Oh, to be young and foolish again — then I might consider going to places like Coyote Ugly, the Baumholder, Germany, bar highlighted by a Jan. 24 review in Stars and Stripes’ Europe edition. But my tastes in entertainment aren’t the point. There apparently are plenty of young folks — some no doubt foolish, some not — who dig the establishment. A letter writer, Staff Sgt. Arlene Madden, thought Stripes was more than foolish in running the article, which she said seemed to “condone excessive drinking and illicit behavior.”

There certainly were accounts of drinking and sexual, if not exactly illicit, behavior in the review, written by Germany-based reporter John Vandiver. It was one of a series labeled “After Hours.” The intent of the series is to tell U.S. servicemembers about restaurants and bars and other entertainment spots in the area.

This one appears to be like no other. The recently opened Coyote Ugly bar in Baumholder is part of a franchise that includes more than a dozen bars in the States. The bar is named after a movie that came out in 2000, which in turn was based on a single Coyote Ugly bar that opened in 1993 in New York City.

In a word, these are fairly wild places. The Stripes review described booze being delivered to patrons directly from the bottle and in some cases, ugh, from mouth to mouth. Bras hang from rafters and barmaids dance on the mahogany.

Coincidentally, the movie was showing last Saturday night on my Virginia cable system’s Bravo channel. Because of the controversy over the Stripes review, I tuned in, expecting a raunchy and silly affair. It wasn’t either, really, though the plot was pretty basic: young, stage-frightened, aspiring singer becomes barmaid, finally becomes successful singer, meeting nice boy along the way.

There was drinking in this flick, yes, but little swearing and no nudity. There were barroom brawls but they were bloodless and otherwise unconvincing. I looked back to the review. It said that in the real bar the dancing barmaids also are clothed, security is good, and the place hasn’t seen “one fight.”

But this isn’t intended to be an apology for this Coyote Ugly. Staff Sgt. Madden, the reader who chastised Stripes, correctly notes the ugly consequences for individuals and for the Army of drunken or sex-charged behavior. Such behavior could follow a night at Coyote Ugly — but it could follow a night at a lot of other places, not just bars but homes or dark street corners.

It would have been hard to justify ignoring the Baumholder bar as a topic for a Stripes review. It was new in the area, intimately connected to a well-known movie and a string of similar places in the States, and, according to the article, its clientele is “mostly American.” And it’s also hard to argue that the mere recounting of questionable behavior in a newspaper automatically leads readers to bad deeds.

Meanwhile a letter from a staff sergeant in Afghanistan, Charles A. Wilson from Bagram, knocks the Madden criticism of Coyote Ugly. “Heaven forbid a guy goes out to have a good time and relieve some stress,” he says, noting that many of the young guys looking for a good time “don’t sit behind a desk, a lot are out in the field, not certain if they will be around tomorrow.”

Executive Editor Robb Grindstaff put it this way: “After Hours is designed to provide information to readers — adults in the military who are responsible enough to make their own entertainment decisions. Some of our readers will think Coyote Ugly sounds like a fun evening out; others will want to avoid the place. The article doesn’t promote or glamorize, it just informs.”

I think back to a bit of dialogue in the movie.

Kevin, the boyfriend, to Violet, the aspiring singer: “This place is a joke!”

Violet, emphatically: “It’s just a bar!”