AFTER 5-1/2 YEARS in college, I graduated and was ready to be commissioned a second lieutenant through Army ROTC. I had asked my father, who had suffered silently through my stormy undergraduate years, to pin on my hard-won gold bars.  All the others had finished their pinning except my dad, who fumbled clumsily with the tiny clasps. Smiles became a bit strained as all of us waited. But the smiles broke into chuckles when he said, “Don’t worry, son. It won’t take me as long to pin them on as it took you to get them.”
Contributed to “Humor In Uniform” by Maj. David Green, USAR