The story "How I Was a Soldier of the American Army" was written after several months of service in the US Army, according to the author, "not yet cooled from the Vietnam War...." Nowadays, generals representing the armies of opposing military blocs know each other quite well; even maneuvers are now held as large international shows - with multilingual speech at command posts, with correspondents from the West and East and franchised translators under a camouflage awning. Soldiers do not communicate so regularly. Until now, they were left with the most unnatural form of communication - war...