'The Old Army Game': A novel portraying the occupation U.S. Army of the 1950s

One thing a good book, whether a biography or novel, can do
is take you partway into another time or place and give you a feel for them.

By that measure, George Garrett's The Old Army Game , about the American occupation force in Trieste,
Italy, in the early 1950s, is a good novel. I'd never heard of Garrett until I
saw a reference to him the other day as a good chronicler of the Army of the
1950s -- what the historian Brian
Linn calls "Elvis's Army."

I found his style a bit noir-ish,
but enjoyed much of it. One of my favorite passages is a new artillery battery commander introducing
himself to his troops:

"I'll be a son-of-a bitch!
You freaking guys! You are without a doubt the crummiest collection of decayed
humankind I have ever laid eyes on, so help me God. We deserve each other. If
you want to be soldiers, try it. See if I care. First Sergeant, take charge of
this so-called battery. I'm going to get drunk."

The whole battery
cheered him.  

Here are some of his best lines:

--". . . common sense is as hard to find in the Army as
anywhere, maybe harder."

--"If you've got to loaf, loaf gracefully."

--"Old-timers are the guys who always seem to have dry socks
and cigarettes even in a rainstorm."

--"Most of the brains in the world are busy working on new
ways to hurt people."

--"When it's plain ordinary garrison work, then it's a
matter of knowing when to goof off and when not to."

--"There's nothing like having a lot of athletes to screw up
an outfit."

--"Stitch was yellow all right, but not in the usual way.
Not the way most people might think. He was trigger-happy yellow, the way I
figured. He would be the kind of guy who would shoot prisoners in combat when
he didn't have to. . . . . You would never want to stick him out on your
perimeter defense with a machine gun. He would be blasting away at shadows all
night and nobody would get any sleep."

--"I put on the best-looking uniform I had. . . . locating
every ribbon my records said I was entitled to wear. (That's the one time you
really need them -- at a court-martial.)"