The narrator of "Two Soldiers" is amazed at the number of people he sees in Memphis: the "folks from ever'where" and the "rushing cars and shoving folks" are clearly the most people that he has ever seen (93).
The narrator of "Two Soldiers" mentions that "the feller wound the door shut and the bus began to hum" (87). He is referring to the driver of the bus that his brother, Pete, is taking to Jefferson on the first leg of his journey to enlist in the U.S. Army.
One of the soldiers encountered by the narrator of "Two Soldiers" in the Memphis recruiting station is a lieutenant: "he had on a belt with a britching strop over one shoulder" (94). This leather band over the right shoulder is also called a "backing strop" by the boy (95); the story uses it to indicate an officer's rank.
Franklin Roosevelt was the 32nd President of the United States, re-elected to four terms in between 1932 and his death in 1945. He is mentioned in three later texts. In "Two Soldiers" he appears only in Res Grier's reference to "Our President in Washington, D.C." (85). He is included in a list of contemporary political figures in the "Delta Autumn" chapter of Go Down, Moses - but curiously isn't on the similar list in the earlier magazine version of "Delta Autumn" (322).
The McKelloggs in "Two Soldiers" have sent their young son to "a school in the East," according to Mrs. McKellogg (98). The age affinity of the two boys may explain Mrs. McKellogg's interest in the Grier boy.
At the McKellogg residence in "Two Soldiers," the Grier boy meets Colonel McKellogg: "a old feller, with a britching strop, too, and a silver-colored bird on each shoulder" (98). The 'birds' are in fact actually made of silver, the insignia of his rank.
In "Two Soldiers" Mrs. McKellogg functions somewhat as the Memphis version of Mrs. Habersham, intervening on behalf of the Grier boy. The narrator notes that she is wearing "a fur coat, but she smelled all right" (97). She provides him with food and a ride back to Frenchman's Bend.
In "Two Soldiers" the "General MacArthur" who was "holding" the Japanese invaders at bay in the Philipines in the nightly radio reports that the narrator and Pete listen to (82) was General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of Army Forces in the Far East when the U.S. entered World War II. After the Japanese invasion forced him to withdraw from the Philippines, he spoke the parting words - "I shall return" - that were becoming famous at the time "Two Soldiers" was written.
The older of the "two ladies in fur coats" in "Two Soldiers" whom Mr. Foote summons to help with the Grier boy (90). She may be a social worker, like the younger woman, or as is more likely, just a caring member of the community. Her family name is one of the oldest in Yoknapatawpha. Because the is wearing a "fur coat" and is apparently married, we assume she is not Miss Habersham, the impoverished "spinster of seventy" in Intruder in the Dust (92) and elsewhere.
