I signed my initial contract to join the Army in Reagan's last few days as President.

I graduated from college with my Music Ed degree, and worked for an instrument repair shop for a few months, until I went to Basic Training.

While I was in Basic Training, the Berlin Wall fell.

While I was in "school" for my job, we invaded Panama.

In PLDC ("WLC" for the youngsters, or "Shake and Bake" for the old farts), we had CNN on 24 hours a day, watching the air war portion of Desert Storm.

I pinned on "hard stripes"(E-5 or SGT (Sergeant)) in March of 1992, and, shortly thereafter, the unit's computer (yes, there was only one) was upgraded from DOS to Windows 3.1.

In 1994, I was promoted to Staff Sergeant (E-6 or SSG), and sent to the Basic NonCommisioned Officer's Course (BNCOC). At this point, I was worried.  The last two times the Army had sent me to "school" a war had broken out.  ... The worst that happened was that President Nixon died, and we got a 4-day weekend.

I've been "Sergeant Robertson" (SGT or SSG) for OVER 20 years, now.

For most of my adult life, "Mister" is either what you call: a) my commanding officer, or b) my Dad.

TOMORROW, I will go to work as "SSG Robertson", and come home as "Mister Kevin Robertson".

I'm not sure how to deal with that.