End of Days

     It'd been seventeen months since I'd last passed through Oakland Army Base.  Woulda been a fine time for nostalgia but unlike the first passin' all I was looking forward to was my next stop.  The place hadn't changed much, still a meat grinder of young flesh.
     For the second time I had a welcome home t-bone steak and eggs breakfast.  The Army musta thought the typical U.S. male didn't feel at home unless his stool was loose.  I was feelin' kinda guilty about the hero treatment seein' as how my butt hadn't suffered much more danger than the perils of Waikiki. Not much I could do though but shut up, eat, get in line, and wait 'til my name was called at a half dozen places.
     It was at one of those paperwork stops that all my leave time, plus the AWOL days, came to light.  Eighty-four days, or thereabouts in a hitch of a few weeks under two years.  The clerk with the papers said something to the effect of, "Ooooo-weeee, that must be some kind of record!" Like to make me blush bein' a possible record setter and all.  Might not have been the most decorated GI in the Vietnam War but I was up there with the fewest days actually served in a two year hitch.  On the flip side, to this day I carry this little prick in my head that keeps remindin' me of all the good fortune that was on my side.  Guess it's true that there's no free lunch.
     The upshot was instead of me gettin' a pocket full of musterin' out change in my jeans, plus airfare,  all I got was airfare and a buck, twenty-seven.  Piss on that noise, at the moment I didn't care.  Actually, at the moment I could barely think.  Something like a day and a half had passed since leavin' Schofield and I hadn't slept a wink.  Ass be draggin'.
     On the plane home the first thing I did was head to the bathroom and change from Army garb to Hawaiian hang ten shirt, bell bottoms and sandals.  Soldier no more.  Hah! Like that could ever happen.  And it didn't.
    At the airport I was given a welcome home by Lois, my sister Kay and all of her kids.  That was greeting enough for any man back in the Vietnam War days.