I found my short timer calendar from late 1973. At the time I was assigned to Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, Illinois. I spent just over one year in a pilot program that brought senior second class petty officers from the fleet to serve as Assistant Company Commanders. During that year I worked for 14 different Company Commanders helping them train recruits during their first 2-3 weeks of boot camp. There were about a dozen of us Assistant Company Commanders out there on the streets and grinders and in the barracks and classrooms of RTC. We all became well versed in all phases of training (folding clothes, locker stowage, marching , the 96 count manual of arms, the 16 count manual of arms, etc). We were a Godsends to new company commanders pushing their first company. Our presence with a company also gave the old salts with four or five companies under their belts more regular hours during the first weeks with a company, the most time consuming part.
The photos are of my “wheel book” during that time. It became my short timer calendar. As the day of my discharge grew closer I must have lost interest in the countdown
because the X’s stopped on November 18, 1973 and never started again. I was discharged on December 10, 1973. It didn’t last long. I reenlisted three months later, got married and swept my school teacher bride off to
Hawaii to begin my tour on Conserver and her new role as a Navy wife.