MamaCharlie reminded me that the fourteenth is an anniversary of sorts for me.  Aside from Bastille Day, it was my first ETS...the day that I got out of the Army...the first time.

I have written about that day before:  the final paper-shuffle, the packing, the last trip through the gate at Fort Huachuca, the afternoon in Tucson, and the night in Phoenix.  It was a day that I had counted down to practically since I first joined the Army.  Their ETS was the date all first-termers write on everything they own, mark on every calendar, and engrave on wooden furniture;  the day that becomes the focal point of all space/time considerations.

GIs become creative and imaginative, developing "Short-timer Calendars"...dividing up pin-ups or maps or other images into segments that would be numbered to represent the days left until ETS that would then be colored in order down to the last day...the day you go home.  My personal favorite was a map of the USA with each state numbered down to your home state (California in my case).

Some guys would make graduated "Short-timer's" Sticks...carved from sticks, broom handles, or other pieces of wood.  My favorite was a swagger-stick made from a fifty-caliber casing, the priming rod from a 105 mm tank round, and the AP (Armor-piercing) fifty-caliber  bullet (the projectile...the part that acutally goes down the barrel).  Put together and polished up with Brasso, this becomes a very stylish swagger stick.  Of course, most places won't allow Short-timers to display any kind of short-timer paraphernalia in public, but a lot of guys carry them around while out of sight of the leadership, especially while they are "clearing post" (going from office to office having people sign off on your papers to ensure you don't leave any matters uncared for.)

A lot of short-timer traditions exist in different places.  One in Vietnam (where you could count down to the day you leave Nam even if you weren't getting out of the Army on that day), involved shouting out how many days you had left. If anyone was shorter than you, then you had to buy him a beer; if not, the room would buy you a beer.  I was able to skip the mandatory week-long stay at Camp Alpha (where everyone went to process out and catch your "freedom bird") because my First Sergeant pulled a string for me, so I only had to stay there for a couple of days.  On my last day before going into Alpha, some of my buddies took me to the Hoa Lu hotel in Saigon and we had a parting drink or two.  One of the guys, Dziak, yelled "36"!...and several guys in the bar were ready to trump that when D added: "Hours"!...I got several free drinks.

So anyway...14 July was the day that signaled my day of release...freedom...liberty...that long-awaited date with the civilian world when every soldier regardless of rank became a PFC...Private F.....Civilian.  It was a long, hot, sunny day in 1967...44 years ago...I drove out the gate with a sigh of relief determined I would never be back.  It was a memorable day...I had survived all the training, Germany, Vietnam, the last few months in Arizona, and I was California-bound.  My little GTO was purring up the road with all the bad behind and nothing but sunshine, lollipops and roses ahead.  Three months later I was back...but that is another story.