Prometheus Unchained

I think that most people expected the draft to be abolished after World War II but, of course, it wasn't. Korea came along before the ashes of World War II had cooled, and then there was the Cold War. They couldn't reasonably expect anybody to enlist for the duration of something like that, so they started rotating people through the various assignments on a regular schedule. Most stateside and European tours lasted for three or four years, or whenever your enlistment expired, whichever came first. Married guys were allowed to bring their families along and live with them, either on or off post, during their off duty time. Vietnam and Korea, even after the cease fire, were considered "hardship tours". No dependents were allowed there and the tours were of shorter duration.

When a guy left at the end of his tour, somebody was supposed to come and replace him. I don't know about the other places but, in Berlin, the replacements came on a sporadic basis and there was no correlation between arrivals and departures. There are supposed to be a certain number of guys in each unit, but we were under strength the whole time I was there. Some of the lifers would re-enlist for their own vacancy and just stay where they were, but they put a stop to that when Vietnam got escalated. Berlin tours were limited to three years, after which you had to go someplace else. Some of our lifers, when they realized that "someplace else" meant "Vietnam", were considering not re-enlisting when their time came. I don't know if any of them followed through on that, I was long gone myself by then.

You're right, "workers" is the wrong word for the personality type I've been talking about. Somebody on the internet once called me a "Promethean", and said that meant someone who strives for competence. I knew that Prometheus was that Greek god who stole fire from the other gods, gave it to mankind, and was chained to a rock and pecked by eagles for his trouble. I just looked it up, and my dictionary says that a Promethean is someone who is daring and creative. That's not the same thing, which leads to me to wonder if that guy on the internet knew what he was talking about. If "Promethean" is indeed not the correct word, we need to find another word that is. What I mean is someone who takes pleasure in a job well done. He doesn't need to be daring or creative, just productive. This does not preclude him from being intelligent, introspective, insightful, or communicative, it just means that his primary focus is on getting things done. The job comes first, everything else is done in his spare time.