The Corps I - Semper Fi

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Ed Banning and I were in Nicaragua together in '29," Stecker said. "He was a lieutenant then. He was a good officer."

  "He is a good officer," McCoy agreed.

  "Well, what can I do for you, Corporal?" Stecker asked.

  "Got a problem, Gunny," McCoy said, and added wryly: "And when I was a young Marine, at Parris Island, they told me whenever I had a problem I couldn't deal with myself, I should take it to the gunny."

  Stecker smiled at him. The kid had a sense of humor.

  "Just think of me as your father, son, and tell Daddy all," Stecker said.

  "I need to get that LaSalle registered on the post," McCoy said.

  "What's the problem? Unsafe? Or inadequate insurance?"

  "No, I'm sure it'll pass the safety inspection, and I'm insured up to my ass."

  Those were two of the three problems with a corporal getting a POV (Privately Owned Vehicle) registered on the post. Stecker now asked about the third:

  "You lost your driver's license. Speeding or drunk driving?"

  "I'm in the Platoon Leader's Course," McCoy said. "And a fat-bellied PFC over in Vehicle Registration got his rocks off telling me that means I can't have a car on the post."

  Now Stecker was surprised. The Platoon Leader's Course was designed to turn college kids, not China Marine corporals, into second lieutenants. But now that he thought about it, he'd heard that starting with this class, they were going to slip some young Marines in with college kids. It was sort of an experiment, to see if they could hack it. The Marines in the course would be like this one, on their first hitch, or maybe starting their second, kids without enough experience to get a direct commission, but who had been judged to be above average.

  "He's right." Stecker said. "You can't. No cars, civilian clothes, personal weapons, or dirty books or pictures."

  "What am I supposed to do with it?"

  "You should have read the instructions. Corporal." Stecker said, "the part where it said, 'don't take no POV's, civvies, weapons or dirty pictures.' "

  "I don't have any instructions." McCoy said. "I don't even have any orders. I'm traveling VOCO (Verbal Order Commanding Officer)."

  "He must have been pretty sure you were selected." Stecker said.

  "He was on the board," McCoy said. "And as fast as this has gone, I've been wondering if the Corps didn't ship me home from China for this officer shit."

  "Officer shit?" Stecker parroted. "You don't want to be an officer?"

  "I didn't mean that the way it sounded, Gunny," McCoy said. "But I walked over and had a look at the school before I came over here. It reminded me that I'm a China Marine, not a college boy."

  "You better not tell anybody that when you start the course," Stecker said. "One of the things they expect is enthusiasm. You better act as if your one great desire in the whole world is to pin a gold bar on your shoulder, or you'll get shipped out so quick it'll take your asshole six weeks to catch up with you."

  McCoy chuckled. "That's what I mean about being a Marine, and not a college boy. I know about second lieutenants. Would you want to be second lieutenant. Gunny?" McCoy challenged.

  Stecker thought, No, I wouldn't want to be a second lieutenant. I really don't want to be an officer, period.

  "Then you shouldn't have applied," Stecker said.

  "The ways were greased," McCoy said.

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "I mean that an officer I knew in China asked me at nine o'clock one morning if I had ever heard of the Platoon Leader Program. I was through with the selection board before lunch three days later," McCoy said.

  "But if you don't want to be an officer, then I guess you've wasted his effort, and the Corps' money and time coming here at all," Stecker said.

  "Don't get me wrong, Gunny," McCoy said. "I'm going to go through that course. The minute I report in, I'm going to be the eagerest sonofabitch to get a commission they ever saw."

  "Why?"

  "Well, I thought that over, driving down here," McCoy said. "Asked myself what the fuck I was doing, why I hadn't told them what they could do with a gold bar in Philly. The answer is, why not? I'm a good Marine. I'll probably make as good a temporary officer as most of the college kids, and probably better than some of them. And since they greased the ways like they have-at least a couple of officers think I would make a good second lieutenant-who the hell am I to argue with them?"

  "You seem pretty sure you won't bilge out of the course," Stecker said.

