The Tomorrow War--A Movie Review

 

I watched this movie so you wouldn't have to.

 By the time 2021 arrived the world had seemed to turn the corner on the pandemic. Multiple lingering issues were still an embarrassing shitshow but with the vaccines out and the Orange Buffoon being shown the exit, despite unprecedented and scary attempts to stay in power, things were starting to look up. With the receding of the pandemic the various workings of civilization began to restart, one of them being movie studios who began tossing out previews to films that had been long delayed.

One of those films is called the The Tomorrow War staring Chris Pratt, a military science fiction film about the usual unstoppable invading aliens. Despite my liberal bleeding heart, tree hugging leanings I am a sucker for such movies and watched Tomorrow War the day it dropped on Amazon Prime. In truth, my eagerness to see the movie was in part due to my desire for new content, any entertainment that wasn't a leftover from happier, pre-pandemic times.

For example, over that extremely long nightmare year of 2020, I had rewatched The Lord of The Rings movies so many times I was starting to lose real life hope no matter the multiple times Gandalf and Aragorn assured me it still existed. Yes, I am a voracious reader but there are times everyone needs fresh visual and audio input that only the boob tube can provide.

As for The Tomorrow War right off the bat I had to dump a bushel of demerits for the basic premise. Chris Pratt, not one of my favorite actors to begin with, plays Dan Forester, a former Green Beret who is now a high school biology teacher who deep down knows he's meant for greater things in life. But in the first couple of scenes we find out that he has been turned down for a position at a “prestigious research facility.”

Danny Boy gets all mopey, and even a little bit whiny with his loving wife and daughter doing their best to comfort him during a World Cup Soccer viewing party at his house. See during the middle of this televised to the world game a wormhole opens up with soldiers from the year 2051 literally dropping in to tell everyone that humanity is losing a war against invading aliens and on the brink of extinction.

These aliens, which are called whitespikes, will suddenly appear in the year 2048 and overrun the world in three short years. These representatives from the future have interrupted the bloody World Cup match to ask the nations of present to send soldiers to the future to help with the war.

Of course as with these types of movies, the nations of the world almost immediately start sending troops to the future without any apparent questioning of the future people, or assessment of the tactical situation. More to the point, nothing in the movie suggests that people here in the presents take a moment and ask the future people detail questions of where these aliens first set foot on Earth. All we're told is that the first recorded encounters with the whitespikes were in eastern Siberia.

A huge area to be sure, but with thirty-some odd years to wait it seems commonsense to be me to maybe load up a couple of divisions of troops from different nations and recon the area. Yes, we're talking Russia here but I wouldn't be opposed to some vodka-soaked Russian general being put in charge as humanity does a grid by grid search to short circuit our extinction. Dear Lord, real life murderer, and petty dictator Putin would love calling himself the freaking savior of humanity.

In fairness to the movie, one of the future soldiers does say that that when the whitespikes began appearing the nations of the world looked back on the records and no telescopes nor radar saw anything drop down from space. Okay, I'm no George Patton nor Alexander the Great but that suggests to me that maybe they were already on Earth. And some forensic study on the first few whitespikes killed in the war might narrow down the area where they first appeared. Hint...Hint.

But no, present day troops are rushed through the wormhole to 2051 for seven-day deployments with fewer than thirty-percent surviving. Seven day deployments you ask? It's all part of the movie's time travel gizmo and is just a useful plot device.

With trained troops coming back as hamburger, if they return at all, the nations of the world resort to drafting civilians. No, these civilians have no prolonged period of basic training. They are literally given weapons, some basic gear, and then get sucked up into the wormhole for a seven day visit to Hell.

Even worse for this movie many of these civilians are not in the best of health. Many are clearly not physically fit for serving as a REMF in present day armies much less engaging in intense combat with murderous aliens.

Low and behold former Green Beret, Dan Forester's number comes up for the draft. Forester's wife and daughter plead with him to contact his estranged, troubled Vietnam Vet, genius-level mechanical engineer father to dodge the draft. See, Danny Boy's dad has figured out a way help draftees circumvent the tracking device the government installed on those going to the future. We then get a scene with Danny Boy and his dad where they promptly engage in a father/son pissing contest. Danny Boy gets disgusted with his dad and says fuck it, he reports to the base where the pathetic civilians are dispatched to the future.

Right from the get-go the trip to 2051 is a cluster fuck with Danny Boy's group dropping from the wormhole not five-feet above the ground but at least fifteen-stories above apocalyptic Miami Beach. Luckily for Danny and the important secondary characters they fall into a roof top pool that strangely still has enough water to cushion their fall.

