At the end of the first week, the men got passes to go to Swindon for a Saturday night dance. Sobel put out a regulation: no man would take his blouse off while dancing. Pvt. Thomas Burgess, a farm boy from central Illinois, got to sweating while dancing in a wool shirt with a wool blouse over it, so he took off the blouse.
Monday morning, Sobel called Burgess into his office. “Burgess, I understand you were in town on Saturday night with your blouse off at a dance.”
”That’s right, Captain Sobel,” Burgess replied, “but I checked Army regulations and it’s very plainly written that you can take your blouse off if you’ve got a wool shirt on and you are moving about or dancing or whatever.”
Sobel looked him up and down. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Burgess. You’re gonna wear your blouse over your fatigues all week, you’re gonna sleep with it on every night.”
Burgess wore his blouse during the day, but he figured Sobel would not be checking on him at night, so he hung it on the edge of the bed. The following Saturday he went to Sobel’s office to get a pass to go to the dance. Sobel looked him over. “Burgess,” he said, “that blouse don’t look to me like you slept in it all night.”
No pass.
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “Duties of the Latrine Orderly.” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 44. Print.
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