The Corps I - Semper Fi

by W. E. B Griffin

  One of the young lieutenants had studied Japanese in college. When he was alone with McCoy, he spoke a few words of Japanese to him. He didn't speak it all that well, but he spoke better Japanese than the old captain (who had done eight years, 1927-1935, with the 4th Marines in Shanghai) spoke Chinese.

  McCoy learned (they didn't tell him, but he learned) that none of the young lieutenants was a regular. They had all come into the Corps right after college. McCoy wondered what the hell they were doing sitting around asking an enlisted man questions. As young lieutenants without any experience, they should instead have been out with troops in the field.

  Once, a couple of civilians, an old one and a young one, dropped in while he was standing in a skivvy shirt by a map of Honan Province (the room was right under the roof and was hot as hell). When they entered the room, McCoy stopped talking, not knowing who they were.

  "Don't let me interrupt," the older civilian said.

  "Carry on, McCoy," the old captain ordered. So he carried on.

  That was the day he was straightening them out about how good the Japanese soldiers were, and he went on with that. From time to time the old civilian would snort, as if he didn't think McCoy knew what the hell he was talking about, but McCoy decided to let the old guy fuck himself. The civilians stuck around until he was finished. When they were gone, McCoy asked who they were. For some reason, the officers thought that was funny. They laughed at him, and he never got an answer.

  McCoy had no idea how long the "interviews" were going to go on. At first, he'd hoped they would go on forever. But by the end of the second week, he knew he was just about talked-out. If there was something he knew about China they hadn't gotten out of him, he couldn't think of what it was.

  When first call blew that Saturday morning, he got out of bed and took a shower. Standing under the shower, shaving, reminded him of China and made him a little homesick for it. The only time in China he'd had to shave himself was when he was on a convoy. The rest of the time there'd been Chinese boys to do it for him.

  After he was dressed, he went down to the mess for breakfast, and then he walked to the gate. When he had tried to bring the LaSalle onto the Yard the night before, the guard at the gate wouldn't let him, because he didn't have either a Yard sticker, license plates, or proof of insurance. But the guard had let him park the LaSalle inside the gate and had explained to McCoy that he could get a sticker on Saturday morning from the provost marshal if he got there before noon with proof of insurance and license plates.

  McCoy started the LaSalle and drove to an office of the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Bureau, where he registered the car and got a cardboard temporary license plate until they mailed him a real one from Harrisburg. Then he went.to an insurance agency and bought insurance. It was still early, and he didn't like the way the wear on the tires looked, so he found a Cadillac dealer. While they were aligning the front end, he went to the parts department and bought a set of points and condensers and a set of spark plugs and a carburetor rebuild kit.

  Finally, on the way back to the Navy Yard, he saw a Sears, Roebuck where he bought a small set of tools on sale. Later he got a sticker from the provost marshal and drove to the barracks.

  He would spend the weekend rebuilding the carburetor and changing the points and the plugs, and maybe giving it a good shine with Simoniz. Dickie Golden for sure had used some quickie polish, which made it look good but wouldn't last more than a week.

  What he was doing, he knew, was not what he should really be doing. Working on the car was a dodge, an escape: He should really be going back to Norristown, even if he had to ride there on the Interurban Rapid Transit.

  But he didn't want to go home now or next week or maybe ever. So maybe he would get lucky between now and next weekend. Maybe something would happen that would keep him from going home then. Like a transfer to the West Coast. Or maybe getting run over by a truck.

  (Three)

  United States Navy Yard Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 0830 Hours 4 August 1941

  "Close the door, Ken," Captain Sessions said, "and then help yourself to coffee if you'd like. I want to talk to you."

  McCoy expected that Sessions was going to talk to him about the LaSalle. He knew there was scuttlebutt around about it: Where the hell did a corporal come up with enough money to buy a car like that? Scuttlebutt had a way of getting around-and that meant to the officers. So he thought it had finally become official.

  He poured black coffee in a china cup. When he turned around, Sessions waved him into a chair.

  "Have you given any thought, Ken, about what you'd like to do next?"

  That meant that the "interviews," as McCoy suspected, were now over.

  "Yes, sir," McCoy said.

  Sessions made a "come on" gesture with his hand.

  "Captain Banning said that when he gets home, he would try to find a home for me," McCoy said. "He said I should keep my nose clean, and he would either get me to work for him again or send me back to heavy weapons."

  "Have you ever considered becoming an officer?" Sessions asked.

  McCoy thought that over a moment before answering.

  There were a number of officers around the Corps who had been enlisted men. And a number of noncoms had at one time or another been officers. An even larger number of old noncoms had been officers in the Haitian Constabulary, where the troops they'd commanded had been Haitians. McCoy had sometimes imagined that there would probably be a chance somewhere down the road after he had more time in, for him to get to be a warrant officer, and maybe even a commissioned officer. But he sensed that Sessions wasn't talking about some time in the future.

  "You're talking about now, sir?" McCoy asked.

  Sessions nodded.

