An officers' club, known within the military as an O club, is an establishment similar to a gentlemen's club for commissioned officers of the armed forces. Few officers' clubs have survived the end of the Cold War. [1]
An officers' club, known within the military as an O club, is an establishment similar to a gentlemen's club for commissioned officers of the armed forces. Few officers' clubs have survived the end of the Cold War. [1]
Officers' clubs are an artifact of the feudalism recognizing officers from the aristocratic European landowners as different from the peasants they commanded in military campaigns. Enlisted personnel recruited or inducted into military service remained ineligible for the privileges enjoyed by their officers while commissions awarded to graduates of officer training programs replaced commissions once given by royalty to the sons of their vassals. [2] This social distance was maintained to prevent officers from perceiving their enlisted personnel as friends. Warfare requires expenditure of lives, and officers responsible for ordering enlisted personnel into high-risk situations find it easier to risk lives they don't recognize as friends. [3]
Maintaining the separation between officers and enlisted personnel is difficult in the remote places where military bases are built and battles are fought. There are few commercial recreational opportunities, and the financial resources of a few officers cannot match income possibilities these businesses realize from the larger number of enlisted personnel ready to pay for food, drinks, and sexual companionship. So the base facilities would include an officers' club where officers might relax in isolation from their enlisted personnel, and where intoxication might encourage tolerance for deviation from the customary deference of conversations between senior and subordinate officers. [4]
Prohibition was a bleak time for officers' clubs in the United States. A bar was the essential element of most officers' clubs. Some served meals as an alternative to the rigid schedule and customs of the mess, and a few clubs on the larger bases hired musical entertainment during their busier hours. [1] Most officers' clubs paid operating expenses from the sale of alcoholic drinks. The most important part of their operating schedule were the happy hours beginning when the base work day ended. [4] The end of Prohibition restored normalcy to US officers' clubs, and was especially important on naval bases because the United States Navy continued to prohibit alcoholic beverages aboard ships. Unlike officers of the other armed services, officers living aboard ship could not drink in their quarters while off-duty. The best days of the officers' clubs began as mobilization for World War II funded construction of bases with officers' clubs sustained for half a century by military staffing levels maintained through the Cold War. These bases often included separate enlisted clubs, but the officers' club was usually built in the location with the best view and air circulation distant from noise, odors, dust or mud, while the preferred social distance often put the enlisted club in a significantly different location. [3] The protected environment of an officers' club offered refuge from public disapproval of the Vietnam War; so drinking at the officers' club became a preferred off-duty social activity for career officers. [5]
The civil rights movements focused on the perceived inequalities preserving that refuge, and the Tailhook Scandal of 1991 brought public attention to the problem of alcoholism within the military while dissolution of the Soviet Union encouraged reduced military spending. United States military policy changes in response to political criticism included discouraging alcohol consumption and opening the officers' clubs to enlisted personnel. Many officers' clubs closed as they became unable to compete with civilian restaurants after a sharp decline in revenue from alcoholic drink sales. [5]
Elmo Russell "Bud" Zumwalt Jr. was a United States Navy officer and the youngest person to serve as Chief of Naval Operations. As an admiral and later the 19th Chief of Naval Operations, Zumwalt played a major role in United States military history, especially during the Vietnam War. A decorated war veteran, Zumwalt reformed United States Navy personnel policies in an effort to improve enlisted life and ease racial tensions. After he retired from a 32-year navy career, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for the United States Senate.
The mess is a designated area where military personnel socialize, eat and live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the officers' mess, the chief petty officer mess, and the enlisted mess. In some civilian societies this military usage has been extended to the eating arrangements of other disciplined services such as fire fighting and police forces.
Happy hour is a marketing term for a time when a venue such as a restaurant or bar offers reduced prices on alcoholic drinks. Discounted menu items like appetizers are often served during happy hour. This is a way for bars and restaurants to draw in more business before or after peak business hours.
The United States Navy Nurse Corps was officially established by Congress in 1908; however, unofficially, women had been working as nurses aboard Navy ships and in Navy hospitals for nearly 100 years. The Corps was all-female until 1965.
The Dental Corps of the United States Navy consists of naval officers with a doctorate in either dental surgery (DDS) or dental medicine (DMD) and who practice dentistry for Sailors and Marines to ensure optimal oral health.
In the United States, a military brat is the child of a parent(s), adopted parent(s), or legal guardian(s) serving full-time in the United States Armed Forces, whether current or former. The term military brat can also refer to the subculture and lifestyle of such families.
Fraternization is the act of establishing intimate relations between people or groups. It is generally used to refer to establishing relations that are considered unethical, controversial, or problematic.
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called reservists, are categorized as being in either the Selected Reserve (SELRES), the Training and Administration of the Reserve (TAR), the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), or the Retired Reserve.
The Royal Army Dental Corps (RADC) was a specialist corps in the British Army that provided dental health services to British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace.
A service number or roll number is an identification code used to identify a person within a large group. Service numbers are most often associated with the military; however, they also may be used in civilian organizations. National identification numbers may be seen as types of service numbers.
Pepperrell Air Force Base, previously known as Fort Pepperrell, is a decommissioned United States military base located in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada which operated from 1941 to 1961.
The uniforms of the United States Navy include dress uniforms, daily service uniforms, working uniforms, and uniforms for special situations, which have varied throughout the history of the navy. For simplicity in this article, officers refers to both commissioned officers and warrant officers.
A military reserve force is a military organization whose members (reservists) have military and civilian occupations. They are not normally kept under arms, and their main role is to be available when their military requires additional manpower. Reserve forces are generally considered part of a permanent standing body of armed forces, and allow a nation to reduce its peacetime military expenditures and maintain a force prepared for war. During peacetime, reservists typically serve part-time alongside a civilian job, although most reserve forces have a significant permanent full-time component as well. Reservists may be deployed for weeks or months-long missions during peacetime to support specific operations. During wartime, reservists may be kept in service for months or years at a time, although typically not for as long as active duty soldiers.
Air Reserve Technicians, commonly referred to as ARTs, are a nucleus of full-time uniformed U.S. Air Force leaders, managers, operators, planners and trainers in what is known as the Air Reserve Component (ARC) of the United States Air Force, the ARC consisting of both the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard.
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combined arms, implementing its own infantry, artillery, aerial, and special operations forces. The U.S. Marine Corps is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States.
Service numbers were used by the United States Army from 1918 until 1969. Prior to this time, the Army relied on muster rolls as a means of indexing enlisted service members while officers were usually listed on yearly rolls maintained by the United States War Department. In the nineteenth century, the Army also used pay records as a primary means of identifying service members after discharge.
The serving of alcohol in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is governed by the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC), which is responsible for issuing licenses and permits for all manufacturers, wholesalers and importers, out-of-state suppliers, brokers, salespeople, warehouses, planes, trains, ships, ship chandlers and vehicles transporting alcoholic beverages.
A ship's company or complement comprises all officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel aboard a naval vessel, excluding civilians and guests.
The Judge Advocate General's Corps is the military justice branch or specialty of the United States Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy. Officers serving in the JAG Corps are typically called judge advocates.
An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service.