Lee Marvin: Point Blank

by Dwayne Epstein

  Once he shipped out, Marvin quickly discovered actual war was nothing like he had seen in the movies. “The war had an effect on me,” he said years later. “I remember a native woman on one of the islands that was carrying a dead child in her arms—and she was nine months pregnant with the next one. She was walking around in shock. A Marine came up to her and said, ‘Put that dead kid down.’ She wouldn’t do it. The Marine got sore. He told her to put it down. She refused. He took out a knife and sliced her belly open. He disemboweled her. The fetus dropped out. When he put his knife back in the scabbard, he was ready to fight a war. This insanity, this raving inhumanity—it was then I suddenly knew: This is what war does to a man, what war means.”

  With lessons learned from each of the Marines’ previous skirmishes, they bombarded each island with artillery at dawn, having sent in trained Marine scout/snipers the night before for reconnaissance. The scout/snipers, of which Lee Marvin was one, administered silent death to any Japanese that were encountered. As much as he wanted to, these events could not be written about in family letters. Instead, he wrote the following:

  2/14/44: Dear Mother;

  Well here is the second letter, which will have to be fairly short. I guess the papers said that the Marshall Islands were taken. Our company was the first Marines that landed on them, in fact the first Marines to land on Jap held territory before Pearl Harbor. The job was done in good order and in good spirit. I am in fine health so don’t worry. It is hard to think that it is winter back home, as it is pretty hot here, but to think of you and home is a blessing.

  Lee could not detail his experiences to his mother, such as staying on the island throughout the night until the bombardment began. He could not speak of the mosquitoes, leeches, dysentery, and the permeating wetness to be avoided or run the risk of jungle rot. Nor could he speak of the death encountered. “On Kwajalein there were six guys wearing white in a trench,” he told LIFE Magazine in the 1960s. “I get up there waiting for them to move so I could pull the trigger. But none of them make a move. One of our guys comes along and says, ‘What’s the matter?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. They look like merchant marine to me.’ He looked at me and cursed and emptied his gun into the trench. Then he threw in a hand grenade.”

  Witnessing such behavior made it easier for Marvin to perpetrate it himself. A neighbor in California remembers the actor opening up to him about his war experiences: “He was assigned to go knock out a whole foxhole full of Japanese machine gunners. He went in there and I guess he laid out about 5-7 of them… Years pass and that’s something you just don’t kiss off easily… you could tell it was really hurting him.” At the time, all he could do was write the following:

  3/12/44: Dear Pop;

  Lots has happened in the past few months but nothing that I can not speak of now, as the regulations are pretty strict on such things. I can tell you one thing and that is I have had my fill of war.

  Thanks again for the .45, as it is the best foxhole buddy a Marine can have. I hope that you won’t mind the notch in the handle but you know how things like that are. I only fired it once but that was all that was necessary. It is in damn good condition and will remain that way. I am in good shape and feeling fine so don’t let that worry you.

  4/11/44: Dear Pop;

  I might not be writing so don’t let it worry you. Our company got quite a good name for itself after those 17 islands and a night raid in rubber boats.

  They asked me to join another scout and sniper outfit but I don’t think I will, as it is not until you sign on that you do realize its danger. I was lucky once and I don’t want to tax it.

  He had good reason not to want to tax his luck. On the island of Eniwetok, he and five others rushed a machine gun nest that had kept the company pinned down. Crawling on their bellies on either side of the nest the six of them were able to get close enough to lob in grenades, killing half the men inside. When Marvin rushed in to kill the rest, his foot caught and sent him and his rifle sprawling. He rolled over to see his foot had caught on a sand-covered trapdoor that the other Japanese machine gunners were sneaking into. He made eye contact with one of them. “He popped out of that hole like a little animal,” said Marvin. “For a second I just lay there on my ass surprised as hell while he blinked at me. Then he lunged. He tried to stick his bayonet in my eye. So I took it away from him. It wasn’t hard to do because he was just a little bastard, maybe 5 feet 2 or so. I shoved that goddamned thing into his chest all the way to the gun barrel…”

