So today I got paid. I opened my check and there’s eleven more dollars (after taxes) than usual. So I asked my boss, and she says, “Oh yeah, did I forget to tell you that you got a raise?”
Um, yeah, you did, but that’s cool. Not much of a raise, but a pleasant surprise anyway.
I recall coming back from umpteen cold, miserable days in the field in Korea in 1983 on Team Spirit exercises, trudging back to our OP(IIR the term correctly) at oh-dark-thirty, just as bone-tired, weary and miserable as humans can be under peace-time conditions, and the Battalion Commander had the cooks set up a chow line to feed us a hot meal. It was probably typical Marine Corps powdered eggs and “shit on a shingle” type stuff, but it was hot, and God, we needed it, and for that one moment, despite all the jokes to the contrary, military cooking was almost as good as mom used to make. A pleasant surpise all around.