When I had about six weeks left on my three year enlistment I was at Ft.Carson Colo. A great place in or out of the Army.

A notice came to the BB board saying that anyone qualified with the .45 pistol could apply for the practice squad that would be the group a pistol match team would be picked from to be sent to Camp Perry Ohio in March. Normally I wouldn't bother because no one in my company got away with anything but...we had a career SFC platoon sgt. who just got orders for Korea and that meant no wife and kids went with you for the thirteen month tour and he was pissed at the Army.

Me and another short timer gave it a shot all though we'd be gone by match time. Ol' Sarge said O.K. and we got permission to practice every day for 30 days. TDY to the practice range. Pick up a random .45, holster and pistol belt from the arms room and gone for the day. I had a car so we drove to the range, were issued three or four hundred rounds of ammo and left to practice on our own. This was a seasoned bunch of pros who were all of higher ranks with personal custom .45's who did what they wanted to with no supervision, we joined in.

Fire a hundred rounds through these old beat up pistols from WWll or Korea and beat it into town to the city dump. Turn the fatigue jackets inside out and go shoot rats, bottles, cans and anything else short of each other, a few civilians plinking away with .22s or handguns but it was a big dump and me and Jones hung out by ourselves to avoid conversations. After a couple of weeks of this fun we got a little loose with safety and one day I was de-cocking the .45 one handed which I thought I had gotten decent at when I lost the hammer. A round hit the dirt about an inch behind Jones's heel as he walked in front of me. He turned and cursed me out while we laughed and talked about how close we came to extending the three year hitch into something a bit longer. I dropped him off to his wife at his home and I went to my girl friends house for a beer until it was time to report back.

How I spent my vacation before getting discharged.

Great story Hanc. Takes me back to when life was so much more simple and less controlled. There was a free-wheeling flow to life that I miss. I remember as kids we would take our 22's and just wander off for the day. Go to the USS Steel dump and rat shoot. Then make a raft and float on the river for a while. Then follow the train tracks home.

Hanc, can you imagine this going on when we were growing up ? The union going after a Boy Scout for cleaning a walking path as part of his project. That kind of crap wouldn't even have been thought of then. And if some whacko did, everyone would have taken him aside and ended it immediately.

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2009/11/typical-union-mentality.html

Yep, Hanc, we're dinosaurs that roamed the earth in prehistoric times.

*Gasp!* Out of sight of your parents WITHOUT a cell phone or a GPS tracker? And ARMED AND DANGEROUS?! And gone the WHOLE DAY? And I bet your played cowboys and indians too, that barbarous game! Besides, it should be called bovine guides and natives, otherwise it's racist. I can't imagine how you can possibly have turned out to become a normal person without supervision from parents and government rules guiding the way for you as a minor growing up in this horrible world!


Tongue firmly in cheek

Seriously though, I think I am the last generation to grow up without a cell phone. They became popular and affordable around the middle of the 90s, when I was 10-12 years old. But it was far from usual for kids to have their own until a couple of years later. We would also go roaming about the neighbourhood, playing in the woods, and in winter we would strap our skis on and go skiing in the streets before they were cleared of snow and salted. We would occasionally fall and scratch our knees or bang our heads. But hey, today's kids don't get to do that, because whaddya know, it's a dangerous world out there , so they grow up all soft and whiny and overstimulated.

O.G. your childhood is right out of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Wandering around with a .22 would have ended up with me in the Juvenile Delinquent lockup in the boro of Queens, part of NYC where I spent my early years.....but we did roast mickeys in a fire in an empty lot full of junk and building debris, we did build rafts out of Popsicle sticks but we sailed them down the street to the sewer after a rain storm, the local river, the East River had a place called Hellgate that would swallow sailing ships whole and would swat a raft around like a gnat. No real sailing for us.

Rode my Schwinn out to LaGuardia field before it got built up completely and caught fish and blue claw crabs in the adjoining creeks which are now the parking areas. The local park, Astoria Park was a great piece of nature with a swimming pool that cost you 12 cents for a Saturday of cooling off.

Semmern I agree on cell phones for kids which started with beepers for kids but never worked because the kid still needed a phone to make an excuse for not coming home.

I am really thankful that cell phones, GPS's and the like did not catch on when I was still working. I recently had a plumber at my house and his time was monitored by his truck his cell phone and whatever else his company had that made him clock out to take a pee. Thanks to whoever for me missing that fun.