165 Days Short

165 Days Short is the Diary of SP4 Bob Gersztyn during the last six months of his two years of active duty in the army. He was stationed at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, after basic training at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, after being drafted in August 1966. He spent his first year in the 593rd Engineering Company as both a carpenter and company armorer (small arms weapons specialist). After he was transferred to headquarters platoon of the 9th Field Artillery and Missile Group he also became a mail clerk along with the other two MOS’s (military occupational specialty). Prior to his conscription Gersztyn was a greaser from the Detroit, Michigan suburb of Warren, working in the automobile industry. After spending a year with beer brawling construction workers, he found himself in a new unit filled with West Coast hippies and intellectual types, who were personnel clerks. They turned him on to pot and he tuned in to a new wavelength and ultimately decided to drop out of the existing status quo mentality of conformity that his life had been up till then. The following diary is the documentation of that transformation.