What are/were your best tips--secrets for success-- to pass an inspection?

First tip is to have a buddy check you over - you, your equipment, whatever's being inspected.

Second tip - now essentially obsolete - is to put a high (spit) shine on those boots and low quarters. I would tell you my secrets, learned in the 82d (for guard mount) and at the Old Guard (for everything) ... no, I guess I won't tell.

Great question, SGM (Join to see)! I'm looking forward to reading others' responses.

For ASUs (service uniform):

- After the first time your uniform passes inspection, use Saran Wrap and a Sharpie to create a template for setting up your uniform the next time. While your uniform is still set up, just lay a 2-foot-wide piece of clear plastic wrap over the chest area of the uniform and use permanent marker to outline your name plate, unit awards, ribbons, badges, etc. The next time you need to set up your service uniform, use the template to ensure every element is lined up to inspection standard.

- Keep belt buckles and other shiny objects wrapped in plastic wrap until literally the hour of inspection to prevent scratches and smudges. Keep Q-tips and cotton balls handy to shine them up (bring extra cotton balls for your buddies).

- At Fort Campbell, I kept my jump boots' high gloss by slipping them into knee-high stockings before placing them in their storage box. You can get the knee-high stockings at Walgreens for less than a dollar.


Oh, and for room/latrine inspections, after the area has been cleaned, use Pine Sol in a spray bottle to hit up the doorways and latrine walls. If it smells clean, it IS clean!

Here's a secret I never figured out until just before I departed from Korea in 1979. I volunteered to be the barracks sergeant there as an E5(P) because none of the E6s wanted it--they were too busy having a good time in the 'ville. It was a pretty sad situation...but the barracks Sergeant got his own room...with a bathroom in a new barracks...so I jumped at it. I'm no saint, but it was a crazy place where your "houseman" laid out your TA50, you paid people to clean your weapon and carry your tray at the mess hall...totally screwy from my point of view...but hey, I was in Seoul not 1st ID...and could go to Itaewana on the weekends....
Well, when we had inspections the dogs came through looking for pot. We knew it was there as we could often smell it in between the morning kimchi and the open sewers outside. Some rooms had 2, 4, or six people in bunks. KATUSA soldiers had 6 or 8 in one room. The dogs would enter a room, whine, and act nervous, but nothing would be found anywhere.
Until one day. Because animals like humans, rarely look up. The dog handler barely noticed some clear fishing line in a corner of the white walls, hanging from the ceiling. And he pulled it. Overhead, inside the nice new suspended ceiling, attached to the fishing line, was a small packet of marijuana. When the CO and dogs showed up in one room, a fellow in the next room would pull his end of the fishing line, shifting the pot to his room's ceiling. The same thing happened in reverse when the CO and dog left and entered the other room. Went on for nearly a year. Pretty Slick!