My dad wrote in his diary, "You Can't Get Much Closer Than This..." about sleeping in foxholes during World War II in Europe. Not occasionally, mind you, but most of his time over there. Except when he was evacuated to a hospital for a couple of months in England for an injury that happened when a German artillery shell hit a house he was in, acting as a forward observer for his mortar squad.

I've slept on the ground plenty of times, in a comfy sleeping bag, in a tent, during nice, cool spring and fall weather. My dad, on the other hand, slept in frozen foxholes in between artillery and mortar barrages, during the Battle of the Bulge. No comparison!

I have a lot of veteran friends, some Army and Marines, who experienced many of these same events my dad described. Trying to sleep in a shallow foxhole in the Vietnam jungle, listening for any twig that may snap or any footsteps during the night. No, you don't really sleep, even though you know guards are posted.

Fortunately, I never experienced any of those conditions. My story about sleeping quarters is quite different. Yet, like my veteran friends, I learned to sleep almost anywhere, anytime.