So on what day are you celebrating the Fourth of July?

It seems easy. You should celebrate the Fourth of July on the Fourth of July, right?

Not so fast.

Fort Benning hosts its annual Independence Day Celebration on Saturday at York Field. Festivities begin at 3 p.m. and end with fireworks at 10 p.m. In between, you’ll find music and carnival rides and a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s open to the public – you’ll just need to stop at the visitor’s center at the I-185 gate for a visitor’s pass.

If you have any more questions, you’ll get the answers by going online and reading a delightfully snarky preview article by Bridgett Siter of Fort Benning’s Directorate of Family & Morale, Welfare and Recreation.

For example, if you’re wondering where to complain about the crowd of basic trainees, here’s her answer: “Don’t. They are the reason Fort Benning exists; we are a training installation. Buy ’em a funnel cake. …”

She also answers the frequently asked question of why Benning is observing the holiday 10 days before it actually occurs.

“We get that a lot,” she writes. “Just as we wouldn’t think of hosting our Christmas activities on Christmas Day, we choose to host this event the weekend before the holiday, because most of our Soldiers and their families are given the opportunity to travel home for the holiday.”

Makes sense, huh? “If this totally messes with your mind,” Bridgett offers, “you can still purchase sparklers at the PX.”

While I enjoyed Bridgett’s explanation, I already understood this scheduling quirk when I moved back to the Chattahoochee Valley. That’s because I’d served in the military.

When you’re a soldier, you celebrate holidays with your military family – which includes the folks you lead and the folks you follow and the folks you serve alongside, and their immediate families – and then when you get a long weekend you go celebrate it with your blood relatives.

I’m not saying which one is better. But the whole thing is pretty sweet because instead of one Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner or July Fourth cookout every year, you get two.

Maybe that’s why soldiers have to do P.T. so much.

This year, though, civilians face their own dilemma about when to observe Independence Day. That’s because the holiday falls on a Tuesday for the first time in 11 years.

I don’t remember what I did in 2006 on the Fourth, besides complain about the Braves, who were deep into their first losing season in 15 years.

I don’t even remember if I worked on Monday and took off on Tuesday and then went back to work on Wednesday.

This year, even if your boss generously grants you Monday off, thereby creating a four-day weekend, you still have to return to work on Tuesday.

So what if, for example, your wife wants to celebrate with her relatives somewhere far away, such as the northwest corner of Tennessee? Do you watch fireworks on July Fourth and then drive all night back to Georgia?

Of course not. You celebrate with her family on Monday night and then you drive home on Tuesday, arriving home in time to watch the fireworks on the Chattahoochee.

In other words, you enjoy living in a free country so much that you celebrate it twice.

Kind of like they do in the Army.

Hey, if it’s good enough for the men and women at Fort Benning, it’s good enough for me.

So Happy Independence Day, whenever and how many times you may celebrate it.

And a special thanks to all of you who put on the uniform every day and protect the people and principles we hold dear.

This story was originally published June 23, 2017 at 7:19 PM with the headline "So on what day are you celebrating the Fourth of July?."