When Japan surrendered in 1945, one question got around like wildfire: “How are they going to bring us home?” It seemed to us like there was no plan or organization in place to return to the States approximately 14 million men in active service, but there was—Operation Magic Carpet.
Secretary of War Stimson had set up a point system, and in January 1946, they announced that anyone who had at least 120 points would be going home. We got points for amount of time served, amount of time in a combat zone, amount of time in actual combat, etc. I had 196