I would take his recollection with a grain of salt but what they told him most likely was more true than false.

So that leaves a number of specific statements which you could each refute, in part or in their entirety. Judging from the title of this article and a number of other anecdotes in this thread (some by other people that served) it seems his anecdote is entirely believable.

That you can't extrapolate to all of the army would be a given.