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My War (1982)

How I got irony in the infantry

But “the winter campaign in Europe was fought by most combat personnel in a uniform that did not give proper protection”: we wore silly long overcoats, right out of the nineteenth century; thin field jackets, designed to convey an image of manliness at Fort Bragg; and wool dress trousers. But ironically I had saved my life by almost losing it, for my leg wound providentially became infected, and by the time it was healed and I was ready for duty again, the European war was over, and I journeyed back up through a silent Germany to rejoin my reconstituted platoon “occupying” a lovely Tyrolean valley near Innsbruck. It is not hard to see also that the military principle crudely registered in the axiom “rank has its privileges” operates in academic life, where there are such plums to be plucked as frequent leaves of absence, single-occupant offices, light teaching loads, and convenient, all-weather parking spaces.

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