All Howard Craft knew was how he felt after getting called up for Desert Storm, watching Rodney King getting pounded on TV.

"It just really shook me up," he says.

"As an African-American who was getting ready to lay it on the line for red, white and blue and apple pie, to watch the television and see somebody that looks like you get beat mercilessly in the streets, and then have to get up, put your boots on and go salute," he explains. "That's something that happened that really shook me up."

Tensions play out in Craft's "Caleb Calypso and the Midnight Marauders," running through Nov. 14 at Manbites Dog Theater, 703 Foster St.

The play, about black, white and Hispanic soldiers stationed in Germany, takes place soon after the Berlin Wall has come down. The first President Bush has ordered 100,000 troops home from central Europe. Calls are mounting for downsizing American forces altogether.

"Caleb," named for a young soldier who must choose between the military and an uncertain career in a new music form called rap, is about hanging on: to your dreams, to your turf, to your power.

"It's a very difficult thing to do, a fictional biographical play," said Ed Hunt, Manbites Dog's managing director.

A playwright drawing on his own experience can lose perspective. "It's very easy to go, 'If it happened, then it's dramatic,' " Hunt explained.

Plus, "Caleb" has 10 characters, each with a reason for being there.

"That's a very high degree of difficulty in a play," Hunt said. "And [for] Howard, it just seemed effortless."

Craft, a graduate of N.C. Central University, is a two-time winner of the NCCU New Play project and the recipient of a N.C. Arts Council Playwriting Fellowship. He served in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Bamberg, Germany, from 1988-90.

We spoke with him after attending a performance last Saturday night.

Q: Why did you go into the Army?

"At that point, kind of like the characters in the play, I was trying to figure it out. I became a little disillusioned in high school and bought into the 'be all you can be." My father was in the Marines, and my uncle was also Marine."

Q: I saw the play with a Navy veteran. He said [your characters] didn't curse enough.

"You know, that's actually funny. Your friend's probably right. I don't know. In Vietnam they called it 'boonie rap.' When you came back to the states, you had to basically clean your mouth out because everything was 'f-this, f-that.' And you were around your people, your mom, your grandma."

Q: Where did the idea for this play come from?

"A lot of the plays written about the military, they don't get to the essence of who the people are. They're just like caricatures. I wanted to write something that gave you real human beings that allowed you to see past some of the stereotypes."

Q: What was your experience like? What was your job in the military?

"Like the people in the play I was a tank driver, well a tank crewman. I drove. I loaded. I got out before it was time for me to become a gunner and went to school."

Q: Why'd you get out?

"The reason I went in was to get money for school. I had been accepted to college. ... I did very well in the service, and I was a good soldier. [But] I'm kind of outside the structure. If you are a person who has criticisms and wants to throw stones, the military is not the place to be.

"When people ask me was your experience good or bad, I can't put it in those terms. I learned a lot about myself, I learned a lot about other people. My roommate was from Idaho my first year. What that does is it knocks down walls."

Q: What were some of the negatives?

"The army is a microcosm. Just like you have, excuse my language, a--holes in regular society, you have a--holes in the army.

"The difference is if you have an a--hole in the army that person has complete control of your life, where you lay your head at night. ... If you don't like the sarge, you don't get to quit and say I'm going to another army 'cause I don't like the way you're treating me."