  While Europe was feeling the effects of D-Day on June 6, 1944, the invasion of Saipan in the Pacific the following week proved equally harrowing. Lee was there and later wrote his brother:

  The first night on the island I had a damn close call. We were in a hell of a barrage and they were knocking the hell out of us. The hole I was in was about 4 feet deep and 12 across. There were four of us in it. You know you can hear [the mortars] coming so I would stick my head up and call the shots, that is if they were to come visiting 25 yards I’d better duck. If not we’d just let them go and hope for the best. Well I watched one of our batteries fire and heard them go off in the hills except it sounded like 3 times as many and sure enough they were Nip guns firing at us. I was looking for them and here comes one. I think it had all our names on it. Man, it sounded like it was in the hole with us. It hit about three feet from my head and blew off my pack, gas mask and canteen, killed one of the boys and wounded the next. But what I can’t figure out is why it didn’t blow my head off; that it didn’t even scratch me yet it hit all the rest. Damn, I saw red for the next ten minutes and it sounded like Big Ben in my head.

  It was also while on Saipan that Lee had taken a letter off a soldier he had killed and out of curiosity brought it in to be translated. It read, in part:

  How is everyone and how is my home town? Please ease your worries since I am well as always. I’m doing my duties faithfully. I am determined to do nothing but my best for my country. I have no regret now. No matter where you are, the moon looks the same. Sorry that I’m always writing the same complaints.

  This letter had a powerful effect on him as it transformed the idea of the Japanese soldier from that of a faceless enemy to a living and breathing fellow human being. To Marvin, it could have been written by a fellow American, or even one of the letters he had written home himself.

  The battle of Saipan raged on until early July, but for Lee Marvin it ended on June 18th. Once he was evacuated from the island and safely ensconced on a hospital ship, he wrote his father:

  7/3/44: Dear Pop;

  I am writing you this letter mostly to tell you that I am really all right and that things are not as bad as they seem. I was on Saipan when I got hit. Not too bad but bad enough to hamper me if I stayed. I was hit in my left buttocks just below the belt line.

  You may think it’s funny to get hit in the can like that but at the time I was very lucky that that is all I got. I was pinned down and could not move an inch and then a sniper started on me. His first shot hit my foot and his second just about three inches in front of my nose. It was just a matter of time, as I knew I would get hit sooner or later. If I got up and ran I would not be writing this letter so I just kept down. I could see nothing to fire at so there I was.

  Bang! It felt like someone hit me with a 2 x 4. The wound starts about 1/4” from my spine on a slight forward angle where it left the flesh. It was a sniper that hit me and he must have been using a flatnose slug, as it did not leave two little holes. It entered about ½” where it did and just laid it all open. Now there is more or less a gash 8” long by 3” wide and about 2” deep. It did not touch the muscle or spine at all. Geez, now you never seen creeping like I did but he kept on shooting. Finally, I got out of there and I am OK now. I am now on Guadalcanal and awaiting transfer south. They figure on letting the wound fill in so that will take about 4 or 5 months. They gave me the Purple Heart and all the trimmings but I still think that it was worth it.

  Once he
was on the hospital ship, he checked his belongings and saw the bullet hole in his wallet that left a gaping blood-soaked hole through a photo of his entire family. He also felt immense guilt over the loss of his father’s .45 automatic. He had given it to one of the fellow Marines who had helped him get out after being wounded. The Marine’s rifle had been shot up so Marvin lent him the .45, which saved his life after he too was wounded. Marvin had to later write his father:

  My buddy was evacuated also but to a different place and he kept it until he got to a rear area that customs took it from him. The jerk didn’t list it so the commander told us one of the officers noticed it and kept it for himself.

