LUDIC LOG

ONE OF THE NEW RECRUITS in my company, a kid from the inner city of Detroit, is crazy for that rap music crap they all like. You know what I mean. Anyway, he was in the barracks loading up his footlocker, when some of the guys from Bravo marched by in lockstep, doing a call-and-response with the DI. Well, this kid, Lorenzo, starts tapping his feet, and say "yo, this is an ill joint." He thought the marching song was the single from some "def" hip hop band! -- PFC Martin Zukowski; Fort Benning

MY SON HAS BEEN BATTLING, both against terrorism at home and abroad and with his personal demons: he's been seeing a therapist for a mental problem he developed after having been accidentally scalded by his father when he was six. The sessions cost a lot of money, and I don't make much money at Wal-Mart, so he thought he'd ask his commanding officer for a promotion. The CO is a rather stern, demanding man, and when Derek asked for the new job (and subsequent pay hike!), he fixed my son with a steely glare and said: "Why should I promote you, private?"

Derek thought for a moment, then replied, simply, "Because I'm fucking insane, and if you don't promote me I'll creep into your quarters at night and cut your children's throats."

He got the promotion! -- Mrs. H. E. Prewitt; Milwaukee, WI

TONY WILLS, the top-kick in my platoon, is a big fan of Britney Spears. So when she came by our cozy little corner of the DMZ, he was as excited as a North Korean looking at a hot meal. She was there as part of a USO tour, and he was determined to meet her and get her autograph. All through the show, he hung around the backstage entrance, hoping to get a shot at her when the concert was over. Finally, he begged me to sneak him backstage (I'm the cookie, and I was in charge of catering as part of her tour rider). So I did, but she'd already left by the time he found her dressing room. He bitched and moaned about it, so I told him "Christ, Tony, she's a big star. You think she wants to hang out in this freezing-cold shithole one second longer than she has to?" And he started crying! A grown man, bawling over a goddamn pop star. What a pussy. --- Sgt. Murray Polehn; Demilitarized Zone of South Korea

AS THE COMMANDING OFFICER of a batallion overseas, I tend to discourage fraternal as well as romantic relationships between the men and the locals. However, one of the young privates under my command reminded me a great deal of myself when I was a young man, so when I heard him speak so eloquently of his love for one of the Yemeni girls, my hard heart melted and I approve of their liasions. The odd thing was, for all his words of romance and passion, he never introduced us to the young lady; he said she was very shy, and not wanting to jinx their relationship, I steered clear.

Late one afternoon, I happened to leave my cover back in the barracks. When I returned to collect it, I found the young man in an amorous embrace with his beloved, and immediately discovered the reason he'd kept her a secret: she was only twelve years old!

Turning him over to the local authorities for beheading is one of the toughest things I've ever done. -- Maj. Ernest Alvarez, 253rd Mobile Batallion

WHEN I WAS IN AFGHANISTAN, we picked a young local as our translator, partly because he could speak good English and partly because he was one of the few people who hadn't had his legs blown off by the daisycutters. I'm a Marine, and when the regular Army came to the village to do some mop-up, the good-natured rivalry between the two branches of the armed services flared up. After they TPed our quonset huts, we decided to get back at them by using shaving cream to write Pushtun obscenities all over our windows. However, when we went to get the village kid to find out what their word for "fudgepacker" was, we found out that the Army guys thought he was al-Q'aeda, and stuffed him in one of those big shipping containters, where he suffocated! I can't remember his name. It was really hard to pronounce. --Cpl. Lee Haney, USMC