  "Gunny, I'm a good Marine. I'll get through that course. My problem is what do I do with my car when I'm over there being eager as hell?"

  "Where you from?"

  "Pennsylvania, Norristown."

  "If you left now, you could drive there, leave the car, catch a train, and be back here by midnight tomorrow. If you were a little late, so long as it was before reveille on the second, I could take care of that."

  "I got no place to leave it."

  "I thought you said your home was in Norristown."

  "I said I’m from Norristown,' " McCoy said. "My home is the Corps."

  "Then I guess you'll have to park it outside the gate," Stecker said.

  "Yeah, and have it either stolen or fucked up, the roof cut."

  "Hey, you're a Marine corporal, wants to be a Marine officer, you don't know a regulation's a regulation?"

  McCoy looked at him, and Stecker saw anger, regret, and resignation in his eyes. But he didn't say anything, and he didn't beg.

  "Thanks for the coffee, Gunny," McCoy said. "And your time."

  He got up and walked toward the door.

  "McCoy," Stecker called, and McCoy stopped and turned around.

  "Forget what I said about getting a campaign hat. That was before I knew you were going to be a student. Students wear cunt caps like that (a soft cap, sometimes called an "overseas" cap]. Makes them easy to tell from Marines."

  "Thanks," McCoy said.

  "Doan!" Stecker called, raising his voice. "Send in the sergeant from Post Housing."

  The sergeant came into the office with all the paperwork involved in turning in one set of government quarters and their furnishings so as to draw another set of quarters and furnishings. Stecker was moving-moving up. Though he thought about that pretty much the way McCoy did. Stecker took his Parker pen from his shirt pocket and began to write his signature, in a neat: round hand, where the forms were marked with small penciled xs.

  Then he suddenly sat up straight in his chair and spun it around so that he could look out the window. He saw Corporal McCoy unlocking the door of the pretty LaSalle convertible that sure as Christ made little apples was going to get all fucked up if he had to leave it parked outside the gate.

  Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker leaned out the window.

  "Corporal McCoy!" he bellowed.

  McCoy looked around for him.

  "Hold it right there. Corporal McCoy!"

  He sat down again and, as quickly as he could, signed the rest of the forms. Then he stood up and went in the outer office.

  "I'm going," he said.

  "You going to see the colonel first?" Doan asked.

  "I have an appointment with the colonel at oh-eight-thirty the day after tomorrow. Whatever's on his mind will have to wait until then."

  "You coming back?" Doan asked.

  "No. Have the motor pool fetch the truck," Stecker ordered.

  "Is there anything else I can do for you?" Doan asked.

  "Not a goddamned thing, Corporal Doan," Stecker snapped. "Not a goddamned thing."

  He glowered at him a moment, and then added: "But I'll tell you this, Doan. I told the colonel that it was possible that under all your baby fat, there just might be a Marine, and that he could probably do worse than making you a sergeant. You're on orders as of 1 September. Try, at least, to act like a sergeant, Doan."

  Now why the hell did I tell him? It was supposed to be a surprise.

  "What do I tell anybody who calls?" Doan asked.

&nb
sp; The fat little fucker is so surprised at the promotion that he looks like he might bawl. Hell of a thing for a Marine sergeant to be doing.

  "Tell them to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut," Stecker said and, pleased with himself, marched out of the office."

  He walked up to Corporal McCoy, where he was waiting by his LaSalle.

  "I have a black Packard Phaeton machine. Corporal McCoy." he said, and pointed to it. "You will get in your machine and follow me."

  "Where we going?"

  "Wherever the hell I decide to take you," Stecker said.

  McCoy followed him six blocks, ending up at the rear of the red-brick single-story building that housed the provost marshal's office. Next to it was an area enclosed by an eight-foot-high cyclone fence, topped with barbed wire. Every ten feet along its length was a red sign reading. MILITARY POLICE IMPOUNDING AREA OFF LIMITS. Inside a fence were a dozen vehicles, mostly civilian, but with several Marine Corps trucks mingled among them.

