Having served in the military during my youth, and understanding quite a bit about our correctional institutions, from my many visits as defence counsel, I knew what was in store for me:

• Bad food, served up by unenthusiastic chefs themselves doing time. Although Federal institutions do serve better fare than the bedrock, minimal grub dished out at state prisons, and county jails, there isn't much to recommend it.

• Spartan, minimal accommodations, and with zero privacy. The only truly private rooms in prison are in maximum security, or punishment isolation cells.

• Being in close quarters with a number of difficult people whom I wouldn't be caught dead with (pardon the pun) on the outside.

• Pre-dawn wake-up calls, and very early bedtimes, all over-supervised by a bunch of surly guards themselves not happy to be there.

 

• Some manual labor job, usually and predictably of a brutally monotonous nature. Federal work camps, which are for minimal security prisoners, justify their existence by providing work crews for military installations, or for some other place where they need warm bodies to perform some blue-collar tasks.

• Social companions whose dismay at their confinement would be manifested in them taking out their anger on whatever, or whomever they had contact with. These range from the obnoxious individuals, to the flat-out downright mean types whom you do not want to interact with. I would be dealing  with a large number of unhappy people who were used to doing whatever they pleased,  whom had never been in the military, and probably had never lived in another part of the US.
  

Oddly enough, I would be seeing plenty of my clients and people I knew there, for over the years a large  number of my money laundering clients, and drug traffickers & dealers that I knew, went away on narcotics charges. Some were actually friends from my early days as a lawyer; others more recent. Remember, I had been practising law for seventeen years when I went away. That is time to see a long list of criminal defendants sentenced, or hear about what happened to them through the grapevine.

When I was getting ready to go to Vietnam, my mother sent me to the veterinarian to euthenise my aged dog & cat, and I went through this experience again with an older pet owned by my wife. It was no less painful the second time, notwithstanding all my experiences in the two decades since the first trip. Death still has a certain finality that affects one in a very personal way.

I guess the most difficult thing was leaving my small son, because I knew things would be totally different when I came back. Life moves on, whether you are there or not.

At work, I was really only going through the motions, closing out all the files, and ensuring that all client files went into storage, in the event they were needed in the future. Active business was referred out, though I must confess my enthusiasm for my work was less than eager.

With a clean slate, work-wise, it was time to close up the office, move thew last of the files to an attorney friend, and make travel plans.

Next week: One door closes.