From there the survivors regroup and get a mission to rescue an important group of scientists working in the city. Now understand, whitespikes have infested the city and a dozen or so pizza delivery-type guys and retail working ladies have to fight their way to the building where the eggheads were doing their thing. Remember no training, no months long physical conditioning, just John Wayne movie determination and Danny Boy and another former army type who has already served three previous seven-day tours to 2051. That guy has terminal cancer and is a walking death wish. But he does carry a souvenir, a claw from one of the first whitespikes killed in the war.

The movie meanders to a conclusion with Danny Boy meeting his 2051 daughter, who just happens to be a colonel in what is left of the military force fighting the whitespikes. The 2051 people have pretty much realized they can't win, so why they were continuing to suck unprepared draftees from their past into their hopeless fight, I can't figure out.

What the 2051 people do have is research into a biological weapon that will kill the female whitespikes. Supposedly the females are extra hard to kill and like Star Trek's furry and cute tribbles are born pregnant. Hence how they were able to overrun the planet in three years.

Danny Boy and his adult daughter, who is also the chief scientist of the research project capture a female whitespike, take it back to humanity's last fortified base, and perfect the bio-weapon. See Dan's daughter wants him to go back to the present and use the weapon while there is still time.

Well now all sorts of crazy shit starts to happen. That last base is attacked and overrun with whitespikes out to rescue the female. Dan now fights to survive long enough for his timer to hit zero where the time travel gizmo will automatically send him, the nifty bio-weapon, and the surviving members of his group back to our present.

Returning to the present the world has gone to pieces. Realization that the 2051 war is hopeless and extinction imminent the geopolitical situation in the present has seen all nations turn inward with international alliances being abandoned. It's clearly mentioned even NATO has disbanded something I once thought ridiculous and even suicidal until the Orange Buffoon did his best to make it happen.

To me that is when the movie got extra super stupid, yes the 2051 war is lost but with thirty years to prepare the world of our present could pull together and somehow change the future. But then again the United States has in reality just seen over six-hundred thousand people die due to Covid-19 and there are motherfuckers who violently believe it was all some grand conspiracy. Then there are climate change deniers, another massive conspiracy, and Flat Earthers so maybe the writers do understand human nature better than me.

But never fear, Dan Forester will save the day. See in one of Dan's biology classes there is a student who is a volcano nerd. This kid loves volcanoes and knows everything about them. So after Dan and his terminal cancer combat buddy have his souvenir whitespike claw analyzed by a scientist and discover ancient volcanic ash embedded in it and get a general age of that substance. For reasons I either missed or the writers never stated, Dan get his volcano wizard student to tell them what part of the Earth the ash originated.

They surmise that the whitespikes arrive on Earth right before a certain Siberian volcano erupted and ended up buried and then frozen in ice. That during our time the ice melted enough to thaw out the planet-cleaning killing machines.

Great we have a location, eastern Siberia but we then learn Russia has locked its borders tight. And the United States government has no desire to contact them and say they have cool information to share that might save humanity in thirty years.

But wait, Dan's estranged father just happens to own a C-130 transport plane and can fly the beast under Russian radar. So Dan, his dad, the terminal cancer guy along with several others organize a mission to fly into Siberia to find and then destroy the whitespikes with the bio-weapon.

This motley crew locate the buried spaceship, blast their way in, and begin killing the whitespikes still sleeping in their hibernation sacks. That is until a couple of whitespikes begin screaming waking up the rest. The group then begins blasting away with weapons as the whitespikes start escaping until terminal cancer guy detonates the C-4 explosives they had placed throughout the ship.

Everyone inside the ship dies except Danny Boy and a couple of lucky whitespikes that are doing their best to run off into the icy wilderness. Dan and his estranged father, who was left outside to cover the exit, give chase and have a final confrontation with the two remaining aliens. Yeah, one of the surviving whitespikes is female and she's clearly pregnant.

Father and son kill the last two whitespikes and then have one of those redemption/reconciliation moments that has all the sweet sincerity of saccharin. They go home where they are greeted by the world as heroes.

Okay my biggest problem with the movie was the basic idea that 2051 world would come to our present asking for soldiers to fight a war that they had long since decided was lost. The better plan, in my ever humble opinion, would have them developed the bio-weapon first then drop into the World Cup game with it and a detailed report and get us in the present to locate the and kill the whitespikes.