  There was no one near the gate to the fenced-in area, so Stecker blew his horn, a steady ten-second blast, and then another. He saw that he had attracted the attention of the people in the provost marshal's building. His Packard was as well known as his pickup truck.

  He motioned for Corporal McCoy to get out of his LaSalle and come to the Packard.

  A minute later, the provost sergeant came out of the building and walked quickly over to him.

  "What can I do for you, Gunny?" he asked.

  "This is Corporal McCoy," Stecker said. "After you register his car and issue him a sticker for it, he will place his vehicle in the Impound Yard. From time to time, he will require access to his vehicle, to run the engine, for example. Therefore, you will put him on the list of people who are authorized access to the Impound Yard. Any questions?"

  "Whatever you say, Gunny," the provost sergeant said. "Can he take the car out if wants?"

  "It's his car," Stecker said. He turned to McCoy. "I think that's all the business we have, McCoy," he said.

  "Thanks, Gunny," McCoy said.

  "In the future, McCoy, be very careful when you tell somebody you don't think much of officers or that you have doubts about being one yourself. You just might run into some chickenshit sonofabitch with bars on his collar who will take offense."

  "I will," McCoy said. "Thanks again, Gunny."

  "It would be a damned shame to have a good-looking machine like your LaSalle fucked up," Stecker said, and got behind the wheel of his Packard and drove home.

  (Three)

  Elly was home. Her Ford was in the drive. He wondered why she asked him to come home early. Probably because she knew him well enough to worry that otherwise he would head for the NCO Club, establish himself at the bar reserved for senior noncoms, and start drinking hard liquor. She knew him well enough, too, not to call the office and order him home, or call the office and start whining and begging for him to come home. What she'd said was that "if he could come that would be nice."

  So he was home. That was nice.

  The sign (MASTER GUNNERY SERGEANT J. STECKER, USMC) was still on the lawn, equidistant between the driveway and the walkway, as housing regulations required, a precise four feet off the sidewalk. He wouldn't need that sign anymore; there'd be a new sign on the new quarters. He would have to remember to take this one down first thing in the morning. Or maybe, so that he wouldn't forget it, after dark tonight.

  He entered the small brick house (the new quarters would be just a little bigger, now that the boys were gone and they didn't need the room) by the kitchen door, opened the icebox and helped himself to a beer.

  "I'm home," he called.

  "I'm in the bedroom," Elly called.

  He went into the living room and turned on the radio.

  Jesus Christ, it's been a long time since I came home and she made that kind of announcement. But all she meant by it, obviously, was that she happened to be in the bedroom. That was all.

  She came into the living room.

  "Where were you, Jack?" Elly asked.

  "What do you mean, 'where was I'?" he asked.

  "Doan came by," she said. "He said you walked off without your orders, and he thought you might need them. He said you told him you were going home."

  She had the orders in her hand. She extended them to him.

  "I've read them," he said. "I know what they say."

  She shrugged.

  "It was nice of Doan, I thought," Elly said. "He told me you got him sergeant's stripes. That was nice of you, Jack."

  "So you called the NCO Club and asked for me, and I wasn't there, right?" he said, unpleasantly.

  "You know better than that, Jack," Elly said, and he knew he'd hurt her.

  "A kid came into the office," Jack Stecker said. "A China Marine, a corporal."

  "Oh?"

  "He worked for Ed Banning over there," Stecker went on. "Banning got him sent to the Platoon Leader's Course."

  "And he came in to say hello for Ed Banning?"

  "He came in because he's got a LaSalle convertible machine, and the kids in the Platoon Leader Program aren't supposed to have cars with them, and the provost marshal wouldn't give him a post sticker for it."

  "Oh," she said.

  "At first, I thought he reminded me of Jack," Stecker said. "Nice kid. Good-looking. Smart. But then I realized that he reminded me of me."

  "Good looking and smart?" she teased.

  "Like I was when I was a corporal," he said.

  "I remember when you were a corporal," she said.

  "He doesn't want to be an officer," Stecker said. "At least not very much."

  "Neither did you," she said. "They would have sent you to Annapolis, if you had wanted to go."

