"Just sometimes." A quick, light reply almost in chorus, then two pairs of American girl's hands reach into a faded, oblong, olive-drab bag big enough to hold a card table. They pull out a large piece of poster board. It is covered with plastic and has five rows of cards on it. They read "pop-tops," "singalong," "C & W-jazz," "oldies but goodies," "potluck," "show tunes." The cards are repeated many times on each of the five rows. The music game is similar to Concentration, of TV fame—answer a question from one of the six categories, pull a corresponding card, reveal part of the first five lines of a song. Guess the song, win a gold (cardboard and glitter) record. Three out of five games wins the contest, or maybe four out of seven, if you can call it winning because the girls leave when the contest ends, a major loss to both teams.

What's an octave?

   "The programs (games) aren't sophisticated," said Pat Owen, 23, of Milwaukie, Ore. "We try to make them as fun as possible, and basically simple."
Simple? From a football game—how wide is a football field? Fifty three and a third yards, to be exact.
   What school did Johnny Unitas attend? Louisville.

   And from the musical game—What are the eight notes on a musical scale called? Octave.
   Where do the Trapp Family Singers live? Stowe, Vt.
   "Where did you get those questions?" complained one frustrated participant. Banter erupts between the girls and guys. It always does, especially when a tough question is posed.      "The men are great and really try to get into the game," continued Pat, a social sciences graduate from Marylhurst College, near Portland, Ore. "It gets them out of the war for a while and, in a way, back to the states. Maybe it is a little easier on them."
.    Maybe the game is a way of forgetting.

^Gable

Betsy (left) and Mary Ann break up during a trip to Tan Tru and the 2d Battalion, 60th Infantry. The game may be about music, sports, personalities, it doesn't matter.

   "Who sang 'Respect'?" asks Mary Ann, whose last name is Hughes, a 24-year old drama graduate from Ursuline College in Ohio.

A game, a song,
a memory

   "Aretha!" Shouts a young grenadier, just edging out a soul brother who captained the team and was THE expert on music. A quick bout of kidding followed. The team, the platoon, is a very tight fraternity.
   But Aretha, or the song and its memory, makes images dance through the mind—the Strip, the Ore House, the Rendezvous; maybe a party where the lights were dim and the records only slightly warped; dancing, a driving beat or the soft caress of a ballad; human beings back in the world. Five, six, ten months in country but getting short. Soon, back to the world and Laura, or Chris, or Janet. Respect. Good song. Remember the party where…
   "What was the origin of modern jazz?" Interrupted in thought. Huh? The answer.
   "Dixieland!" Back to the game.
   "Right. Which card?"
   "Blue one in the third row." A card is pulled, part of the lyrics appear. The game goes on, more questions, more memories.