{"id":1886,"date":"2011-10-24T14:07:07","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T14:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/?p=1886"},"modified":"2011-10-24T14:07:07","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T14:07:07","slug":"short-timer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/short-timer\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Timer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nAnnook caught me behind the wheel of the Bluesmobile yesterday. I Heard the ring tone from the front pocket of my Levis, and I fished it out punched \u201caccept\u201d and held it up to my ear.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you installed the ring enhancer on the phone.\u201d It was a declarative sentence, not a question, but I answered anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I got it hooked up. Seems to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d she said. \u201cIt worked so well that Raven picked up and said \u2018hello.\u2019 Then I asked to speak to Big Mama and he just put the phone down, and not on the cradle. I can\u2019t call back because it is off the hook.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you would like us to ensure that the phone is hung up?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPrecisely.\u201d I told her I would, and thought about the nature of time, and the coming 25 hours, after which Raven will not be answering any further phones.<\/p>\n

In Korea, we Me-guks kept calendars with the length of the one-year tour in neat blocks, twelve months lined up one day at a time so you could cross them off, one by one. It was sort of reverse Julian Date scheme, since we did not arrive at the neat start of a month, and all the days were interchangeable.<\/p>\n

Various types of Short Timer calendars were used by the GIs to count their remaining days left in country. These usually consisted of a sectioned line-drawing with “color in” blocks, numbered with a count-down of remaining days (similar to “Paint by number”), and really began to kick in at the 30 to 90 day point.\u00a0\u00a0 When a soldier had very few days left in-country, he was considered to be “short”.<\/p>\n

Time has moved on. In the Sand Box, my pal Santa calculated by the number of steak and lobster nights in the Mess Hall, but with a distinct lack of centralized feeding in the ROK, it was easier to just concentrate on the number of times you had to rise and go work down in the Bunker.<\/p>\n

It was shift work, so from wake-up to wake-up it was hard to tell what time it was.<\/p>\n

My calendar was different than that of the GI, since I was in the Navy and we took an improvised approach to how long a one year tour might be. I would have run out of my little boxes and had to tack on another couple months, but eventually, issues for my relief were settled and orders transmitted and I could look at a calendar without cringing.<\/p>\n

But the ones for the real solders were pretty cool, with the last few weeks having references to how \u201cshort\u201d you were getting- dangling legs while sitting on a dime, this sort of thing:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I jump out of bed, I free fall for 3 minutes before I open my chute!\u201d
\n\u201cIt takes all day to climb out of my boots!
\n\u201cI can walk on stilts under a pregnant amoeba!\u201d
\n\u201cI drink coffee with a long straw because I can’t reach the table!\u201d
\n\u201cI have to jump up to look down!\u201d<\/p>\n

One short-timer calendar I liked had the last week sliding out of the ordered rectangular blocks and into a sort of yellow brick road that led to the boarding ladder of a commercial jet. Many were just a picture of an alluring lady with numbers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Orignal ROK Short-timer calendar. This one is pristine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We would count down if someone asked: \u201cHow short are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFive and a wake-up,\u201d we might say. That mode of counting let\u2019s you discount the day you are in, and the one that you leave. I find myself reverting to that way of thinking when I am in the Little Village By the Bay.<\/p>\n

Looking out at the gray steel white-capped waters of the Bay, surging left-to-right, I am thinking it is two and a wake-up for me, and just a wake up for Raven.<\/p>\n

There are several things that need to get done today, not to mention raking the lawn, but whatever happens, it is Raven\u2019s last day of independent, albeit assisted, living.<\/p>\n

Spike reported he had escaped again, and was out in the hallway in just his Big Boy pants and a polo shirt, having lost Big Mama and the sanctuary of their place in the endless corridor of his mind.<\/p>\n

Just two meals and a wake-up. It is time.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annook caught me behind the wheel of the Bluesmobile yesterday. I Heard the ring tone from the front pocket of my Levis, and I fished it out punched \u201caccept\u201d and held it up to my ear. \u201cSo, you installed the ring enhancer on the phone.\u201d It was a declarative sentence, not a question, but I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1889,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions\/1889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}