Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

A few weeks ago I had a couple of columns that dealt with military parades and military pay.

In one of those columns I also mentioned that my basic pay as a private E1 was $67.50 per month. E-1 is the lowest military grade and it is the grade enlisted people start at when entering the service.

That was when we had a draft and for many there was no choice about military service. The draft was run by the Selective Service System which had county committees that had quotas to meet for people for military service.

If enough people didn’t volunteer the committee would send draft notices to people to help it meet the quota. The notices required a person to show up for a physical for entry in a U.S. military service.

In the 1970s as the Vietnam War, which was very unpopular, was winding down the draft was augmented by a lottery system. A person still registered but his or her lottery number gave an idea of whether they were likely to be drafted or not.

This put pressure to encourage people to volunteer for service and one of the key things there was to increase pay.

The most recent number I saw for a Private E1 was $2,144.10 per month! And that would go up as a person accumulated more time in the service. An E5, which would be a buck sergeant would be paid $3,001.50 with less than two years of service and $3,358.80 with three years of service or more.

Think about that, an E1 in 1968 would make $810 a year while an E1 today would make $25,729. That’s over 31 times as much! And one also gets medical care, food and lodging.

Now back in 1968 a person only stayed an E1 for basic training and if a person was successful then he would go to private E2 with a whopping pay increase to $72 per month!

Pay increases seem to be doing their job in attracting people. That’s good, we depend upon our military being ready, fully staffed and able to defend us. Thanks to all who have served and are now serving!

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A few weeks ago I mentioned military parades and my involvement in a few.

I saw some clips of the June 14 parade for the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army in Washington D.C. I saw one group of unarmed soldiers walking along in formation but not very much in step. Apparently they were about as excited about marching in parades as I was!

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Recently I found a bird in our garage trying to get out a window even though the large garage door was open. He kept fluttering at the window and bouncing off the glass.

I tried to open the window he (or maybe she) was trying to get through but as I tried to open the window the small bird got in the way of the sliding part of the window, opening it more would crush him.

So I reached for him, thinking he would fly to avoid my hand and see the open door, but he just sat there. So I picked him up fully expecting him to start pecking my hand or scratching with his feet. But he didn’t fight it at all, he calmly stayed in my hand and made no attempt to get out of my grasp.

So I gave up on the window and walked to the open garage door, opened my hand and away he flew.

It still amazes me that he seemed so calm while in my grasp, almost like he trusted me to solve his problem. I’m going to remember that moment for quite a while.