The world could have still gotten all gung-ho with Dan Forester drafted into a global coalition to locate and eliminate the threat because of his prior military service. Dan could have seen a message from his adult daughter who still would have been the chief scientist on the 2051 bio-weapon and realized his path to glory would be to change the future for her.

But no, we get a chaotic mishmash of Terminator, Aliens, and Predator tropes so Chris Pratt can look good on screen. My problem with him is that he can't act. His character in the Parks and Recreation was a one-dimensional creature that honestly didn't seem to stray far from his real personality. The same goes for his character, Peter Quill, in the MCU. The first Guardians of Galaxy movie was great but the second not so much.

In short Chris Pratt strikes me as a pompous douchebag who isn't any different than a couple of thousand other underemployed actors living in Hollywood. His one difference is a couple of lucky breaks other, better performers never got.

If you haven't already figured out, The Tomorrow War is a wreck of a movie that I honestly can't recommend for interesting entertainment. Truthfully the best part of the movie were the whitespike aliens, which were pure CGI. Time travel films can be tricky things and when done well can be some of the best thought provoking entertainment around. My final stab at this movie would be for someone to go back in time and prevent Amazon from wasting money on this script.

Now for something completely different

As the good Palin from "Monty Python's Flying Circus" might say: Now for something completely different. Utah Savage has tagged me with a simple meme that I am far more than just happy to participate in since it takes my feeble mind off the ever encroaching minions of fascism that have burrowed their way into the land of the free. If I get too wordy and long winded please forgive.

Where was I ten years ago?

Well give or take a week I was actually serving my country, unlike many politicians who revel in “public service” but never do without clean sheets or ironed shirts and silk ties, in the National Guard. If I remember correctly the maintenance battalion I was serving in at the time was on a weekend field training exercise. I was inside a GP (General Purpose) medium tent that more than likely was old during the Kennedy Administration with the rest of my commo section discussing things soldiers talked about I’m sure for decades while we trouble shot and repaired radios and other communication equipment from about the same era. Thinking back now that was a curious and odd time when many ran about worrying over the possible fall of the Republic over the moral turpitude of an egotistical president. While some may claim that he engaged the armed forces in military conflict to provide cover for oral activities while the Secret Service provided concealment he at least had the good graces to not bankrupt the country or get thousands killed. Maybe if the “Current Occupant “ had engaged in such activities he would have been more laid back and not took up torture and violation of civil liberties as hobbies.

The weekend field exercise had us leaving the armory before sunrise to setup the battalion headquarters in a pasture next to the Air National Guard base across town. After several hours of running around in a more chaotic fashion than an army might want to admit the unit got down to the business of practicing it’s various missions. The day progressed to the point that after evening chow everyone was winding down and settling in for the evening knowing the reverse of what we did that day would have to be done more quickly the next morning. The pasture the battalion had setup in was close enough to the main part of the Air National Guard base to have electrical hookups so we had no cantankerous and loud army generators disturbing the peaceful night. The night was cool with a steady breeze that didn’t allow the nasty mosquitoes and gnats from getting a blood sucking foothold on anyone. No moon was out and we sat under a huge veil of stars that didn’t have to compete with city and suburban lights. The stars seemed to be enforcing a silence on the entire battalion that no sergeant or officer could ever implement. Everyone spoke in whispers seemly fearful of breaking the stillness. That still didn’t stop small groups, in this case the commo section I was in, from gathering around outside and passing time by just sharing idle conversation.

My section was a curious collection of different types of people. The acting section sergeant, Pete, was a state accountant whose wife knew my wife and hated the Guard about the same as my wife. Pete’s dilemma was that he had married far later in life and had far more invested in the Guard in the form of retirement points than I did. Retirement points are earned for each drill weekend a soldier completes which are added to other points a soldier might earn for active service, rank, and several other factors leading to the amount of money they get once they hang up the uniform. His overall plan had him staying in the Guard for at least seven more years to reach the number of points that would allow him to retire comfortably. Given how he talked about his marriage struggles it was a serious question of whether he would be married at that time. Another fellow owned a business selling and servicing pagers in a time when cell phones were finally evolving into something less than clumsy bricks. The one woman in our section was a proto-Coulter type that seemed very bothered over Disney’s overt sexuality expressed in the animated version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Another guy was an ambitious criminology major hoping to make his way to the FBI or DEA but at that moment was working as a rent-a-cop. The final guy was a Persian Gulf veteran who served with the 101^st Airborne and until a few months before that drill was sure that I was an undercover agent for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division since he thought I was far too quiet and “clean cut”. Out of all the people in my section with their own collection of troubles and issues he was the exception. “Sam” had left the service and promptly flunked out of college and had held a series of low paying jobs. That is until he met a young lady at some college party he crashed. As crazy luck would have it that girl fell head over heels in love with Sam along with her father who owned both a construction and real estate company down around Hilton Head, needless to say the guy was filthy rich. Sam was at that time learning the ropes of his future father-in-law’s business during the week down on the coast then on the weekends Sam and his fiancée were staying in her father’s yacht. That is when Uncle Sammy wasn’t making him drive back up to Columbia to do his weekend drills. (As a side note Sam had me over to the yacht for beers one weekend when Dragonwife and I were down at Hilton Head seeing her folks.)

