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When your spouse comes home and tells you that tomorrow there is 0600 PT and a meeting at 1400 and then a 1630 formation, your mind may be swimming! This section is designed to acquaint you with military time. Below is a graphic to illustrate the time conversion, as well as tips to help you along.

Military time is based on a 24 hour clock. It eases the confusion of whether a time is AM or PM. Ever asked someone what time an event was, only to have to ask them afterwards whether they meant AM or PM? The 24 hour clock eliminates the confusion.

We will start at the top- 12 midnight on the dot is called 2400 (twenty-four-hundred). Once you are even a minute past, you use 0000, for this is where the 24-hour clock officially starts. An example- let's say 15 minutes past midnight. You use 0015, and you pronounce it "zero-zero-one-five." (12:15AM) From there you have all the AM times- 0100 (zero-one-hundred) being One AM, all the way to 1200 (twelve-hundred) which is considered Noon. These are the easy ones to remember. The PM times are where you have to think at first.

One PM is 1300, two PM is 1400 and so on until you get to midnight, which is 2400, and as we learned earlier, you start over with 0001, which is one minute past midnight (12:01AM). A tip- Eight PM, or 2000, is pronounced "twenty-hundred" NOT "two-thousand." How can you convert these? The trick the solders learn, is that whatever number you have, subtract 12 from it, and you have the regular time.

• Example: 1800 hours.. (18-12=6) So, 1800 hours is 6 PM.
• 2230 Hours (22-12=10) 2230 hours is 10:30 PM