Your Other Left!: Punch Lines from the Frontlines

by Michael Hirsh

Generations of military instructors have dispensed wisdom in a manner that only a serviceman (or woman) could bear-or understand. Here is a collection of the finest Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine and Coast Guard wit and one-liners... "It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed." "You, you, and you...panic. The rest of you, come with me."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451212126
• ISBN13: 9780451212122
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: New American Library
• Length: 135 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.2" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

cute and funny

This was a cute and funny little book. It made a great good bye gift for our LtCol.

Don't laugh too hard; it'll give away your position

Written by a former Army combat journalist in Vietnam, this book was utterly hilarious. Some of the adages I'd seen before on the Internet under the heading "Murphy's Laws of Combat," such as Body Count Math (3 guerillas + 1 probable + 2 pigs = 37 enemy KIA) and the inverse variation between a weapon's complexity and its user's intellect, but it introduced me to a whole new batch of jokes, like how former servicemen are easy to identify because they don't understand the fascination with wearing BDUs, driving Humvees and playing with guns all day, and how each service branch interprets the order "Secure the building" (the Army will guard it, the Navy will lock it up, the Air Force will try to buy it, and the Marines will occupy it). The best part is at the end, explaining how to recreate the living conditions of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in your own home (set up a tent in the most crime-infested part of town and tell the locals you're there to help them while wearing body armor and packing heat). Soldiers and civilians alike will enjoy it.