We talked for hours over many subjects without discussing anything of lasting value. One by one my section mates peeled off and found their cot and fartsack leaving me outside alone. Me? I was so entranced by the stars, planets and other aspects of the cosmos seemly on display for me that night I grabbed my fartsack and slept on the back of some humvee. Give or take a week that was what I was doing ten years ago.

What was on my to do list today?

Miss Wiggles and I spent the morning making pancakes and watching Spongebob Squarepants. Later we went to the zoo as is usual for us and walked around checking out all the animals. Miss Wiggles who had brought a bag of peanut M&M’s almost gave some to one of the zoo’s meerkats that honestly seemed very eager to try them out. Once I stopped her by taking the candy away the three meerkats standing upright just on the other side of the barrier that separated us seemed rather upset. We then went back to the state museum and browsed various aspects of South Carolina history. No, I will not put anyone through any more pictures from those places right now.

What would I do if I was a billionaire?

After winning the lottery, which is the only way I could ever be a billionaire, I would more than likely give my wife half of it, whether I wanted to or not, just to keep her quiet. Yes, I would quit my job and then travel down to Pawleys Island and purchase a ramshackle beach house that sits on the mainland side right on the marsh. That particular house was constructed in the late 60’s and has a huge screened-in porch facing the marsh. It has survived all the hurricanes since then even though it has required extensive repairs at various times. My brother has rented the place several times and it holds for me a sense of honest style and originality that many of the newer houses built very nearby do not. Many of the newer houses have huge plate glass windows facing the marsh, or for those on the island facing the ocean, which I find outright bizarre. Once I was settled in I can imagine myself doing a 21^st century imitation of the late and very great Mickey Spillane. There are several levels to what I just wrote that you will have to ask me what that means.

Five places I’ve lived.

Fort Smith, Arkansas: For some reason I can’t figure out my mother moved us there after one of my parent’s multiple breakups. We have no family there and she had no friends there when we arrived that could help her. One of the many mysteries of my late mother carried to the grave that will never be answered.

Fort Carson, Colorado: Great place in the summer but if I never see the place again in the winter it will be too soon.

Lawton, Oklahoma: Intense craziness and confusion being the norm in my parent's relationship they tried to reunite again for the fourth or fifth time after my dad took a job with a construction company in Wichita Falls, Texas. My mom loaded us up again in her tired Chevrolet Caprice and drove us out to Texas to meet dad. At some point just several months later, but I don't have a clue when, she had her boyfriend ride out west and met him in Lawton, Oklahoma which was about a hour drive from Wichita Falls. By the time the circuit breaker in mom's head tripped again and she loaded my siblings and me to go stay with him her boyfriend had already found a job and had an apartment. While my mom and her boyfriend were nuts I found the people in Lawton friendly and caring. So much that the sheriff literally rode him out of town on a rail after they had a drunken fit in the apartment one night. We, my mother, siblings and I, in turn made our way back to Georgetown, South Carolina and my grandparents.

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina: Back when we lived there it was a honest piece of heaven on earth. While if I don’t look too closely at the development that has come to the place I can almost still feel the spirit of that little hamlet that sheltered my young soul for a time.

Munster, Germany: While on a REFORGER in 1987 my air defense battery bivouacked in a field that some German farmer had just expelled the contents of a honey pot nearby making our lives a smelly hell. After about a week though we got use to it and didn’t think anymore of it even though he sprayed the nearby field several more times. As our month in that field drew to a close and the actually war games was about to begin the First Sergeant noticed a line of soldiers next a white BMW that was parked across the road. Noticing one of his young troops coming back after spending some time at the back door of the vehicle with a huge grin on his face alerted the senior NCO that something wasn’t right. The First Sergeant being a veteran of several tours of duty in good old Deutschland went running across the field to that car chasing away the troops lined up and the drop dead gorgeous blond that had setup her business in the backseat. If you can’t figure what I’m writing about email me and I’ll tell you. This is a semi-family friendly site.

