like hey, if you're a singlesoldier going to the barracks,
hey, there's like this bossprogram here.
(20:06):
There's other programs you cando.
If you have any question onthat, there's a car mechanic on
base, like someplace havefirestone and mention that, but
that's the thing they have.
If you are looking to get Intosome sort of club.
They'll have club organizationthings going on.
They'll have, you know, yourvideo game tournaments and the
end of your set will Give you alot of information if you want
(20:27):
to travel I say you have afamily when you go travel,
leisure, looking information onlike theme parks nearby, family
resorts nearby, where at leastyou're not going somewhere.
You just don't know anything.
So take advantage of theresources that are around.
Hope this at least can educatesome people on what a military
installation can offer and whatit has.
If you are thinking aboutjoining, I'm not trying to
(20:49):
recruit you, I'm just tellingyou what options there are here
if you do join.
If you are getting out, man,hey, hit up that CSP skill
bridge at the Ed Center and getworking on that and do something
for your career getting out.
Okay, I hope to catch y'all onSunday, charlie, mike.
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