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Should there be a movie “Pentagon Girl”?

By Ed Goldman

SOLDIERING ON—While I don’t have the ChatGPT app for my phone or computer, anyone who’s ever discussed sports, science or military strategy with me knows that mine is an artificial intelligence.

The first two categories I can pretty much fake by injecting the phrases, “Talk about gut-check time” (sports) and “Sure, it’s physics, but not exactly quantum” (science) into the conversation. Yet I do seem to have difficulty with anything to do with soldiering. 

For instance, it’s generally assumed that “military intelligence” consists of useful data and the results of reconnaissance work, whereas to me it sounds like what you have if you can name all of our country’s armed forces—and differentiate their service ranks.

Here are five simple military questions, followed by five dubiously researched answers:

Q: Why are there ensigns in the U.S. Navy but not in the U.S. Army? 

A: “Ensign” is not only a military rank but is also another word for “flag.” While there may be “flags” in all branches of the armed forces, under President Bill Clinton’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy (which ran from 1994-2011) those “flags” can remain furled up in the closet for as long as they like.

Q: Why don’t the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy have sergeants?

A. Since “Sergeant’s” is also the name of a popular flea and tick spray, the better question might be, “Would more dogs volunteer for the Air Force or Navy if they could be assured their fleas and ticks would be dismissed with prejudice?” And if so, would we refer to these liberated creatures as “service animals” and have to take them with us to restaurants? And when they strutted down the street wearing little green berets, would other dogs need to stop them and say, “Thank you for your service” before or after they sniffed their heinies?

Q: How come you can be a captain in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Space Force and fancy restaurants? 

A: Not sure, but we’re checking. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that the uniforms don’t look alike and only one of those captains will pretend he can’t find your reservation until you shake his hand, during which you slip him a $20 bill. 

Q: Okay, if the captain of a ship can perform a wedding ceremony, why can’t your maître d’? 

A: Well, chances are good that you’ll be in more of a romantic mood over a candlelit dinner in Paris than while riding out a tropical cyclone off the coast of Florida. Of course, neither locale precludes the prospect of indigestion.

Q: Are you kidding me—we really have a U.S. Space Force? 

A: Yes, since the last month of 2019. Perhaps you don’t remember its creation because at the time you’d accidentally turned your phaser on yourself and set it at “stun.”

READING AND WRITHING—A New Hampshire reader of The Goldman State—make that the New Hampshire reader of The Goldman State—is also my dear friend of many decades, Kathleen Sommsich. A talented stage actress equally at home in comedy and drama, she also co-hosts “Coast Currents,” a radio show in the only state that uses a motto to control its growth (“Live Free or Die”). 

She responded to my recent column in which I suggested that if our current POTUS is in the mood to annex new territories, he might want to skip Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal and begin by taking over my condo: