When civilian life and work is organized by the hour, why does the military use a 24-hour clock? It’s not just to make things more difficult, or to keep everyone on their toes. In fact, there are some very good reasons for it.

The first reason is that it eliminates ambiguity. If you were to ask someone what time it is and they said “it’s 1500 hours,” you would know immediately that they were referring to 3:00 pm. There’s no confusion about whether they mean am or pm.

The second reason is that it avoids confusion when working across multiple time zones. If you have team members in different time zones, it’s important to be able to communicate what time it is for everyone, without having to specify a particular time zone.

The third reason is that it’s used in coordination with other time-based systems, like Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). GMT is the time zone that the majority of the world uses as a starting point for all other time zones. So, if you’re coordinating with someone in another time zone, it’s helpful to be able to reference a time that’s based on GMT.

The fourth reason is that it’s helpful when working with military equipment. Military equipment is often designed to use the 24-hour clock, so it’s important for military personnel to be able to understand and use the 24-hour clock as well.

The fifth and final reason is that it’s a holdover from when the military used Morse code. In Morse code, each letter of the alphabet is represented by a unique combination of dots and dashes. When the military started using Morse code, they needed a way to indicate when one letter ended and the next letter began. They did this by adding a space between each letter.

The military still uses Morse code today, and the spacing between letters is still used to indicate when one letter ends and the next letter begins. So, when you see a time written in the 24-hour clock, with a space between each number, that’s called “Morse time.”

So, there you have it. Five reasons why the military uses a 24-hour clock. Check the military time chart here It may seem confusing at first, but it’s actually quite simple once you get the hang of it.