I have been reading, with some nostalgia, newspaper accounts of American GIs recently complaining of being housed in decrepit wooden barracks that had been built during World War II, while their commanders reassured them that it wasn't as bad as where they would be going, and President Bush explained to them that he envied their romantic lives.

Ah yes, romantic military life. I remember yells of "You'll be sorry" as I and other 18-year-olds arrived for basic training in Texas. There was the shearing away of my carefully arranged Brill Cream hair.

"Don't like the chow? You'll be eating bullets where you're going." (Luckily, that was wrong). Then came below zero weather and 60 mph winds (Wyoming) that threw gravel against the windows while we slept in every stitch of our clothes because the heating system didn't work, and the ink in our foot lockers froze. Mail call was the high point of every day until the "Dear John" letters began to arrive (Dear John, I've met another guy. You've been gone two weeks, and I didn't know whether you were ever coming back").

Fast forward three years to a far off land. I remember a squashed cake that had spent weeks in the mail, inscribed "Happy 21st, Sergeant" quickly devoured by the recipient and the closest friends he ever had.

Yes sir, those were the days.

Edward Grimm,

Lewisburg