Semper Fi

Chapter Nine

(One)

U.S. Marine Corps Schools

Quantico, Virginia

29 August 1941

The man at the wheel of the spotless Chevrolet pickup truck was Master Gunnery Sergeant Jack (NMI)( No Middle Initial) Stecker, USMC. Stecker was a tall, muscular, tanned, erect man of forty-one who looked the way a master gunnery sergeant, USMC, with twenty-five years in die Corps, was supposed to look.

He was in stiffly starched, impeccably pressed khakis. A vertical crease ran precisely through the buttons of the shirt pockets to the shoulder seam on die front of the shirt. There were four creases on the rear One ran horizontally across the back of his shoulders. The other three ran down the back, one on each side, and one down the middle. There were a total of six pockets on his khaki shirt and trousers. Two were in use. Stacker's left hip pocket held his wallet; and his right shirt pocket held a small, thin notebook and a silver-plated Parker pen-and-pencil set. The other pockets were sealed shut with starch, and would remain sealed shut.

The keys to his office, to his quarters, and to his personal automobile, a 1939 Packard Phaeton, as well as a Saint Christopher medal, were on a second dogtag cord worn around his neck.

Stecker did not think it fitting that the uniform of a master gunnery sergeant, USMC, should bulge in any way. There was a handkerchief in his left sock. Sometimes, not often, when he knew he would be away from another source of smoking material for a considerable period of time, he carried a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes and a book of matches in his right sock. Mostly, he kept his smoking material in various convenient places-the glove compartment of the pickup, his desk drawer, and sometimes (if he knew he was not going to have to remove his campaign hat) in the crown of the hat.

Master Gunnery Sergeant Jack Stecker, USMC, turned off the macadam Range Road and slowed the Chevrolet pickup as he approached the barrier, a weighted pole, barring access to the ranges.

As it often is in Virginia in late August, it was hot and muggy, and Jack Stecker had rolled the driver's-side window down. But as he approached the Known Distance Rifle Range close enough to hear the firing, he rolled the window up. The crack of.30-caiiber rifle fire does more than make your ears ring; it permanently damages your hearing if you get enough of it.

A large red flag hung limply from a twenty-five-foot pole, signaling that the range was in use. A young Marine had been assigned to bar access to the range by unauthorized personnel, and to raise the barrier to pass authorized personnel. He was about twenty-one, his nose was sunburned, and he wore utilities, a World War I-style helmet, a web cartridge belt (from which hung a canteen and a first-aid packet), and had a U.S. Rifle, Caliber.30, Model 1903A3, slung over his shoulder by its leather sling.

When Master Gunnery Sergeant Jack Stecker first saw him, the young man with the sunburned nose was standing five feet from the flagpole. And Jack Stecker had no doubt that the young man (who looked like a boot about to graduate from the Recruit Depot at Parris Island, but who was in fact an officer candidate about to graduate from the Platoon Leader's Course and become a commissioned officer, second lieutenant, in the Marines) had probably been leaning on the pole. He had also probably propped the Springfield against the flagpole.

Stecker was not offended. What was important was that he had not caught him failing in his duties as a guard. He would have burned him a new asshole if he had caught him doing what he damned well knew he had been doing, but he had not.

When the trainee, recognizing Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker's Chevrolet pickup, had quickly raised the weighted pole barrier, he was rewarded for his efforts by a slight but unmistakable nod of Stecker's head. The trainee nodded back, and smiled shyly-and with some relief. He had been forced to make a decision, and it had turned out to be the right one.

When he first recognized the pickup as Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker's, he hadn't been sure whether Stecker expected him to raise the barrier immediately, or to bar Stecker's path until he had satisfied himself that Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker indeed had official business on the range.

He had decided in the end that the safest course was to presume that whatever Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker wanted to do on the Quantico reservation was official business and that it was not his role to question him about it.

It had not been difficult to differentiate Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker's pickup from the perhaps fifty identical 1940 Chevrolet pickups on the Quantico reservation. Stecker's personal pickup was very likely the cleanest, most highly polished pickup in the Marine Corps, perhaps in the world.

When Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker telephoned the motor sergeant to announce that he was through for the day with his transport, a motor pool corporal went to Base Headquarters to fetch it. He then drove it to the motor pool, where he examined the odometer to see how many miles Stecker had driven that day. He then filled out the trip ticket with probable, if wholly imaginary, destinations to correspond with the miles driven. It was universally recognized that Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker had more important things to do with his time than fill out forms like a fucking clerk.

With that done, the vehicle went through prescribed daily maintenance. The fuel tank was filled; the tire pressure checked; and the oil level and radiator water replenished. The vehicle was then turned over to whatever enlisted men had run afoul of Rocks and Shoals; had gone to Office Hours; and were now performing punitive extra duty in the motor pool.

They washed the vehicle with soap and water, every inch of it, inside and out-except for the glove compartment, which was off limits. When the vehicle was washed and dried, it was swept out with whisk brooms, making sure there was no dust or sand in the cracks of the rubber covering of the running board or between the wooden planks of the bed. The vehicle was then inspected by the motor transport corporal. If the wax polish seemed to need touching up, the pickup was waxed. When it was finally judged likely to meet Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker's standards, it was parked overnight inside, in the hoist section of the garage.

In the morning, a motor transport corporal drove the pickup to Base Headquarters, where he parked it in a space marked FOR OFFICIAL VISITORS ONLY, so that it would be available should Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker need transport.

When the first Trucks, one-quarter ton, four-by-four, General Purpose (called "Jeeps") had been issued to Quantico, it had been proposed to Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker that one be assigned to him, with a driver, for his use. Stecker had somewhat icily informed the motor transport sergeant that even though he could doubtless spare someone to spend most of his duty day sitting around with his thumb up his ass waiting to drive somebody someplace, he certainly could find real work for him to do that would be of value to the Corps.

Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker had other reasons to refuse the assignment of a jeep and driver. One of them was that a driver would come to know where he went, and why, and talk about it at night in the barracks. The less the men knew where he went and what he did, the better. Neither could Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker see any reason why he should exchange a perfectly satisfactory vehicle, which came with nicely upholstered seats and roll-up windows, for a small open truck with thin canvas-covered pads to cushion his bottom.

There was absolutely nothing that Stecker could find wrong, which is to say unmilitary, in finding comfort wherever it might be found. In his twenty-five years of service, he had been acutely uncomfortable on more occasions than he liked to remember. And there was no question whatever in his mind that he would be made acutely uncomfortable again- possibly, the Corps being what it was, as soon as tomorrow.

It was not necessary to train to be uncomfortable. That came naturally, like taking a leak.

When Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker reached the Known Distance rifle range itself, he put wax plugs in his ears to protect them from the damaging crack of riflefire, and then got out of his pickup and approached the Range Tower. Pretending not to see the range officer, a young lieutenant who was in the tower itself, he examined the firing records, checked over two weapons that had failed to function, and the general police of the area; then discreetly inquired of the range sergeant how the new range officer was working out.

"He's all right, Gunny," the range sergeant said. "Better than most second lieutenants» to tell you the truth."

Stecker nodded. Then, with hands folded against the small of his back and the range sergeant trailing him, he marched to one end of the firing line, pausing now and again when the targets were marked or to stand behind one prone rifleman and his coach. Then he reversed course and marched to the other end. He found nothing that required correction. He really hadn't expected to. Except for the general truth that the way to keep things running smoothly was to keep your eye on them, there had really been no reason for him to "have a look" at the range.

Then he returned to the pickup and drove back to his office.

There was a glistening LaSalle convertible in one of the "Official Visitor" parking spaces. Stecker had almost bought a LaSalle convertible. Although he considered his Packard Phaeton to be a fine piece of machinery, sometimes he wished he had gone to the LaSalle. It wouldn't have cost nearly so much money, and it was, under the skin, a Cadillac. And there would not have been so many eyebrows raised at a Master Gunnery Sergeant driving a LaSalle.

The question was how could an enlisted man, even one in the highest enlisted grade, afford the monthly payments on a Packard Phaeton? The answer was that mere were no monthly payments. He had paid cash on the barrel head for it. And the reason cash was available to pay for it was that shortly after he had married, when he was a twenty-one-year-old sergeant, he had gone out on payday and got tanked and blown most of his pay in a poker game.

