A Day of Infamy

I have not had a bad day in forty years. Exactly forty years as of today. No matter what evil or bad luck befalls me, I can always say that it is not as bad as August 3, 1971.

That was the day when I was scheduled to leave Korea after thirteen long months of duty. I would make it back to the States in time for my mother's birthday. I had all my military goods packed and shipped. I even had my orders and Military Air Transport ticket in hand. Most guys commandeered a jeep and went to 8th Army Headquarters a few days in advance, but I had a few things to finish up and rode with the mail truck down to Seoul on that morning. The plane wasn't scheduled to leave until 2 PM. I pulled into ASCOM at 8 AM.

The trouble was that the office was empty. This was not a good sign with 150 GIs requiring processing for a flight home in six hours. I found a clerk and announced, "Here are my orders. Where's the plane?" He replied, "I don't know how to tell you this, sir, but today's plane left an hour ago. There's a typhoon brewing and it was moved up to 0700 departure. Didn't you get the word?"

Sure, I did. I just wanted to spend a few more days here in the exotic Orient eating powdered eggs, canned meat and taking a dump in a hole in the ground like I've been doing for the past 13 months.

"We will put you on Priority Standby for tomorrow's flight. You will have to stick around the terminal though. If you are not here when a seat opens up and your name is called, you will lose your spot."

So I spent the remainder of August 3 perched on a hard wooden bench fuming at my bad luck. As fate would have it, everyone showed up for the August 4 flight. I switched benches and after a mere 54 hours wait, I got on my Freedom Bird on August 5.

They train dogs to become vicious by holding food in front of them and then snatching it away. It either makes them or breaks them. They held an August 3 Homecoming in front of me for thirteen months and then snatched it away. I'm not sure whether it made me or broke me, but it did provide perspective on everything that has happened since.