Grab your woobies — The Army wants you to nap like your life depends on it

[rangerrebew]

Grab your woobies — The Army wants you to nap like your life depends on it

    Haley Britzky
    Sep 29, 2020 5:19 PM EDT

Sleepy soldiers everywhere, rejoice: The Army has officially endorsed naps.

Guidance in the Army's new Field Manual 7-22, which outlines the service's holistic health strategy, stresses the importance of soldiers getting enough sleep.

"Even for those who regularly obtain the generally recommended 7-8 hours of sleep per night, more sleep can result in even better alertness and mental acuity," reads the document, dated Oct. 2020. "In brain health and mental functioning, there is no such thing as too much sleep."

https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/army-rip-its-caffeine

[sneakypete]

What's a "woobie"?

If you can't sleep while standing in formation or riding up a bumpy road in a deuce and a quarter,you ain't a soldier.

There are 3 basic rules for soldiering.

1: If there ain't no reason to be standing,you should be sitting

2: If there ain't no good reason to be sitting,you should be laying down.

3: If there ain't no good reason to be awake,you should be sleeping.

The army will provide you with all the discomfort you need. There is no reason to do this yourself.

[roamer_1]

What's a "woobie"?

@sneakypete
LEGIT: the 'woobie' is the blanket liner for the modern GI Issue rain poncho. The two, together or separately can be converted from poncho to insulated poncho, to emergency sleep system... Well not really, unless you are a little guy. I cannot use mine in sleeping bag form as I am way too wide.

BUT, the woobie - the lightweight insulating blanket was dubbed the 'woobie' by soldiers, because anywhere you see them napping, they are wrapped up in that blanket. So coining the childish name, needing their blankie as it were, is a bit of soldier humor.

And I will whole-heartedly endorse the woobie. It is the best thing around your shoulders in the morning at the campfire with your first cup of coffee... And while the blanket is not all that warm in itself, it does work as an addition to the sleep system too, adding another inner layer.

I will not give up my woobie. one of the very best things added to my kit in the last decade.

[sneakypete]

@sneakypete
LEGIT: the 'woobie' is the blanket liner for the modern GI Issue rain poncho. The two, together or separately can be converted from poncho to insulated poncho, to emergency sleep system... Well not really, unless you are a little guy. I cannot use mine in sleeping bag form as I am way too wide.

BUT, the woobie - the lightweight insulating blanket was dubbed the 'woobie' by soldiers, because anywhere you see them napping, they are wrapped up in that blanket. So coining the childish name, needing their blankie as it were, is a bit of soldier humor.

And I will whole-heartedly endorse the woobie. It is the best thing around your shoulders in the morning at the campfire with your first cup of coffee... And while the blanket is not all that warm in itself, it does work as an addition to the sleep system too, adding another inner layer.

I will not give up my woobie. one of the very best things added to my kit in the last decade.

@roamer_1

I carried a sleeping bag and/or a jungle hammock (to keep me off the ground) on training missions in the US,but on combat missions I just sat right down on the ground on my ass,and leaned back against my rucksack.

Didn't even carry a ground cloth.

If I couldn't eat it,drink it,or kill the enemy with it,I didn't carry it.

[roamer_1]

@roamer_1

I carried a sleeping bag and/or a jungle hammock (to keep me off the ground) on training missions in the US,but on combat missions I just sat right down on the ground on my ass,and leaned back against my rucksack.

Didn't even carry a ground cloth.

If I couldn't eat it,drink it,or kill the enemy with it,I didn't carry it.

@sneakypete
Ain't the same I know... But I understand that... The economy of it... My go-bag complete (in 3 season mode), with no water in the cans, is around 35 lbs. That's ruck, forage bag and belt w/o rifle considered. I do have 3 days food onboard, but I run tool heavy, intending to build and forage rather than rely on supply. That might be different from a soldier in that I have no supply lines to rely on.

Of course all that changes in the winter, but the go-bag stays the same - just strapped entirely intact to the top of a 50L pack to handle all the added food and loft (coats and sleeping bags) necessary to keep warm in the snow. All that is different anyway, because it's all on a polk dragging behind me. But once I make camp, the go-bag is what I take out on a scout.

I don't carry much for comfort. An alcohol stove and some teas and coffees, and that woobie... Though really only the teas and coffees are inarguable as comfort. the alcohol stove is a redundancy I would admit and the alcohol to go with it a burden. But it also can fire up a bush pot, and has on many occasions, when rain made building a fire a bother.

And the woobie I would have anyway, if only for its first function as a poncho liner. No doubt you know the cold fall rain in the mountains, and you must know what that blanket liner does in that condition. And since it is along, it is SO dang handy for so many things. Primary among them, as with the soldier, a lightweight blanket that wads up to nothing and is easy to access without having to unload your bedroll.