One day at Fort Benning, Ga., the drill sergeant had us all open our lockers and then "toe the line," standing at attention at the head of our bunks, with our toes touching the red line painted on the floor in the barracks.

We had messed up, as usual, and he was going to punish us.

He went to every locker, dumping them and throwing everything inside of them in the center of the barracks floor. When he came to mine, he noticed the Civil War calendar hanging up inside of it.

"Who's locker is this?" he asked.

"Mine, drill sergeant," I answered.

Turns out, he was a Civil War enthusiast too, so he left my locker untouched and continued on to all the other lockers, dumping out the contents. That Civil War calendar saved me from having my locker dumped.