ARTIE GREENGROIN

Perfect antidote for low moments -- but don't take an overdose all at one time. For it's been written as short pieces for Yank by a man whose Walk in the Sun introduced a new talent. This seems as authentic as a ride on the Carnarsie branch of the BMT at six PM any weekday. Harry Brown has ""perfect pitch"" when it comes to recording straight Brooklyness. Not only as it is spoken but the thinking processes behind the speech. Artie Greengroin is no hero, except in his own eyes. He's an artful dodger and a braggart and humorless when it comes to himself. He's brash and aggravating (witness his almost continuous terms in the guardhouse or on KP, his recurrent loss of his stripes as Pfc). He goes about with a chip -- a one -- on his shoulder, but is just constitutionally against the whole U.S. Army, particularly that branch to which he is attached, and against women in uniform, with a few blond British exceptions. But chiefly his gripe concerns Top Sergeants and Mess Sergeants and potatoes. In his peak moments after the cards have been good to him, or he's had a date with a blond, he has a warmhearted attitude towards the world. But most of the time he is planning an army -- all Pfc. He's a sort of Mr. Dooley of the Army, grand in bits.