Elly gave him what he later came to call "her look." Then she put it to him simply: Not only was he a damned fool, but she was in the family way, and if the marriage wasn't going to work, it would be better if they faced it and called it off. Either she would handle the money from now on, or she was going home to Tatamy the next day.

She then put him on an allowance, like a little boy, and kept him on it even later, when he'd gotten more stripes. When the kids were big enough, she'd gotten her teacher's certificate and gone to work. And it wasn't just her making the buffalo on the nickels squeal before she parted with one; Elly put the money to work.

Right from the first, she had started buying and selling things. She would read the "Unofficial" section of the Daily Bulletin looking for bargains for sale. She didn't only buy things to use (like kid's clothes and from time to time a nice piece of furniture), she bought things to resell. And she was good at buying things and selling them. She told him once that she had a twenty-five percent rule: She wouldn't buy anything unless she could buy it for twenty-five percent less than what somebody was asking for it, and she wouldn't sell it for less than twenty-five percent more than she had paid for it.

So the boy's college fund kept growing. Elly was determined from the beginning that the boys would go to college. And then, as the fund grew, her determination changed to "the boys would go to a good college."

In '34, when the Depression was really bad (Jack Stecker was a staff sergeant then), the bank had foreclosed on her brother Fritz's house in Tatamy. Elly took a chance and put in a bid at the sheriff's auction. Most everybody else in Tatamy had been laid off from Bethlehem Steel, too, and not many people wanted an old three-family row house anyway. So she got it at a steal and without the down payment really making a big dent in the boys' college fund.

Fritz went on living in what had been his apartment, and his oldest son and his family in another-neither of them paying rent, because they were out of work-but the third was rented out for nearly enough money to make the mortgage payment.

Jack Stecker hadn't said anything to her, because he always considered the boys' college money to really be Elly's money, and if she wanted to help her family out when they were in a bind, he understood that, too.

He came later to understand that what Elly had really done was put the money to work, and that if it also made things a little easier for her brother and nephew, fine, but that wasn't the reason she had bought the house.

Neither Fritz nor his kid paid any rent until they got called back by Bethlehem Steel, Fritz in '37, his kid not until '39. When Fritz complained that paying back rent was a hell of a thing for a sister to ask of her own brother, Elly told him that she was charging him two percent less than the bank would have charged him, that he knew damned well that the bank would not have loaned a laid-off steel worker a dime, and that he and his family would have been put out on the street.

Then she offered to sell him the house back at what an appraiser called the "fair market value." And she would carry the mortgage herself. So they had the house appraised and added what Fritz and his son owed for back rent to that, and Fritz was paying it off by the month at six percent interest. Not to Elly anymore. Elly had sold the mortgage to the Easton Bank Trust Company. And that money had gone into the boys' college fund.

And then, as it turned out, they didn't need the boys' college fund at all. He'd gone home one afternoon and saw her with "her look." But Elly waited until he had changed out of his uniform, taken his beer from the icebox, and listened to the "Burns Allen" program on the radio. Then she made room for herself on the footstool and handed him a paperbound book.

"You ever see this?" she asked.

Sure, he'd seen it. It was the catalog of the United States Naval Academy.

"You ever read it?" she asked.

"I glanced through it," he said, somewhat defensively. It was difficult for a master gunnery sergeant, USMC, to admit to anyone, including his wife, that there was any aspect of the Naval Service of the United States with which he was not intimately familiar.

"God, Jack," Elly said, disgusted. "You sometimes are a really thick-headed Dutchman!"

She handed him the catalog, open, with a passage marked in red ink.

' 'Additionally, an unlimited number of appointments are available noncompetitively to sons of winners of the Medal of Honor.''

Jack Stecker never wore the Medal, but it was in the strongbox, together with a copy of the citation, and a non-yellowing photograph of General "Black Jack" Pershing hanging it around his neck.

In the name of the American people, the Congress of the United States awards the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Jack NMI Stecker, USMC, for valor in action above and beyond the call of duty in the vicinity of Belleau Wood, near Chateau-Thierry, France, during the period June 6 to June 9, 1918. CITATION: Sergeant (then Corporal) Stecker, in command of a squad of United States Marines participating in an assault upon German positions on June 6, was grievously wounded in the leg. When it became necessary for American forces to temporarily break off the attack and reform prior to a second attack, Sergeant Stecker refused evacuation and, despite his wounds, established himself in a position from which he could bring rifle fire to bear upon the enemy.

