Doc Jargon: The Waiting Ends with Wake up

Photo By Collen McGee | Doc Jargon, cutting through the jargon that is the U.S. Army.  

FORT RILEY, KS, UNITED STATES

02.24.2023

Story by Collen McGee 

Fort Riley Public Affairs Office

Dear Doc Jargon,

My mom is away for training. She joined the Army Reserve and has to go to school for a couple of months before she can start to do her job. Before she left she made me a calendar where I tear off each sheet. It is sort of a countdown and at the bottom of each sheet, below the number of days there are left, she wrote, “and a wake up.”
Why would she write that and what does it mean?

Signed,
Darling Daughter who is Awake


Dear DD Awake,

That’s a really cool idea to help watch the time count down until your mom is home. The term she wrote on the bottom of each page is to help keep track of the exact day your mom will be headed back to you. You know how it can get if one person thinks three days means the end of the third day and another thinks that three days means it will happen the fourth day. So, if we say three days and a wakeup, you will know that when your mom wakes up after the third day — she’s on her way home.
I really think that was a way to take one more day away from the countdown and make it sound just a little closer — but it does keep the confusion down too.
I hope you don’t have too many days left to pull off of your countdown calendar.

Sincerely,
Doc Jargon

• Date Taken: 02.24.2023
• Date Posted: 02.24.2023 09:29
• Story ID: 439100
• Location: FORT RILEY, KS, US