  "The Corps is about to really expand, McCoy. Even if we don't get in the war, the Corps is going to be five times as big as it is now. We're going to need large numbers of officers. And many of them are going to come from the noncommissioned officer corps. People like yourself, in other words. Are you interested?"

  "I don't know," McCoy said, more thinking aloud than a direct reply.

  "There are a number of people, myself included, Ken, who believe that you have what it takes."

  "I hadn't even thought about now," McCoy said. "Maybe later."

  "The process is simple," Sessions said. "You apply. Sergeant Davis has your application all typed up. All you have to do is sign it. Then you appear before a board of officers. The purpose of that is to give them a chance to see how well you can think under pressure. The board then votes on you; and if they approve, you'll be ordered to Marine Corps Schools in Quantico and run through the final phase of the Platoon Leader's Course. If you get through that, you'd be commissioned a second lieutenant."

  "I never heard of the Platoon Leader's Course," McCoy said.

  "The primary source of officers will be young men who have spent their college summer vacations going through officer training courses. The first summer they go through what amounts to boot camp. And the rest of the time we give them everything from customs of the service to the platoon in the assault. If you went to Quantico, you would be sent through the final phase with a group of them."

  "College boys?" McCoy said, thinking of Pick Pickering. That's how Pickering was going to become an officer.

  "Going through college is not a disease, McCoy," Sessions said. "You'd be surprised how many people have gone to college. Nice people. Jean went to college. I met her there."

  McCoy smiled at him.

  "I meant, I'm not sure I could hack it in that kind of company," McCoy said. "All I've got is a high school diploma."

  "And four years in the Corps," Sessions said. "Which I think would give you a hell of an advantage at Quantico.''

  "You think I could make it through?" McCoy asked.

  "I do," Sessions said. "But the only way to find out for sure is for you to apply, pass the board, and go."

  "It's worth a shot, I guess," McCoy said, thinking aloud. "Wh
at have I got to lose?"

  "Sergeant Davis has your application all typed up," Sessions repeated. "I'll approve it, of course."

  "Thank you," McCoy said, simply.

  (Four)

  After he signed his name to the applications Staff Sergeant Davis had typed up for him, he put the whole business from his mind, convinced that like all other paperwork he'd seen in the Corps, it would take forever and a day to work its way through the system. He had more important things on his mind than the possibility that the application might, some months down the pike, be favorably acted upon… or that some further months down the pike he would be facing a board of officers-which probably wouldn't approve him anyway. After a while, in fact, he'd come to the conclusion that the incident at the ferry had a lot more to do with the whole business than Sessions's brilliant insight that he would make an officer. Sessions was being nice to him. The officers he would face on the board, when and if he got to face it, wouldn't think they owed him a thing.

  And besides, he had three much more immediate problems to face, all of them connected. The first was what was going to happen to him now that the "interviews" were over. He didn't want to go to the Motor Transport Platoon, but on the other hand that would be a good place to keep his nose clean until Captain Banning came home from Shanghai. And he didn't really want to go to a heavy weapons platoon as a machine-gunner either. Since he'd be transferring in grade, they would try to bust him on general principles; and that would fuck up going back to work for Captain Banning.

  He could also ask Captain Sessions to keep him around the detachment. Sessions would probably do it-as a favor. But that would mean he'd have to work as a clerk and push a typewriter and he was still not anxious to do that. And more important, if he stayed in Philadelphia, he'd have to deal with his two other problems: He had made up his mind to go home and face that and get it the hell over with once and for all. But going home once was not the same thing as having home so close to where he was stationed… Christ, Norristown was only an hour away in the LaSalle.

  These were the thoughts that were occupying his mind, not the remote, way-down-the-pike possibility of being called before a board of officers who would make up their minds whether or not he stood a chance of keeping up with a bunch of college boys at Quantico.

  On Monday morning, he signed the application papers. On Wednesday morning, Staff Sergeant Davis came to the barracks and told him to put on his best uniform and report to the board at 1330.

  "Sit down, Corporal," a major, who was the president of the board, said. The five officers of the board were sitting behind two issue tables pushed together. One was a second lieutenant who was functioning as secretary. Two of them were first lieutenants (Lieutenant Fogarty, the 47th Motor Transport Platoon commander was one of them). Captain Sessions was the fourth. And the last was the major McCoy was seeing for the first time.

  McCoy sat down at attention in a straight-backed wooden chair facing the tables.

  "We have before us what is apparently a well-turned-out corporal of the regular Marine Corps," the president of the board said, "who, with his shady reputation, his illegal chevrons, and his equally illegal campaign hat, is just about what we expected of a China Marine so highly recommended by Captain Sessions. And others."

  "Come on, Major." Captain Sessions chuckled. "The lieutenant's going to write that all down."

  "Strike everything after-what did I say?-'well-turned-out corporal of the regular Marine Corps,' Lieutenant," the president ordered.

  "Aye, aye, sir," the lieutenant said, and smiled at McCoy.

