Army Misfit

The Star of India followed by the Californian yesterday at sunset, 2013.

I joke about joining the military. 

“I ran away from home to join the Army,” I tell folks.

The truth isn’t far from the facts, and when I got through basic training I discovered I brought myself.  I couldn’t laugh at myself in those days.  I can now though.

First of all, they stuck a person who couldn’t add or subtract much less see numbers in the Finance Corps.  I showed up for work every day I didn’t have a blinding headache.  Then one day, someone suggested I transfer to Special Services on a temporary basis.  I helped build and paint sets then run the lights for several traveling musicals.  It was heaven.  I was home.  No more crying my eyes out over a glass of something while I banged on the out of tune piano in the rec room.

They wouldn’t transfer me over there permanently.  Darn it.  For I was truly a misfit in the military. 

The day I was to get out of the Army as I was now married and pregnant, there was to be a grand military parade for a famous general.  My then husband and his cohort in confusions, Carradine, choreographed a buck and wing while tipping their chrome pots.  Right in front of the reviewing stand, of course.  I was hiding underneath.

I’ll never forget this send off, the laughter, or the court martials.

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Life is Really in the Footnotes:

http://geeeee-zer.blogspot.com/>Himself:

  Did all our errands plus fixed his broken light.  Two estate sales plus docenting.

Herself:  Pleased to get the big red Bokhara down in the living room. Sorry to miss the Star in the Morning but pleased to get her at night.

Reading:  Between books again.

Balance:  A little introspection.