Bad habits? Far too many to list.

Now who will I tag? Well, here goes:

Lime

Zombieslayer

Mike

Colonel and

Hillblogger

Minor covert adventures in uniform

Being all that I could be and getting away with it.

A few months ago while making my way to the hospital cafeteria I bumped into the wife of the first sergeant from the National Guard unit I retired from in 2005. The best description of this lady I can offer is that she is a South Carolina version of the former Texas governor, the late Ann Richards. Steel hard bright blue eyes, a strong but motherly voice that could scare any officer under a full bird colonel, snow white hair that gives her air of grace and strength, and a commanding presence that kept many a wife of the lower NCO's and enlisted in line when situations concerning the unit and their husbands had many of them worried. She ran the unit family support group for years before her husband had became first sergeant and it would be a fair assessment to say that he inherited some of his authority from her, although I would never say that to him. We exchanged greetings and small talk with her chastising me some for retiring when I did hinting that even now it may not be too late for me to reenlist. With the help of her good grace I side stepped the reenlistment issue and soon found out that her husband was in the hospital for some surgery. I promised her that I would be up for a visit once he was ready for visitors and we both then went our separate ways. Just two days later I was called to the phone at work and found the first sergeant's wife on the other end with her relaying a message in her famous authority voice that the now retired sergeant major wanted to see me in his room two minutes ago. I was fairly sure the "order" was done in jest but some part of me still felt the urge to hustle up quickly and find out what I had done wrong, although I had some idea. But, I'll need to drop back and punt to explain.

From the time I first entered the service in 1984 till 1997 I had been in air defense specifically and combat arms in general. The mind set for many in combat arms is far more fast paced than in the support units that normally stay in the rear areas. Not that the rear area jobs are any easier, some are far worse, its just they do things differently than the grunts, gun bunnies, tankers, and the ever lowly air defense types. After I left the active army in 1990 I hooked up with a Stinger missile battalion in the upstate and was fairly happy running around in the woods close to Clemson University doing air defense and general soldier training with the other members of my unit. Now Dragonwife, with no real idea of the military life, took my tales of soldier fun and frolic as nothing but a bunch of little boys playing in the woods and started suggesting that I transfer down to a local unit so I wouldn't be so far away from home. From the time we were married in 1994 till 1997 I resisted, telling her I enjoyed what I was doing and since I had family in the area I could stay with I was spending no real money, except for gas, and I would not transfer. While I didn't change my attitude about the National Guard the National Guard changed its attitude about its members and how it related to their civilian jobs. Where once the Guard worked with its members when conflict arose with their civilian jobs and weekend drills after 1995 the Guard started being less and less flexible wanting the civilian job to come second to the National Guard. While I'm sure there are many in the Guard now that would debate this point none the less I remember 1995 being a year that many began leaving when they felt they could not risk their civilian jobs for a part-time job that began demanding so much. Such demands very soon became too hard for me since I lived over two hours away from the unit and my civilian employer was having to rearrange the schedules of various co-workers of mine to cover my periodic absences. It's one thing for many civilians to say they support the troops but its a whole other situation when they have to give up their hunting and fishing time for someone wearing the uniform. Once I began looking to transfer it didn't take long to find a unit close to the house needing warm bodies. I was soon a member of a maintenance unit in the commo section, or communications section, making sure all the various parts of the unit and those units it supported could talk with each other. Being a fish out of water in the new unit adjusting to the new environment took a good bit of time.


While I was in air defense weekend drills most of the time had us away from the unit very early Saturday morning until late in the afternoon when we were released for the day. Sundays might have us out in the woods again but mostly we would be doing clean-up and repair on our equipment which still required us to hustle so we could get released as early as possible. I found the maintenance unit to be use to a far slower pace bordering on the glacial. Word might come down that the section needed to ride over to a different unit to look at some radios or other equipment but instead of just dispatching a vehicle and simply going we often needed to wait until some officer cleared it. That would have the section doing other stuff until we were cleared to go or have us just sitting on our thumbs waiting out of sight and out of mind of those who might throw some other detail our way. Worse was to get word that the leadership would have a whole list of important tasks and details that the unit had to get done before we could leave for the day and literally wait most of the day before such information would finally come down. Then everyone would run around for several hours trying to get issues cleared up so we all could be home at a reasonable hour before our dinner got cold and very often failing. More than a few times I would come through the door finding a sour expression of Dragonwife's face because she had made plans that my late arrival at home had ruined. The following drill weekend I would find other guys reporting a similar occurrence at their homes with their wives because of the late release. For those wearing the uniform we usually understood how the very screwed up nature of the military lead to such events and just drove on but none of us could ever get our wives, once again because of not having much contact with military life while growing up, to understand as well. All these situations that had the section and the unit doing the famous army "hurry up and wait" dance did start to wear thin after a couple of years. It was especially a pain in the ass for me once my son started to get a little older and in some activities dads should never miss, and one time I had to work outside the system to get away in time.

