Soldiers Hit the Mark With Pointed Wit

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 16, 2003 | by Stephen Goode

Byline: Stephen Goode, INSIGHT

Soldiers Hit the Mark With Pointed Wit

Apparently GI humor is as old as whenever it was that the first men left home to serve far away under commanders who sometimes didn't elicit their unreserved respect. And that was a very long time ago indeed. GI wit pokes barbed fun at pretension, but it also is self-deprecating. It's both gentle humor and biting, reflecting the need of the average Joe to make his own often uncomfortable and uncertain situation more bearable, even fun.

In Iraq, American soldiers have caricatured the elusive Saddam Hussein in Elvis disguises and, inevitably, in drag as Rita Hayworth and a downright mean-looking Zsa Zsa Gabor. This is the kind of humor for the people is talking about and the kind of humor displayed in the following stories, collected on the Internet and sent by a friend. Consider:

* During training exercises, a lieutenant driving down a muddy road encountered another car stuck in the mud with a red-faced colonel at the wheel.

"Your jeep stuck, sir?" asked the lieutenant as he pulled alongside.

"Nope," replied the colonel, coming over and handing him the keys. "Yours is."

* Having just moved into his office, a pompous new colonel was sitting at his desk when an airman knocked on the door. Conscious of his new rank, the colonel quickly picked up the phone, told the airman to enter, then said into the telephone, "Why, yes, general, I'll be seeing him this afternoon and I'll pass along your message. In the meantime, thank you for your good wishes, sir!"

Feeling he sufficiently had impressed the young enlisted man, the colonel sternly demanded, "What do you want?"

"Nothing important, sir," the airman replied. "I'm just here to hook up your telephone."

And these come from the same source as those above, but as questions and answers:

Q: How do you know if there happens to be a fighter pilot at your party?

A: He'll tell you.

Q: What's the difference between God and fighter pilots?

A: God doesn't think he's a fighter pilot.

Q: What's the difference between a fighter pilot and a jet engine?

A: A jet engine stops whining when the plane shuts down.

'Pitt the Elder's' Enduring Pithiness

The great statesman William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, lived between 1708 and 1778. Known as "Pitt the Elder," he served as Britain's prime minister from 1766-1768 while a Whig, and was the father of William Pitt the Younger, who also served as prime minister (1783-1801 and 1804-1806), but as a Tory.

Pitt the Elder was a wise man and a pithy speaker. Many of his sayings still are in the public memory and many more probably should be. Consider:

In a speech in the House of Lords, Pitt warned about Britain's war then raging in its American colonies: "You cannot conquer America." He was right.

One of Pitt's most famous declarations was made about the nature and strengths of British liberty: "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it, the storm may enter, the rain may enter, but the king of England cannot enter!"

Others: "Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it," and "There is something behind the throne greater than the king himself."

And one of for the people's favorites: "The parks are the lungs of London."

Stephen Goode is a senior writer for Insight magazine.