A Warm Reception

The day began with an alarm call at 0400, or 4:00am for you civilians :-) The bus for the airport was scheduled to leave at 0500. A quick glance at my hotel desk clock indicated the time to be...0611?! What? Panic set in momentarily. Just awake after 4 hours of sleep, I searched my hazy memories. Yes, I did double-check the time against Weather Channel the night before. That's it...another quick cross-check. TV on...and the correct time was indeed just after 4:00am. Did I accidentally change the time while groggily searching for the "snooze" button? Improbable for certain, but the only plausible explanation that came to mind. Hours later I met two young men on the flight who were on their way to Army Ranger School. They had stayed at the same hotel...and their clock, mysteriously, indicated over an hour later than the correct time. They, too, swore they had checked it the night before. The only explanation we could think of was...we were the only Army shippers - and the man running shipping at the hotel is retired Navy. Who knows...

In its wisdom, the Army provided us with meal checks - US Government checks enprinted with a "maximum" spend amount and the label "for food services only". The travel briefer said they could be used anywhere including on the flights. I used my first meal check at San Francisco Airport to get breakfast. That's not quite as easy as it sounds. The cashier had never seen the checks. Neither had the manager - but she decided a bird in the hand is worth more than the wholesale cost of the bagel. I did worse on United. They had never seen the checks , and absolutely, positively could take only cash. After a while, though, the flight attendants decided to slip us a few dinners.

Arriving at Atlanta, the expense was QUITE different. Approaching a Chinese restaurant, my meal check was spotted before I reached the counter. The first question was "how much you maximum?" Then a team of three Chinese quickly helped me max it out. Now that's capitalism at work.

The bus ride to Ft. Jackson was uneventful, though the restlessness grew as we approached the base gates. A glance at the bus clock showed - 9:11 - a reminder of why I was there. The bus pulled up to Charlie Company, and the Drill Sergeant got on...