Posted on 05/19/2009 9:18:17 AM PDT by franksolich
I was reading some badly-photocopied financial records earlier today, those kept by the U.S. Army at Fort McPherson, near North Platte, Nebraska, in 1869.
I came across some most curious entries that made me wonder about something.
In this instance, back in 1869, in Nebraska, the U.S. Army had washerwomen on the payroll, one for every nineteen "enlisted men" (no mention of how many for officers).
Such laundrywomen were paid, fed, and housed, although housed far segregated away from quarters for "enlisted men." One assumes they had to be out of necessity pretty rough women.
Which got me to thinking--who does the military laundry?
I'm assuming that there are no laundromats on base, and it's quite obvious there are no laundromats on the battlefield.
Are dirty clothes shipped out to a central area, cleaned, and then redistributed?
Are dirty uniforms treated differently from ordinary clothes?
Is dirty laundry handled differently now, than it had been during the first and second world wars?
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativecave.com ...
A close relative of mine who was in the Navy in WWII said that they starched their dress white uniforms by dipping them in salt water and laying them out on the deck.
I understand. I was merely replying to the comment regarding Civil War camp followers.
Here's another piece of trivia, though not related to military laundry. In the post Civil War cavalry, the enlisted men were allotted 15 rounds of ammunition per month for target practice. Think about that...
Thanks bcsco. I love trivia such as this.
Please be polite to us seasoned citizens. I have see and used these ancient photocopies. I am Young enough to still work on CNC machines and other up to date Machines.
At a small NATO base in Southern Italy in my follow-on tour, we had a laundry room per floor of the barracks, and a base laundry.
Off topic, though close, here's an article about a pretty interesting fella you may recall High Eagle The Many Lives of Colonel Tim McCoy. There's some pretty interesting trivia to be gleaned from this...
In light of this...
Or this...
The Indian, White Man Runs Him, in the above photo, was one of 5 Crow scouts that served Custer at the Little Big Horn. The Crow’s Nest was the lookout point in the Wolf Mountains, from which Custer’s regiment discovered the Sioux encampment on the Little Big Horn.
In Iraq/Afghanstan it is KBR.
Since 2003, KBR has:
Served more than 937 million meals;
Issued more than 7 billion gallons of fuel;
Handled more than 335 million pounds of mail;
Washed more than 66 million bundles of laundry; and
Hosted more than 152 million visits to Morale, Welfare and Recreation facilities.
Often, soldiers have cleaned up using whatever was available -- whatever water and /or soap they could find. In the cases of the parades you're talking about, a lot of times soldiers went to the front but left their duffel bags (packed full of clothes) at some central point in the rear. They might not see those duffels for months or years at a time. When the unit got rotated back to the rear, though, they'd be reunited with their bags which were full of clean clothes.
The soldiers are responsible for their own laundry. There are laundry rooms in the barracks. (Hubby is a 1st Sgt. He’s always complaining about the soldiers leaving the room a mess, leaving their laundry soap and cleaning supplies down there, and leaving their clothes unattended.)
There’s also a dry cleaning/mending business on every post called “The Pickup Point”. I used to work at one. We sent out the uniforms to a private contractor for dry cleaning. We did the uniform repairs, alterations and patch sewing ourselves. (Best job I ever had! Great manager.)
“In Iraq KBR did it.”
Same thing in Bosnia.
KBR- Love Mark Briggs, plumber KBR Afganistan...Thanks for flying the flag for my Dad! Memorials are great!
A base of any size is just like a city, it has almost everything you would need. If it closed the gates, it could go on operating, except for running out of some things of course.
I didn’t read all the answers, I hope I haven’t repeated any other post.
There was a post laundry at Camp Enari south of Pleiku when I was there 1969-1970. All the work was done by Vietnamese. Some battalion areas had mama-sans who did laundry.
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