  After twenty-one invasions in all for Private Marvin, such thoughts were foremost in his mind as he contemplated why he survived while the rest of his comrades continued to fight and die. Saipan was secured and on Lee’s 21st birthday the 4th Marines invaded Iwo Jima. The battle was intense as the Fighting Fourth suffered devastating losses, 80% casualties in all and ultimately was disbanded. Marvin had hoped to get back into combat but for the next thirteen months he was transferred to different naval hospitals.

  For Lee Marvin, the war ended when he was safely aboard the hospital ship after being evacuated from Saipan. Listening to the battle in the distance rage on into the night, nestled in clean sheets and being spoon-fed ice cream as Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” wafted through the sound system, twenty-year-old Lee Marvin broke down and cried.

  CHAPTER 4

  “These Horrible, Animal Men”

  AS A CIVILIAN, mustered out from the Philadelphia Marine Barracks on July 24, 1945, Lee Marvin could not shake off the intense mixed feelings he was experiencing: anger, frustration and worst of all, survivor guilt as the war stubbornly wore on. On the bus ride back to his parents’ Manhattan apartment an old woman angrily tapped his shoulder with a cane and asked why such a healthy-looking young man was not in the military fighting for God and country. Acting on reflex, Marvin turned and barked at her that he was physically unfit. Years later he told a reporter, “I won’t repeat exactly what I said to her. Hell, I wanted to drop my trousers and show her exactly what I did for a legitimate 4-F classification!”

  Lee’s celebratory homecoming was short-lived, at least as far as his family was concerned. Courtenay was extremely glad her son was home safe and sound, but his war experiences made it extremely difficult to talk to him. She wrote in a letter to Robert, “Your brother is quite a man… I hear many strange and some horrible stories about his adventures, and at first it took a strong stomach to sit quietly and listen.” As for Monte, Lee quickly discovered his father was finding the adjustment to civilian life even more difficult than he was. If Lee was damaged by the war, he said of Monte years later, “It ruined him. He came home from that half dead, totally broken. He was never the same.”

  During the war, First Sergeant Monte Marvin received a military citation from the British Government for his “Outstandingly meritorious service to the Allied Cause during the defense of the Port of Antwerp… Sergeant Marvin was called upon often to obtain a standard of continuous and excellent performance of duty by men under him… His own outstanding example, diligence and patience while under almost constant danger from long range rockets and flying bombs, were in large measure responsible for the efficiency which these men attained.” However, as a civilian, he was unable to find gainful employment.

  After another disheartening day of job hunting, he entered his 79th Street apartment building barely able to muster a businesslike smile for the doorman. He went in and ran hot water for a bath. The family maid found him. She immediately dressed his sloppily cut wrists and called the police. The police then contacted Bellevue, where he was transported in a siren-blaring ambulance for several days’ observation. Unable to afford a private room, he was placed in a public ward where the rest that Monte desperately sought was impeded by the screams that went on through the night. He survived the suicide attempt and the family never spoke of it while he was alive.

  Through an old friend Monte secured a sales job with the Chicago Tribune and the entire family moved to the “Windy City.” At his father’s urging, Lee enrolled in night school to get his high school diploma, but his heart was clearly not in it. He still had no plan for his future as the following excerpted letter to his brother illustrates:

  I just got home from school to find your letter here at home and we were all glad to hear from you again. Boy just wait until you get out and see all the shit they hand you.

  Well, as you know I am now going to school and brother, that is a task, and I don’t mean maybe. At the present I am taking English, Geometry, Physics and History. I just don’t have any interest in the stuff but I am doing it for Pop. I don’t have enough beer money so maybe that is the trouble with me. And then again I don’t know anybody in this town but when I get settled, if I ever do, it might be different. So get the hell out of that lash up so we can get together soon.

