Newt says he's getting out of the army in 7 months, but it's 1942. How could he be getting out in the middle of WWII?We know from later in the play that Tom and Katie have been married for 20 years. Since the play takes place in 1962, it would be logical to assume that Newt and Catherine's fateful walk happened exactly 20 years earlier. BUT there are a couple of variables that can drastically affect what Newt's term of service would have been. First, we don't know for certain that the events surrounding Gloria Hilton's shower took place in 1962, just that Tom is retelling it then. If it happened even a year or two earlier, that shifts the timeline of Newt and Catherine's scene to 1940 or 41, during which time big changes in the length of tours in the army took place (due to the major world events). We also know that they got married in '42, not necessarily that that's exactly when Newt proposed. Moreover, we know from Vonnegut's short story (which says they hadn't seen each other in a year) and Newt's conversation with Catherine that he has been in the army for awhile (ex: "still in the army I see"), which means he most likely enlisted the previous year. Standard length of a term of military service in 1940 through summer of 1941 was just 12 months so if this conversation takes place before mid-August 1941 when terms were extended by an additional 18 months, then Newt would still be under the 12 month policy. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, terms of service were extended to the duration of the war plus 6 months.
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