A date which will live ...

 Fifty years ago, I enlisted in the Navy. I was headed to boot camp.

We arrived, in the middle of the night, country boys from Texas. As the bus passed through the gate, one of the boys — gee whiz in his voice — said we must be at an important base because the fence was covered with razor wire to keep people out.

Another lad, who had some experience with facilities surrounded by razor wire, pointed out that it was slanted at an angle to keep people in, rather than out.

There was a moment of silence as teenaged boys, not used to thinking critically, considered the odds of anyone trying to break in to a boot camp.

We sensed we were in for adventure, though of a kind we hadn’t imagined.