To the best of my knowledge my Dad's civilian newspaper career did not include writing about military subjects. One exception that I can think of was in about 1985 when he had a local news column in the Metro section of the Washington Post.

The night before he had stayed with his lady friend at her condo in Rosslyn, Virginia, which was adjacent to Fort Myer -- JoAnne's balcony had a view of the fence around the fort, and the horse stables from around the 1920s just inside of the fence. That night when "Taps" played over the post's loudspeaker system it wouldn't stop playing, and it played in a continuous loop all night long. About 8 or 9 AM the next morning it was finally turned off.

The next day Dad phoned Fort Myer to ask what had been going on; he was referred to someone else, who in turn told him to call someone else, and so on, until he was finally speaking to the deputy commander of Military District of Washington, a full colonel.

"I was wondering when you'd call," said the colonel dryly, as though someone from the Post was the last person he wanted to be speaking to. The colonel explained that the post Staff Duty Officer and Field Officer of the Day did not have the keys to the building that contained the control panel to the speaker system. Thus turning off Taps had to await the coming to work of the facilities engineers that morning. That's how Dad described the incident without any drama in his column.