[The following takes place during World War II.]
Young kids were faking birth certificates and urine samples – not to get out, but to get in. Pee Wee Griffiths made it into boot camp by stuffing himself with bananas. At one hundred eight pounds, the Ohio boy was rejected on his first enlistment try; he was four pounds under the Marine minimum. “They told me to eat as many bananas as I could,” Pee Wee recalled to me. “I ate so many bananas, it felt like thousands. But it only put two more pounds on me. But when I told them how many I’d eaten they must have felt sorry for me; they let me in.”
Source:
Bradley, James, and Ron Powers. “America’s War.” Flags of Our Fathers. Bantam Dell, a Division of Random House, Inc., 2006. 68. Print.
Great anecdote, definitely has that feel for time!