I remember one time after I came home on an emergency leave from Nam' and was then assigned to a replacement company in Fort Dix, N.J. It was around Christmas of 1970. It was a real cold night and it had snowed about 6-8 inches on the ground.
Some of us had to pull guard duty so the new kids coming into the Army could go home for Christmas to be with Mommy; the rest of us pulled duty. I was assigned to walk around an empty building out across from the PX. It was down by the railroad tracks, and two of us were walking around the building and used to steal a few minutes when we got back to the other side of the building in the boiler room to try two stay warm for a few. When the cadre used to come around with the 2 1/2 ton to check on us, we both got out and walked around and back and forth. I was only back from Vietnam a few weeks and I thought, here I am pulling guard duty for a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears kids so they could go home a be warm with their mommies. What a winter that was.
I guess it was a few weeks after that I was on my way back to Da Nang, Vietnam, again to finish out my time.