Foxx on the Military

There were two privates in World War II—I mean, you know, like soldiers—think I better keep going—and they met on 42nd Street in New York City. One guy had medals all across his chest, and the other soldier said, "Say, how'd you get all them medals when we both went in the war at the same time? You got all them medals across your chest." He said, "I got it for gunnery." He said, "Well, I had it three years ago and they didn't give me none."

And a fella had a wife in the Navy—I mean, he was in the Navy and his wife went down to the dock, she was seeing him off, and no wives could go aboard ship. And she noticed a dog get on the ship and walk on in, nobody said nothin'. So she said, "That's really somethin' out of the Navy. Here it is, they let a dog on the ship and won't let a married wife on the ship, why is that?" Husband said, "Well, all of us can pet the dog and ain't nobody gon' get mad."

There was a fella that was in the service, and all the fellas in camp used to kid him all the time 'cause his wife stayed with a kid, pregnant all the time. And she was in that condition at that very moment, and he didn't want the fellas to know that she was, so he wrote her a letter and told her, he said, "Just say 'kraut' and then I'll know that the baby's here." So he got a telegram from her, it said, "Kraut, kraut, kraut—two with weiners and one without."

Here's an incident, this took place during the Korean War—you know how they used to get letters, families used to get letters from their kids overseas and stuff. One kid wrote his dad a long letter almost every two months. He wrote his first letter to his dad, he said, "Dear dad, I can't tell you where I am, but yesterday I shot a polar bear." And about a couple months later, he wrote another letter to his dad, it said, "Dear dad, I can't tell you where I am, but yesterday I danced with a hula girl." And about three months later, another letter came, it said, "Dear dad, I can't tell you where I am, but a doctor tells me I shoulda danced with the polar bear and shot the hula girl."

Then a fella came back from the war a few years back, and he was down in San Diego, he got off the boat. And his wife, they had a code that they always used, and she said, "E-F", he said, "F-F", he said "E-F", she said "F-F", she said, "E-F", he said, "F-F". A fella heard all this, he walked over, he said, "Hey, what's all this stuff E-F and F-F?" He said, "My wife wants to eat first."

I remember when we first got in the paratrooper, this fella here tonight was in the paratroopers with me. I remember when the sergeant first gave him instructions, said, "Look, you guys, I'ma tell you how to use a parachute. You jump out the plane, count to ten, pull the ripcord, and your chute'll open and float you down to safety". And this guy that's here tonight, he didn't hear the sergeant too well when he came in our fit. And beside, he stuttered when he talked, and he walked over to the sergeant, he said, "Sss-say, sss-sergeant, how, how, how, ss-sergeant, how high, how high di-di-did-did-did, did you-did you-did you, sergeant, how high did you, ss-say, say we, ss-say we, how high did you say we, did you say we was, sss-supposed, supposed, supposed, to-to-to to count, to count, to count, to count to? The sergeant looked at him and said "You better count to one".