It's Only a Matter of Time: Military Time

2nd of 10 posts supporting military veterans in the run up to U.S. Veteran's Day

Thank you

Stone Bryson

for your updated piece on Daylight Savings Time. Your dedication to our sun’s natural influence on human circadian rhythms nudged me away from somehow making the history of the US military branches less dry for today’s topic. Upon reading your piece, I became curious about the history, intent, and methodology of the 24 hour clock known to many as ‘military time’. Be forewarned, this topic is a worthy metaphor for the mind-numbing (soothing?) routine imposed upon military personnel during their introductory period, called ‘basic training’.

A brief timeline (ha ha) of developments is necessary to set the stage (source: Britannica, 24-hour-clock).

~1550 - 1800’s

Ancient Egyptians used 24-hour day based on 24 stars with 12 stars marking night hours. Hours were different lengths in summer vs winter. Hipparchus split the day into 24 “equinoctial hours”. Muslims invented the sundial with gnomon (the vertical needle of the dial) parallel to the polar axis of Earth. Sir Sanford Fleming, Lewis Rutherford, and Canadian Pacific Railway influenced standard time zones, 24-hour universal day using Greenwich meridian and Coordinated Universal Time (known as UTC) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

~1909 - British Royal Navy began to use it. British Army in 1918.

~1917 Canada adopted it

~1920 U.S. Navy adopted it. U.S. Army in 1942.

~Jan 1, 1960

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) became the international basis of civil and scientific time. The unit of UTC is the atomic second, and UTC is widely broadcast by radio signals. These signals ultimately furnish the basis for the setting of all public and private clocks. Since January 1, 1972, UTC has been modified by adding “leap seconds” when necessary.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

The world is divided into 24 time zones, each of which is about 15 degrees of longitude wide, and each of which represents one hour of time. The numbers on the map indicate how many hours one must add to or subtract from the local time to get the time at the Greenwich meridian.

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Phew! Now we can get to the meat and potatoes. U.S. military adopted the 24-hour clock because they operate 24x7 globally and 24-hour time cycles prevent confusion and errors surrounding misstatements of a.m. versus p.m. clock times. Although I hoped it was based on health benefits, lol, I was wrong.

Department of the Navy maintains the United States official time, with the Master Clock facility at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. (Source: Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst).

To make military time even more challenging, the U.S. Military refers to Greenwich Mean Time as Zulu time. Zulu time is used to manage bases and resources across global time zones. ‘Zulu’ designates the 24th zone using the phonetic military alphabet’s code for ‘Z’.

Because it differs from civilian time-keeping, some new service members across the globe experience the big brain hurt while adapting to military time. However, most find it a simpler methodology once they’ve adjusted. Since it’s hard to get to the truth from TV and movies, I went directly to the source asking veteran family members if/how they were affected by military time and here’s what they had to say:

Jamie (Army, Military Police) - “I grew up knowing military time. My father was in the Airforce. He taught me the importance of it. I still use it today in my everyday life because it takes the guesswork out of am and pm.” When asked ‘what’s a known joke or thought about the adjustment period for military time’, she said “That moment when you realized that the recruiter lied to you.”

Danny (Army, Night Stalker) - “There was no thinking of time during basic training because we were always late. Drill sergeants designed it that way. Time didn’t matter. It was non-stop ‘hurry up’ for 8 weeks. It was not so much adjusting (to military time) as it was being ‘reborn into it’.”

Stay tuned for the next (meme) post in this 10-day veterans series.