It was the summer of 1999 and the commo section had already finished all our Sunday tasks and was waiting for some word of when we might get released. Around 3:30pm (heck with the military time stuff) word came down that the company commander was highly upset over several issues that had not been corrected and that the unit should prepare to be very late in getting cut loose for that day. The first sergeant said that it might be as late as 7:30 to 8:00pm before we would have our final formation and then be released. At 5:00pm my son, Darth Spoilboy, would be playing in his first peewee soccer game and while I had always been a good trooper I frankly resented the idea that I would be held up for something so important because some ROTC wonder had not crossed all his T's or dotted all his I's. Plus I was in absolutely no mood to deal with Dragonwife that day and how she would act once I did return home. But the question was how could I find a way out and home that did not have me going AWOL, which was a huge world of hurt I did not want any part of on my record. It was then I spied a honest to goodness old fashion phone booth that was in the far corner of the drill hall floor while I and many others were running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. The various wheels and gears in my head turned as I endeavored to fan the flames of a tiny spark of a plan. After a few minutes of sorting out all the various angles and anticipating questions I was sure to get from those above me I called my youngest brother Joe Cool. I asked him to call the unit and say that he had been in a car accident in the Columbia area that required me to take him back him to the upstate since his car would be in the shop for several days. I prepared him for a few questions that might come his way and to insist to whomever he spoke with that he had no one else to call for assistance. I then slipped out the phone booth hoping no one saw me enter or leave and went back to work. I waited long enough to start to think that Joe might have forgotten to call or had screwed it up when a very junior second lieutenant famous for being a jerk came up and handed me a message from my brother saying that he had been in a car accident and that I needed to go take him home. This being a few years before cell phones really took off there was no way of calling him back so the lieutenant took it upon himself to release me and off I went, but not before hearing the first sergeant call off in the distance for me to wait. I figured that my plan had just gone belly up since the first sergeant was an old timer and was wearing army green while I was still pooping in my diapers. He had said many times while in formation that there wasn't a scheme or trick he hadn't pulled himself and I'm sure he would have smelled my scheme just as soon as he walked up to me. But his job being what it is he was intercepted and pulled off in another direction before he got to me. The little second lieutenant that had delivered the message came by a few seconds later and asked me why I wasn't gone, I told him the first sergeant had told me to hold up but had drifted off. Looking slightly peeved at me he told me to head on out and that he would handle the first sergeant. Not being one to look a gifted horse in the mouth I hauled butt knowing that a mere second lieutenant could not simply handle the average first sergeant much less the force of nature that was ours. But as they say that was not my problem and the second lieutenant having his butt handed to him by the first sergeant would do much to temper his holier-than-thou butter bar attitude. I made a clean get away and made it to Spoilboy's soccer game in plenty of time. The following month though I kept getting knowing looks from the first sergeant but he never said anything and the second lieutenant lost a great deal of his attitude being far more an agreeable person to work around.

Back to the present, I walked up to the Sergeant Major's hospital room door and knocked, a loud and clear "come" was the answer I got. I walked in and the Sergeant Major was in his bed with his wife next to him sitting in a chair. We began talking but not about my little early out scheme and I actually began to figure he might have forgotten or let it go after all these years. About a half hour later once his doctor came in I started to leave he called out with me standing at his doorway and said he had saw me enter and leave the old phone booth and that he was in the office when the resulting phone call came in not ten minutes later. As much as I should have expected it the giggling his wife started to make suggested that I still betrayed myself with the expression on my face. Curiosity getting the better of me I asked why had not his wrath struck me down the following month since he knew something was up? He told me that the jerk of a second lieutenant had tried to play some attitude off on him and that once the aggrieved butter bar was missing a few pounds off his hind quarters I was small potatoes. He then said "dismissed staff sergeant" and I walked out laughing all the way back to work.