Well damn, July slipped by unblogged.

It was hot hereabouts, and much spare energy got sucked up by chores and projects. C'est la vie I guess. Early August has been consumed mostly by illness and recovery therefrom. I'll use that as an excuse for letting the 13th slide by unmarked. I usually have some little thing to say on 13 August, mostly amounting to "Hey look at that one of the few remarkable days in my life." It was on 13 August 1969 (longtime followers of this blog - if such exist - will know this) that Yours Truly became Second Lieutenant Yours Truly, USAF, at the Medina Annex (AKA "USAFOTS") of Lackland Military Training Center in San Antone Texas. It was a sunny day, and hot, and we marched around a big-ass parade ground, and some bigshots (relatively speaking) blathered on and we threw out hats in the air, and shortly thereafter got our first salutes. Mine was from TSgt Jack Adams, who had been my TI in Basic Training (oh yes, I was double blessed, most folks only have to do one or the other, Basic or OTS - I got to do both; long story) and was a hell of a good guy, Smoky Bear hat and stogie meeting about 8 inches in front of his face at a nearly 90 degree angle.
Why we remember such occasions - epsecially guys, and especially military-related stuff - so long is an interesting phenomenon, and I'm convinced it has to do with things surrounding the notion that being in the military, for guys, especially, is a big developmental marker along the road - "here's where I put away the kid stuff." (Though that's pretty much bullshit, as we learn over the ensuing decades, but the notion sticks.)