Posted on 06/17/2010 5:46:12 AM PDT by lack-of-trust
It's a rumor that dates back decades: To keep the sexual appetites of recruits in check so they can focus on basic training, the military services sneak saltpeter into the food served to new soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
Jeff Schogol, the "Rumor Doctor" at Stars and Stripes, actually went to the trouble of getting the services to respond to this legend. You probably won't be surprised to learn that he got a series of strenuous denials.
"The rigors of basic training alone are sufficient to keep the urges at abeyance," an Army spokesman reported. "Keep in mind that it's not just recruits that dine in our recruit messing facilities but all authorized patrons," the Marines said. "Though the rumor persists in some imaginations, for the Air Force it has never been true," a service spokesman said. The Navy likewise quashed the legend. And the Defense Logistics Agency said there's "no way" sexual suppressants are added to any meals served to the troops.
Are new recruits secretly given saltpeter? (Stars and Stripes)
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...this is for killing, this is for fun.
Wizzwood. In formation. That sucks!
Heard the rumor “LOUD and CLEAR” while at Ft Jackson SC.
They kept telling us to drink what they called Victory punch.
After 2 days of drinking this punch..I noticed none of the drill instructors or the mess personnel or higher enlisted would touch this stuff...My guess was the rumor was true and I stopped drinking it...lets just say after a couple days First thing in the morning I was back to normal...(LOL)
Yeah, but the DIs secretly got the antidote pill.
Insidious!
Wheels within wheels I tells you!
Turtles all the way down!
An animal under high stress will experience extreme physical reactions. Basic should be a high stress experience, and it certainly was for me.
When I relaxed enough to defecate a few weeks in, then I was relaxed enough to ‘get wood’ when sleeping. But far too busy and worried to do anything about it.
WHY would the military want to reduce the libido of recruits in Basic? It would just give them more opportunity to yell at us (their reason for being), and provide a ‘teachable moment’ about the inappropriateness of “manual release” in a room full of men.
After 2 days of drinking this punch..I noticed none of the drill instructors or the mess personnel or higher enlisted would touch this stuff...My guess was the rumor was true and I stopped drinking it...lets just say after a couple days First thing in the morning I was back to normal...(LOL)
Did you consider the possibility that those folks knew of the rumor as well and were deliberately avoiding the punch to mess with your heads.
As far as the effects going away, there's something known as a 'placebo effect'. When you believe something will affect you in a certain way, it quite often will, even if the 'magic ingredient' isn't in what you're taking.
My experience in boot camp is that no, the military doesn’t add ‘salt peter’, or anything else to suppress the hormonal state of its recruits.
However, bunking with 81 other guys suppressed my ‘natural state’ well enough.
Of course, I was interested when the female recruit company moved in upstairs (3rd deck) of the battalion I was living in during boot camp (in Orlando, in 1988).
It went haywire when I was asked to stand ‘guard duty’ on their barracks while they in-processed, and I saw them going back and forth to the head in skimpy clothing, and got to walk around the barracks while they were at the medical facility, or getting uniforms, etc.
But, the next few weeks, when it was me and the rest of the guys in CO15/88, my drive was deader than a doornail.
Seems to me, Occam's razor and all, that they give all recruits the SAME THING that does all those things (and more); that one thing they give all recruits that makes them constipated, eliminates their libido, and elevates their immune activity is STRESS!
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