I read a memoir once by a serviceman who heard endless complaints that things were screwed up in the service because the situation was “not real army”. He calle

I read a memoir once by a serviceman who heard endless complaints that things were screwed up in the service because the situation was “not real army”. He called it the “real army carrot” because it was intended to get you to stick around until you could experience this mythical “real army” situation. The last straw was when someone said “that’s because we’re at war, real army is peacetime”. Seems like the “real army” would be necessary for fighting wars.