A Presidio-like view

There is truth in the opinion piece about the Presidio of San Francisco ``Pardon Me, General, Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?,'' Aug. 25. The Presidio is a nice place to live.

But any American could have entered the long-odds lottery to live there. The price of a ticket was the best years of your life. Graduate from college. Join the Regular Army, and give up any hope of material wealth. Sign on for maybe 25 years in a string of dreary Army posts stretching from North Carolina to West Texas. Bring a bride home to a tiny little row house on a scorched plain that wouldn't even meet low-income standards in most places. Move from Georgia to Germany for three years. Then back to Dixie. And once again back to another gray, cramped high-rise in Germany.

There's one other tough qualification: You have to outlive one, two, sometimes three wars. Very few of those survivors, of whom I was one, were ordered to a welcome last assignment at the Presidio. My wife shed a tear at the wonderful view we finally had. Richard A. Jones, Benicia, Calif.

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