We were out on bivouac one day,...

We were out on bivouac one day, diggin’ into some of this ready-to-eat grub that’s replaced C-rations, and Sarge was reminiscin’ as usual about Antietam and San Juan Hill, when Beetle up and asked him what he thought about gays in the military.

Things got so quiet all of a sudden, you could hear a pin that didn’t even have a grenade stuck to it. But Sarge just sighed.

“Couldn’t be any worse than Elvis,” he said, “when he got drafted back in ‘58, and I had to cut off his hair.”

This was one we hadn’t ever heard before. So naturally we hollered for more.

“I’ve been in some tight spots,” Sarge said. “Chateau-Thierry, Omaha Beach, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh. But nothin’ like this. The regular company barbers didn’t dare touch him. They knew if they did, they’d tick off every sweet young thing in America.”

“Like in the musical ‘Bye Bye Birdie,’ ” Plato said. “It’s based on Elvis, you know.”

“Yeah,” Sarge said. “I have a niece who’s gonna sing and dance in it. She’s a student at Windward School in Santa Monica. Before they go to Edinburgh, Scotland, on their Atlantic Crossing Theatre Project, they’ll perform it at 6 p.m. today at the Mayfair Theatre, 214 Santa Monica Blvd., in a kick-off gala that includes a potluck supper. Tickets: $10 general admission, $7.50 for students. Information: (310) 391-7127, Ext. 214.”

By now, Beetle was almost jumpin’ out of his skin. “What about Elvis?”

“Well,” Sarge said, “they needed the roughest, toughest man in the Army to give him that haircut, and that was me. So I did it. Shaved that ducktail right off him. My own fiancee said she’d leave me if I gave him so much as a nick, but who ever heard of a GI haircut that didn’t take a little scalp, too? Nobody. So she left me. Called me a ‘male Delilah’ or somethin’. For years, no other gal would go out with me, either. I tell you, life was hell until I got my dog Otto here.”

“That’s terrible, Sarge,” Killer said.

“Elvis was a bigger sex symbol than you, even,” Sarge said. “But he didn’t give us any trouble when he was in the Army, despite all those senators and ministers and such sayin’ he was the devil’s own bad boy. So that’s why I figure the gays wouldn’t be any trouble either.”

“Wow,” Beetle said.

“Nice kid, Elvis,” Sarge mused. “He still drops me a postcard every once in a while. Says he never had any hard feelin’s.”

“I knew it!” Zero yelled. “He’s alive!”

“Of course he’s alive. Just don’t spread it around,” Sarge said. “He lives in an air-conditioned bunker under the Third Street Promenade--all four walls lined with movie screens and bottles of Southern Comfort. He owns a chain of supermarket tabloids. When they get short of stories about flyin’ saucers or three-headed babies, he slips in one of his own quotes. How he weighs 400 pounds and is bald as a cue ball and white as a sewer ‘gator from bein’ underground all that time. . . .”

“And how sometimes, when he gets tired of watchin’ ‘Viva Las Vegas!’, he takes down his git- ar and picks out a few songs,” Zero said reverently. “Workin’ on a new collection, ‘Hound Dog II.’ ”

“See?” Sarge said. “And every single word of it is true.”