Take 5: Servicemen at your service

To mark Veterans Day (which falls on 11-11-11 this year), let's salute five of our favorites TV servicemen, who not only served our country, but made us laugh as well:

1. SGT. ERNIE BILKO ("The Phil Silvers Show," 1955-59) -- Silvers' bald, bespectacled sarge bamboozled his fellow GIs at Camp Baxter, bringing an oversized Borscht Belt sensibility to that Kansas outpost.

2. LT. CMDR. QUINTON McHALE ("McHale's Navy," 1962-66) -- Ernest Borgnine's fun-loving, rule-bending character was essentially Sgt. Bilko on a World War II PT boat.

3. PVT. GOMER PYLE ("Gomer Pyle, USMC," 1964-70) -- Jim Nabors' cornpone Marine was transported from the streets of Mayberry to Camp Henderson, where he proceeded to make life miserable for Sgt. Carter (Frank Sutton).

4. CPL. MAXWELL KLINGER ("M*A*S*H," 1972-83) -- Jamie Farr's misfit orderly was TV's funniest cross-dresser since Uncle Miltie.

5. CPO OTTO SHARKEY ("CPO Sharkey, 1976-78) -- Don Rickles as a Navy lifer? Aye aye, you hockey puck.