LADY IN ARMS

When Virginia Weisel was a little girl, she told her grandmother, like to marry into the army."" When she was a big girl, she did. In thirty years of army life, she saw her Johnny graduate from a lieutenant to a general and followed him around the world (fifteen moves in the first three years). In the Philippines, there was the heat (""Why don't you just ignore the heat?""--Johnny), in London a haunted house, in Germany a roe buck she shot through the heart by herself, in Okinawa, typhoons and communists. When she heard her two daughters, Tex and Poosie, arguing about whether there were Indianers in New York, she decided it was time to come home. Her greatest gaffe: early on, asking a general whether he had even been in the Philippines and being squelched with the rejoinder, ""Madame, I captured the Philippines!"" The Johnsons have retired to Montana, but can still be reached care of the Adjutant General, United States Army. Or here, in a pleasantly breezy recall the ladies will enjoy.