communication in catch 22

Heller sometimes uses miscommunication to make comedy, as when ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen creates for General Peckem a great deal of worry by calling him and saying, "T. S. Eliot"--a simple, silly phrase that Peckem interprets as something tricky and evil. It is ironic that little stupid misinterpreted words are what determine the real and substantial terrible situations in the soldiers' lives. The contrast between the real fighting and the absurd bureaucracy that controls it is one of the scariest aspects of Catch-22