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Old 29 January 2018, 02:33 AM   #1
sickened1
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Forget Diamonds - Why you want a month's salary on your wrist

I came across this interesting blog and thought I share. I apologize if it's been posted already since I haven't been active on here much (except in the AD forum ).


https://soflete.com/blogs/knowledge/...-on-your-wrist


Excerption from the blog:

"In the early 1960’s a trend started to reveal itself amongst discerning Special Forces soldiers. On trips to Southeast Asia, SF guys began to acquire Rolex watches at the PX’s and at jewelers across the Pacific Rim. At the time, there was simply no better way to quickly spend your hard-earned combat pay.

This trend became a tradition, and for good reason. Fifty-five years later a huge number of our Special Operations Forces brothers are wearing a variety of high dollar automatic watches in operational environments.

 The question is this: Why would our country’s best unconventional warriors be defaulting to mechanical, automatic movement powered time pieces, and passing over their modern, battery powered counterparts?

Modern timepieces are technological marvels. It’s easy to find a “watch” with all the bells and whistles of a GPS device, that also monitors your heart rate, tracks your sleep and movement patterns, and quietly uploads the aforementioned metrics to the cloud."

You can read more on the link above.
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Old 29 January 2018, 03:24 AM   #2
BristolCavendish
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Back in the day, Rolexes were easily purchased by overseas-based servicemen due to the PX markdown. The Rolex AD network put an end to that practice around the mid to late 1960s.

During WW2, a Rolex Speed King on an expandable Oyster band ran about $30.00 and many veterans brought them back home. The Viet Nam War ushered in a growing consumer awareness of the Seiko brand as the basic 5's were priced around $20.

Nowadays, it would take a considerable amount of savings for a G.I. to purchase anything near a SS Submariner or GMT.
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Old 29 January 2018, 04:02 AM   #3
Bigblu10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BristolCavendish View Post
Back in the day, Rolexes were easily purchased by overseas-based servicemen due to the PX markdown. The Rolex AD network put an end to that practice around the mid to late 1960s.

During WW2, a Rolex Speed King on an expandable Oyster band ran about $30.00 and many veterans brought them back home. The Viet Nam War ushered in a growing consumer awareness of the Seiko brand as the basic 5's were priced around $20.

Nowadays, it would take a considerable amount of savings for a G.I. to purchase anything near a SS Submariner or GMT.
Most G.I.'s are so underpaid these days trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over families head is hard enough. A Rolex? Not.
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Old 29 January 2018, 04:51 AM   #4
El Cascarrabias
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Thanks for the post Ed.

Good read.

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Old 29 January 2018, 05:02 AM   #5
Abdullah71601
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Originally Posted by Bigblu10 View Post
Most G.I.'s are so underpaid these days trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over families head is hard enough. A Rolex? Not.
The types of guys this article is talking about (experienced NCOs) are making around $36k and up base pay. This doesn’t include any of the allowances that compensate for locale and what not. The junior enlisted ranks don’t do very well, but any senior NCO or officer should be able to swing a SS Rolex.
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Old 29 January 2018, 05:14 AM   #6
run23
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Good read. Some of the comments are good too.

But, for anyone that’s been in these extreme situations, is an automatic really more reliable/robust than a digital? He doesn’t specifically mention an auto being more robust than a G-Shock in these environments, but it’s implied, and I have a hard time believing it.

Obviously I’ve never been in an a battle environment and have no idea what I’m talking about here, but I’m curious from anyone that has whether this is all true.
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