The mouths of Babes

Decades ago (the mid 70’s) my Mother sent a “Humor in Uniform” letter to Readers Digest (we don’t believe they ever published it) relating an incident that involved me.

The year would probably have been 1967 as Dad was in Vietnam for his first of two tours of duty over there.  Mom and I were standing in line at the PX at Fort Huachuca and there was a tall black Sergeant in line in front of us.  I would have been 4 years old at the time (Mom would have been 23).  Of course given the tenor of the times and the fact that Dad was in Vietnam Mom had the evening news on every night so you can imagine what she thought was going to come out of the mouth of her babe when I looked up at that Sergeant and said “I know what you are”.  He looked at her and then down at me and asked “Yeah, what am I”.  My sweet little voice responded “A Soldier”.