This is no sh*t.

[Wilson Gray]

Given my reference in an earlier post to the assertion that "All war
stories begin the same way. This is no shit," naturally, I'm beginning
this "war story" (in the punning sense to be explained below) in the
correct manner.

This is no shit. I'm sitting in the Star-Club, my favorite watering
hole in Baumholder, Germany, when a bruthuh sojuh comes in with
Frawline, his girl friend, and her parents, Cumrad and Fraw. Fraw
smokes the set over and exclaims, "Ach, so! Dies ist ein Ami-Bar
[?aahmi-baah = GI bar]!" And my bruthuh replies, "Yah, yah! Dis is a
Army bar
  [?aahmih baah]!"

The United States Colored Troops, in those days, at least (late
'50's-early '60's) referred to the Army as the "War." As a consequence,
any story that I tell about my life in the Army is, by definition, a
"War story," hence the punning sense. I read somewhere or other that
"put on the War suit" = join or be drafted into the Army, dates to
WWII, but it - War suit - wasn't used for "uniform" in my day.

For any youngsters in the audience, "Ami" is?/was a mildly-insulting,
German slang term for "G.I." As I've said here before, women don't
understand slang. (Is *everyone* here with me on this?! So far, ain't
nary nobody oblected!) That's why it was Fraw who used "Ami" in a bar
full of G.I.'s. Cumrad would have known better.

-Wilson Gray