How long was I in the army? Five foot eleven.

Milligan’s joke depends on a deliberate misunderstanding: “how long” is taken as a measurement of length rather than time. The punchline (“Five foot eleven”) collapses the solemnity often attached to military service into a bodily, ordinary fact, undercutting heroic narratives with absurdity. It also fits Milligan’s broader comic persona—wry, deflationary, and suspicious of pomposity—especially around war, where he frequently used humor to expose the gap between official rhetoric and lived experience. The line’s economy is part of its effect: a single twist turns a potentially earnest question into a compact piece of linguistic slapstick.