Military Time

One of the adjustments you will have to make upon enlisting in the Military is the use of a different time clock. The Military uses a 24 hour clock that begins at midnight. While it may be a change to what you are familiar with, as soon as you get used to using this type of clock it will be easy to understand.

Below is a translation between the traditional method of telling time and Military time.

Midnight (12:00 AM) — 0000 hrs

1:00 AM — 0100 hrs

2:00 AM — 0200 hrs

3:00 AM — 0300 hrs

4:00 AM — 0400 hrs

5:00 AM — 0500 hrs

6:00 AM — 0600 hrs

7:00 AM — 0700 hrs

8:00 AM — 0800 hrs

9:00 AM — 0900 hrs

10:00 AM — 1000 hrs

11:00 AM — 1100 hrs

12:00 PM — 1200 hrs

1:00 PM — 1300 hrs

2:00 PM — 1400 hrs

3:00 PM — 1500 hrs

4:00 PM — 1600 hrs

5:00 PM — 1700 hrs

6:00 PM — 1800 hrs

7:00 PM — 1900 hrs

8:00 PM — 2000 hrs

9:00 PM — 2100 hrs

10:00 PM — 2200 hrs

11:00 PM — 2300 hrs

For day to day activity, you can expect Military personnel to use Military time. For example, if you need to report to duty at 6 am you should expect to hear ?report at 0600.? Again, this is a change for new soldiers but after a few days it is relatively simple to catch on.

Other Time Zones

There are often times when the Military must communicate with personnel in other time zones. To avoid confusion, the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is used. The United States Military refers to this as Zulu Time to ensure that everybody is on the same page.

What is with the name Zulu? The world is separated into 24 time zones. For ease of use, the Military has assigned a letter to each time zone. The time zone for Greenwich, England is assigned the letter Z. In the Military phonetic alphabet, the letter Z stands for Zulu.

At first, new soldiers have to think twice when dealing in Military time. After they catch on, though, this is the way that most of them tell time for the rest of their life. When you think about it, Military time can help avoid confusion in many cases.