I was thinking back on my time in the Army. And I realized that there are four types of Soldiers I met at least once in every Unit I served in. What are those four types? Well, first there was "Slim." Yep. I met several "Slims" in my career. Every one of them was...well, slim. Not just skinny, but slim. One guy played on our basketball team, and he was six foot seven and "only" weigh 165 pounds. Another "Slim" was much smaller, six foot even, but he only weighed 123 pounds! He was wiry tho. He could do chin ups for days. Another "Slim" was on our wrestling Team. He weighed 98 pounds in HS, and that is what he weighed in the Army. He was a Champion Wrestler and had to get a Waiver to join the Army. Those were the "Slims."

Next up: "Short Round." I was actually one of those. I had to get a waiver to join the Ohio National Guard in 1969 because I was under five feet tall. A year later, I transferred to Active Duty and had to get another waiver. I wasn't a "Slim" tho- since I weighed 126 pounds which gave me a stocky build. Over in Germany, Short Round was a Gunner in the Mortar Platoon- and he stood five feet two inches tall. And the last "Short Round I served with also had the nickname: "Mighty Midget." He was five feet tall, but a power lifter. Just a small pile of muscle!

Next up: "Tiny." I met five "Tiny's" in my career. The biggest stood just over six foot five and weighed just North of 300 pounds. He used to play on the Offensive line at Alabama. Another "Tiny" was six foot two, and probably around 260. He used to lift the back end of a jeep to do his workouts in the Field. And my favorite Tiny, was a cook. Sadly he liked his own cooking. When the new weight limits came into play, even with a Waiver he was too big. We called him: "Man Mountain Marvin" but Tiny is what everyone else called him.

Lastly: "Pops." The first "Pops" I met was in my Platoon in Basic. He was all of 26 years old. To those of us who hadn't hit 21 yet (which was darn near all of us) he seemed like an old man. In my first Duty Station in Germany: "Pops" was a 31 year old Private. He had served two years (and one tour in Vietnam) when he was eighteen to twenty. Then he rejoined the military when he was 31 years old. Can you imagine going through Basic Training a decade older than everyone around you? He decided to make the Army his Career. So he would have been fifty if he made it to Retirement. And then in Hawaii we had the oldest "Pops" I ever ran into. 36 year old Private. Turns out he used to be an E-6, but he got busted, sent to another Unit. So we thought he was a Newbie fresh out of AIT...and for a year, he never told anyone. We wondered why he knew so much. We would just tell folks to go ask "Pops" when it came to knowing which Technical Manual you needed, or how to "red tag" tracks or trucks.

Have any of you met or served with a: Tiny, Short Round, Slim, or Pops?