Three! Two! One! Military countdown clocks herald good times (and two are free)

What important event is on your calendar this year? Your sister’s graduation from boot camp? A friend coming home on leave from Afghanistan? Track the time until day zero with these three countdown clocks for your phone, computer, and desk.

#1. Big Day Lite App 
Use it: On your iPhone
Price: Free
Monitor the “days until” your special occasion with the free Big Day Lite app, which you can customize with a title and your favorite picture. (We are partial to any photo with camo or babies.) There also is a paid version of this app called Big Day, which costs 99 cents; it has a few more bells and whistles and allows you to count down to multiple dates. But we found the free (“Lite”) version to be all we needed. Download Big Day Lite from iTunes.

Add your own photo and description to the free Big Day Lite iPhone app, which makes it doubly fun to count down to a special occasion.

#2. Soldier Countdown Clock
Use it: On Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and more
Price: Free 
Copy and paste the free HTML code from WishaFriend.com into your blog or social networking site so your friends can count down the remaining days, hours, minutes, and seconds along with you. Note: For OPSEC reasons, don’t post specific countdown information about deployments on websites or blogs that can be read by the general public. Instead, consider counting up (instead of down), tracking the number of days your loved one has been gone.  

This countdown clock makes a fun status update on your Twitter page. Visit wishafriend.com to generate your custom code.

#3. Military Countdown Clock
Use it: As a thoughtful gift for a friend or child of a deployed servicemember
Price: $12.95 plus shipping
This battery-operated Military Countdown Clock from Countdown Clocks International is small — about 3 1/2 inches wide and 2 inches tall — making it perfect for a bedside table or an office desk. I bought one for my mother-in-law when her son deployed; she kept it on the windowsill above her kitchen sink all year. Choose the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps version.  

This military countdown clock comes with four interchangeable faces that say “end of tour,” “leave,” “short timer,” and “basic training.”

Do you have a favorite countdown clock? Please share!