{"id":127,"date":"2007-06-08T16:09:04","date_gmt":"2007-06-08T22:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/?p=127"},"modified":"2007-09-10T12:12:05","modified_gmt":"2007-09-10T17:12:05","slug":"thirty-years-ago-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/?p=127","title":{"rendered":"Thirty years ago today…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…I stepped off a bus in Ft. Knox, KY. I was a nervous, long-haired, pig-headed kid. It was the beginning of my true education. Boot camp tends to focus the mind and relieve one of the notion that the universe revolves around you. I had some hard times and some really good times during my 8 years of active duty. I was always on the verge of being broke, but always made it through somehow. I saw parts of the world I wouldn’t have otherwise seen and I saw the dark side of government in places like North Korea and East Germany. I learned how not to be the Ugly American by a little trial-and-error and by watching some folks who were truly gifted at being UAs. I learned that one really needs to be a good citizen of the world in order to be a good citizen of one’s own country. I met many people who were at once thrilled by, mistrusting of, and resentful of all things American. I learned that the vast majority of the world can separate Americans<\/em> from America; <\/em>the people from the government.<\/p>\n

And all that education started with a drill sergeant screaming at me from an inch away just because I was a “cruit.” I can still vividly recall my drill sergeants’ faces because I was within inches of them so many times and had ample opportunity to study every detail. When a drill is screaming at you, you had better not avert your eyes.<\/p>\n

One of these days I’d like to drive down to Ft. Knox just to see the place where my life took such a momentous change in direction. While I’d never want to go through that again, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. And if, by chance, a drill sergeant (any drill sergeant) happens to read this, I want to say thanks. I owe you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…I stepped off a bus in Ft. Knox, KY. I was a nervous, long-haired, pig-headed kid. It was the beginning of my true education. Boot camp tends to focus the mind and relieve one of the notion that the universe revolves around you. I had some hard times and some really good times during my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randomography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}