April 2022 will mark the fiftieth year since I raised my hand for the first time to take an oath of allegiance to the United States of America. As a seventeen year old boy from Western Pennsylvania, I don’t really think I understood what I was doing other than to know that once I took the oath, my life would never be the same. It’s always like that when you make such a monumental decision. Frankly, I just thought that I was going to follow in my father’s footsteps and see the world while wearing a really great uniform. And having just received three rejection letters from colleges, it didn’t seem like I would have many other career options (besides going to work in the steel mill).

So in April, Mom and Dad drove me to the Recruiting station where she cried and Dad was happy that I was finally going to get serious about life. Now, fifty years later, I can still feel my hand shake as I wrote my name on the contract. I have my copy of it in my personal files and it was a very shaky signature. But oh, all the places I went. The adventure wildly exceeded even my imagination. Maybe this year, I will put more of those stories on the blog.

But I was reminded that there are a lot of anniversaries related to the military. I sat down this morning and put together a chart. I hope it’s useful to you next year. While I used a number of sources to create it, I can imagine I missed one or two and I will look forward to hearing form my readers if they think I should add any. Each date that is listed will have a blog to remind people why the dates are important.

If you want something added to the list, email me at bobmac711@live.com and I will try and accommodate your request. Obviously, I can’t add every single date but am certainly interested in the big ones.

By the way, I sometimes miss at math or dates. If you see any corrections to the list, let me know and I will work on getting it fixed.

That’s it for today. More in the next few days.

Mister Mac