I really did have a young troop ask me “what’s with these jokes about PT belts?” and I had to take a moment and realize that… yeah, I haven’t seen many lately.

I was recently at Ft. Huachuca for a month and noticed surprisingly few PT belts in use –there were some being used, for sure, but fairly sensibly, as these things go. Ft. Huachuca is an A.I.T. (advanced individual training) post, which is one step removed from Basic Training. And not just any AIT post, but one for Intelligence and Signals; non-combat troops. If any post should have been awash in a rediculous sea of extraneous PT belts, that would have been the place.

But apart from different training battalions each using a particular PT belt color, and using one PT belt per soldier, I have to admit that the weird madness that took over the Army in the late-90’s through early 2000’s seems to have (finally) subsided.

It used to be that Sergeants-Major* not just in the Army, but in the Marines as well, all were obsessed with draping as many PT belts as possible on troops everywhere, at all times. Go to any other Army or Marine military comic and you’ll see it: Doctrine Man, PVT Murphy, Terminal Lance– I guarantee you’ll see some sort of reference about the ubiquity and absurdity of PT belts, almost exclusively at the hands of Battalion, Brigade, and Division senior NCO’s. It was like an Oscar for performance as a mediocre decision-maker.

Was it something in the coffee during GWOT (Global War on Terror)? Or more likely, something in the “Monster” and “Rip-It” energy drinks, which were more common? Did a bizarre cabal of Sergeants-Major all rise through the ranks at once and retire at once, across the services, that had made some pact with dark forces at some moonlit crossroads?

Whatever it was, we may never know. I’m just glad to see it ebb.

If you were in, and especially if you still are, what are your perceptions? Has the PT belt thing mostly run its course, or are there still people out there drowning in this foolishness, draping PT belts on everything like Christmas tinsel?

*”Sergeants-Major”. This is technically the correct plural form, but most people use the more common “Sergeant-Majors” as the plural, as noted in the comic.