  Funny thing, my feet are getting itching again and I want to be on the move. Where I don’t know but just some place that I haven’t been before, like the Yukon or some other desolate place. I just want to strike out and do something constructive with myself. In fact, I have often thought about going back into the Corps but I know that is just a way of trying to get back with the real friends I had. I mean real, because as you know when death is close at hand you don’t do anything that you don’t want to and the same with your friends. Boy, that was a real crowd and their only thought was to be happy while they could. So here I am still trying while the rest of them are dead. The main thing that I regret is that there is no longer any frontier to work on which is just my speed. Therefore I must conform to convention which I have a very deep-set distaste for. Officers, I hate their fucking guts but I will admit that there are a few good ones, but I have only seen a very damn few. Well now my problem is to see how much money I can get out of the folks for some brew. I will probably end up by getting fifty cents as usual which is a puny five glasses but it will have to do until that pension of mine comes through.

  Lee struggled with his classes, but said years later, “It made no sense. After committing murder, it was hard to find sense in peace. How could a guy all mixed up in murder get an education? The two didn’t make sense… I had to do something, though. They gave me a typing test and I couldn’t spell half the words. I looked around and saw all those frivolous chicks and guys—what was I doing there? So, I quit.” Forty years later ‘The Sergeant,’ his character in The Big Red One, would tell one of his charges, “We don’t murder. We kill,” a distinction that was not yet clear in young Lee’s mind.

  The day he quit class, he walked right into a Marine Recruitment Center. The officer in charge sympathetically responded, “Thank you for your offer and prior service, son, but due to your disability status…” Lee shook the officer’s hand and proceeded to laugh it off at the nearest watering hole. As to his disability, a physical later that fall spoke the final word as only the military could: His sciatic wound disabled him exactly 20%. He received a check of $27.80, and would continue to do so each month for the rest of his life.

  Monte’s job in Chicago was short-lived, forcing the entire family to move back to New York. When the family returned to New York, the postwar housing shortage made it impossible to find worthy accommodations in the city. The Marvins decided on the Woodstock area since they had summered there often when Lee and Robert were boys. They purchased a home, and Monte eventually found work nearby with the New York and New England Apple Institute. He periodically attempted other employment and noted on his resume: “Natural hazards effecting [sic] apple crop greatly limit scope of accomplishment.” Like an over-the-hill athlete dreaming his time would come again, he never saw the better employment materialize and stayed with the Institute until retiring in 1965. Through it all, Monte got by on the two things he could always rely on: his undiminished Puritan ethic and large quantities of alcohol.

  Nestled in the foo
thills of the Catskill Mountains, the Woodstock community had long been a sanctuary for many of the colorful avant-garde artists and intellectuals of the day, decades before the eponymous historic rock concert that would take place in a nearby town. The small community even maintained three legitimate live theaters at the time: The Woodstock Playhouse, The Valetta Theater and the 1,000-seat Maverick Theater. On the surface, Courtenay seemed to enjoy the creative stimulation the area provided for her writing. The small social circle of Woodstock society made her feel like a big fish in a small pond, while Monte found the relative tranquility preferable to the hubbub of the city.

  Lee took classes at Kingston High School to finally get his diploma around the time that Robert mustered out of the service. As he had done many times as a child, Lee frequently cut class to fish or hunt. When he did attend, his writing assignments gave a clear indication of what occupied his thoughts:

  What I am trying to put over here is the unconscious will to live and enjoy also to keep with people their memories.

  The Way of Life.

  It was a late spring evening, full of the golden splendor of sunset. The clouds as if tinted by some past master were windswept and exploding with the glory of nature, drifting on and on as they have done for centuries. The grass held the very fragrance and softness that they alone posses. At their bases were the sun-singed followers who too wanted life but had failed.

  Sprawled in this magnitude of beauty was the once fine-formed body of a man. The passing rain had left the form dubbed with pellets of diamond like drops sparkling in the last rays of the disappearing sun. He too, as the blades of grass, wanted life but had lost in his all too sincere struggle.

  This man, or rather lad, had at the age of eighteen met his maker. The clothes that he wore were of a rough cloth, originally green but now, after days of dirty living and dying, they were smeared with his very life, dried to the earthen ground from which it came.