How does a trip to the barbershop connect with Independence Day?

The Fourth of July was a really big deal when I was a kid. It meant spending long summer days playing with firecrackers. Back then, "ladyfingers" were our main source of entertainment. My little brother, Ed, and I experimented with every possible way to blow something up. Ant hills became enemy bunkers, grasshoppers were Russian tanks that we blew to smithereens, and pop cans transformed into missiles that we launched into outer space. Then we followed our natural human tendency and proceeded to bigger and better "black cats," which could send the pop cans flying a couple feet higher into the air. By the time that our country's bicentennial rolled around, we had graduated to one and a half inch artillery shells. "M 80" firecrackers were outlawed a decade earlier, but some of the old timers stowed away a couple for special occasions. Life was good back then.

Then, I graduated from high school and found myself three days later, marching around the reception station at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I was now residing in the "Home of the Armor," our nation's historic Army tank base. We were scheduled for three months of intense training on the M 60A1 main battle tank, which would push our physical and mental skills to the limit. We weren't playing with firecrackers anymore. The 105 mm sabot shells that we were firing spun downrange at the amazing speed of one mile per second. HEAT, the Army's acronym for "High Explosive Anti Tank," shells burned molten metal through the hull of enemy tanks. Nope, these were not ladyfingers.

By now, you see my correlation between fireworks and tank rounds, but you're wondering what on earth a barbershop has to do with the 4th of July. One of the first things that we did as army recruits at Fort Knox was to get an army regulation haircut. I will never forget the sight of young men from all over the U.S. standing in line to lose their distinctive hairdos. Growing up on a Nebraska farm, I didn't have a very broad view of the world and it's various cultures. I was in awe of the spectrum of humanity surrounding me. There were the familiar short-haired farm kids. There were shaved-headed inner city kids. There were black kids from Alabama sporting afros. There were straight black-haired Asian kids. There were clean cut Hispanics. I even saw a couple with ponytails that looked Native American. They all entered the barbershop as individuals and emerged minutes later with the exact same buzz cut. These guys came from all walks of life and various ethnicities to sign over their lives to the U.S. Army. I learned a valuable lesson in the American way that day. It takes everyone with their own special skills working together to keep the machinery of this great country rolling. Happy 250th Independence Day everyone!