  "1 wanted to get married," he said.

  "You didn't want to be an officer," she said.

  "I still don't, Elly," he said.

  She started to say something, then changed her mind.

  "Could you help him about his car?" she asked.

  "I fixed it so he could leave it in the MP impounding area," he said. "That's where I was."

  "I knew if you could come home early, you would," Elly said.

  "Why did you want me to?" he asked.

  "I bought you a present," she said. "I was afraid it wouldn't come in time, but it did, and I wanted to give it to you."

  "What kind of a present?" he asked. "You keep this up, there won't be anything left in the retirement fund."

  "Come in the bedroom, and I'll give it to you," Elly said.

  "You give me a present in the bedroom, and I'll come home early all the time," he said.

  Elly ignored him and walked toward the bedroom.

  He got up, put his beer bottle down, turned the radio off, and walked into their bedroom.

  There was a complete uniform on the bed.

  "What the hell is this?" he said. "What did you do, go by the clothing store?"

  "This comes from Brooks Brothers in New York City," she said. "I asked Doris Means where I should buy them, and that's where Doris said to go."

  "You're now calling the colonel's wife by her first name?"

  "I've known her for twenty years, Jack," Elly said. "She said I was to call her by her first name."

  He looked down at the uniform. Good-looking uniform, he thought. First-class material. It had certainly cost an arm and a leg.

  "Well?" she said. "Nothing to say?"

  "Looks a little bare," he said. "No chevrons, no hash marks."

  "Attention to orders," Elly said. Stecker looked at her in surprise. She had the orders in her hand, and was reading from them:

  "Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., General Orders Number 145, dated 15 August 1941. Paragraph 6. Master Gunnery Sergeant Jack NMI Stecker 38883, Hq Company, USMC Schools, Quantico, Virginia, is Honorably Discharged from the Naval Service for the convenience of the government effective 31 August 1941. Paragraph 7. Captain Jack NMI Stecker, 44003 USMC Reserve is ordered to active
duty for a period of not less than three years with duty station USMC Schools, Quantico, Virginia, effective 1 September 1941. General Officer commanding Quantico is directed to insure compliance with applicable regulations involved with the discharge of an enlisted man for the purpose of accepting a commission as an officer. For the Commandant, USMC, James B. McAme, Brigadier General, USMC."

  "Well," Stecker said, "now that you've read it out loud, I suppose that makes it official?"

  "Aren't you going to try it on?" Elly asked, ignoring him.

  "I'm not sure I'm supposed to," he said. "I'm not an officer yet."

  "Put it on, Jack," Elly said. "You can't put it off any longer."

  He reached for the blouse and started to put his arm in a sleeve.

  "No!" Elly stopped him. "Do it right. Jack."

  He stripped to his underwear, then put on the shirt and the trousers, and then tied the necktie. Then he put on the tunic, and the Sam Browne belt, and the sword, and even the hat.

  "You look just fine, Jack," Elly said. She sounded funny, and when he looked at her, she was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  "What the hell are you crying about?" Stecker asked.

  She shrugged and blew her nose, loudly.

  He examined his reflection in the mirror. He looked very strange, he thought. Very strange indeed. He saw for the first time that there was something new in his array of medal and campaign ribbons, an inch-long blue one dotted with silver stars, the one he never wore, the ribbon representing the Medal of Honor.

  "What did you do that for?" he challenged.

  "Colonel Means said to," she said. "And he said when you asked about it, I should tell you that he said that he expects his officers to wear all of their decorations, and that includes you, too."

  "You really like this, don't you? Me being an officer?"

  "All these years, Jack," Elly said, "I wondered if I did right, marrying you."

  "Thanks a lot," he said, purposefully misunderstanding her.

  "Otherwise, you would have gone to Annapolis," she went on. "And you would have been a major, maybe a lieutenant colonel, by now."

  "Or I would have bilged out of Annapolis and taken up with a bar girl in Diego," he said. "I don't have any regrets, Elly."

  "I don't have any regrets, either," she said. "But you deserve those bars, Jack. You should have been an officer a long time ago."