  "Who comes to us not only recommended by Captain Sessions but by another member of this board, Lieutenant Fogarty, whose recommendation is based on his long-time evaluation-it must be three weeks now-as the corporal's platoon leader. The corporal's qualifications having, after due evaluation, been judged to be more than adequate, we now turn to the real question. In your own words, Corporal, would you tell this board why you feel yourself qualified, after proper training, to serve your country and the Marine Corps as a commissioned officer?"

  "I'm not sure I do, sir," McCoy said.

  "That's the wrong answer, Corporal," the president of the board said. "You want to try again?"

  "Tell us why not, McCoy," Captain Sessions said.

  This whole fucking thing is unreal. How am I supposed to answer that?

  He paraphrased what was in his mind: "I'm not sure I know how to answer that question, sir," he said.

  "You've known second lieutenants, McCoy," Sessions said. "Pick out any one of them except this one, and tell us why you doubt your ability to do anything he can do."

  "Sir, all I've got is a high school education," McCoy said.

  "You speak Chinese, I have been told?" the president asked. "And Japanese? And several European languages?"

  "I don't speak Japanese as well as Chinese, sir. And I can hardly read it at all."

  "Well, here's a given for you, Corporal. So far as the Marine Corps is concerned, fluency in almost any foreign language is worth more than a bachelor's degree. Anything else?"

  "I wouldn't know how to behave as an officer, sir."

  "They'll teach you that at Quantico," the president said. "Anything else?"

  "Sir, Captain Sessions just sprung this whole idea on me."

  "Answer this question. Think it over first-yes or no. No qualifications. Do you want to be an officer or don't you?"

  McCoy thought it over. For what seemed to him like a very long time. The president of the board began to tap his fingertips impatiently on the table. Captain Sessions's left eyebrow was arched, a sign of impatience, often followed by an angry outburst.

  "Yes, sir," McCoy said.

  "You are temporarily dismissed, Corporal," the president said, "while this board discusses your application. There may be other questions for you. Please wait in the corridor."

  "Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said. He stood up, did an about-face, and marched out of the room. He had just managed to close the door when he broke wind. It smelled like something had died.

  "The board will offer comments in inverse order of rank," the president said. "Lieutenant?"

  "Sir, I'm a little concerned about his attitude," the second lieutenant said. "He certainly took his time thinking it over when you asked him straight out if he wanted to become an officer."

  "It has been my experience, Lieutenant," the major said, "that what's wrong with most junior officers is that they leap into action without thinking things over carefully."

  "Yes, sir," the lieutenant said.

  "Lieutenant Bruce?"

  "So far as I'm concerned," Lieutenant Bruce said, "he's what we're supposed to be looking for. A noncom of proven ability who can handle a wartime commission."

  "Lieutenant Fogarty?"

  "I'm impressed with him," Fogarty said simply. "He's a little rough around the edges, maybe, but they can clean up his language and teach him which fork to use at Quantico."

  "Ed?" the president asked, turning to Captain Sessions.

  "I admit of course to a certain personal bias. He saved my life. One finds all sorts of previously unsuspected virtues in people who do that."

  There was laughter along the table.

  "But even if he hadn't saved my skin, and even if a certain unnamed very senior officer had not made his desires known, I would enthusiastically recommend McCoy for a commission," Sessions added.

  "Does he know about the general?"

  "I'm sure he doesn't. The general and his aide were in civilian clothing, and they weren't introduced," Sessions said. "Being as objective as I can, I believe the Corps needs officers like McCoy."

  "Because he's a linguist, you mean?" the President asked.

  "He'd be a linguist anyway," Sessions said. "But that would be a waste of his talents, even though people who speak Chinese and Japanese are damned hard to come by."

  "We will now vote in the same order," the president said. "Unless someone wants to call him back and as
k him something else?"

  He looked up and down the table.

  "Lieutenant?" he asked, when he saw that no one had any additional questions.

  "I vote yes, sir," the lieutenant said.

  One by one, the others said exactly the same thing.

  "This board, whose president is not about to put his judgment in conflict with that of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, USMC…," the president said, and waited for the expected chuckles.

  After they came, he went on: "Especially after he said- slowly, carefully, and with great emphasis-I think we ought to put bars on that boy's shoulders, if for no other reason than he seems to be the only one in the Marine Corps besides me and Chesty Puller who doesn't think the Japs can be whipped with one hand tied behind us.' "

  He waited again for the chuckles, then concluded: "This board has in secret session just unanimously approved the application of Corporal McCoy to attend the Platoon Leader's Course at Quantico. Lieutenant, you are directed to make the decision known to the appointing authority."

  "Aye, aye, sir," the lieutenant said.

  "Call him back in here, will you?" the president said.

  The lieutenant went to the door, opened it, and motioned McCoy back into the room. McCoy marched in and stood to attention beside the straight-backed wooden chair.

  "Corporal," the president said, "this board has considered your application carefully, and after review by the appointing authority, that decision will be made known to you through channels. In the meantime, you will continue to perform your regular duties. Do you have any questions?"

  "No, sir."

  The president rapped his knuckles on the table. "This board stands adjourned until recalled by me."