During the nights of June 6 through June 8, without regard to either his wound or the great risk to his life posed by incessant small arms and artillery fire, Sergeant Stecker searched the area between the lines of the opposing forces (commonly referred to as "no-man's land") for other U.S. Marines who had also been unable or unwilling to withdraw to safe positions.

Not only did Sergeant Stecker save the lives of many of these wounded men by administering first aid to them, but, inspiring them by his personal example of valor in the face of overwhelming odds, formed them into a 24-man-strong fighting force and established a rifle and machine-gun position from which, when the second, successful assault was launched on June 9, he laid a withering fire on German positions which otherwise would have been able to bring fire to bear on attacking American Forces with a resultant great loss of life.

During the fighting involved during the second assault, Sergeant Stecker was wounded twice more, and suffered great loss of blood and excruciating pain. Despite his wounds and pain, Sergeant Stecker remained in command, inspiring his subordinates with his courage and coolness under fire until he lost consciousness.

Sergeant Stecker's valor and dedication to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Marine Corps and the Naval Service.

Entered the Naval Service from Pennsylvania.

So the boys had gone to service academies, Jack Jr. to Annapolis, and Richard to West Point. Jack was an ensign on the Battleship Arizona in the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, and Richard would graduate next June and take a commission as a second lieutenant of Marines.

Elly had waited until she was sure the boys were set, then she had used some-not much-of what was now "the retirement fund" to buy him the Packard Phaeton. He was entitled, she said, and you only live once.

Three people were waiting outside Master Gunnery Sergeant Jack Stecker's office when he reached it: a staff sergeant, a PFC, and a corporal. He nodded at them, said, "Be with you in a minute," and went inside. When his clerk delivered his coffee, he would tell Stecker what they wanted.

He knew the staff sergeant; he was from Post housing, and that was personal, so it could wait. And he supposed the PFC was carrying some kind of message, and that could wait too. But the corporal was completely unfamiliar to Stecker, and he was a little curious about him.

The coffee (black, brewed no more than thirty minutes before; Stecker could not stand stale coffee) was delivered in a white china mess-hall mug within sixty seconds of his sitting down behind his desk.

"Sergeant Quinn's here about your quarters," Stecker's clerk, a corporal, said. "The PFC was sent by the first sergeant of 'B' Company. Your wife called and said if you could come home early that would be nice. And the colonel says he'd like to see you when you have time, nothing important."

"And the China Marine?" Stecker asked.

"You mean the corporal?" the clerk asked. Stecker nodded, barely perceptibly. "How do you know he's a China Marine?"

"What does he want?" Stecker asked, deciding that he would not mention the young corporal's embroidered-to-his-shirt chevrons, one of the marks of a China Marine.

"Wouldn't say," the clerk said. "Wants to see you. I seen him drive up. You see that LaSalle convertible when you come in?"

"Send the corporal in," Stecker said.

(Two)

Corporal Kenneth J. "Killer" McCoy walked into the room, looked at Stecker, and said, "Thank you, Gunny."

Stecker liked that. The kid hadn't tried to kiss his ass with "Good afternoon, Sergeant, I'm sorry to bother you" or some candy-ass remark like that. But he was polite, and recognized that Master Gunnery Sergeants were busy men, and that he appreciated this one giving him a little bit of his time.

Stecker liked what else he saw. Aside from the embroidered-to-the-garment chevrons and the khaki fore-and-aft cap this young corporal looked the way Stecker liked his young corporals to look. Neat, trim, and military. And as far as the China stripes were concerned, if he had his way everybody would wear them.

"When did you ship home from China?" Stecker asked.

"It shows, does it?" McCoy said, smiling.

"Yeah," Stecker said. "Could you use some coffee?"

"Sure could," McCoy said.

"Doan!" Stecker raised his voice. "One Java!"

"Reporting in, are you?" Stecker guessed, and then guessed again: "With a problem?"

"I've got until midnight tomorrow," McCoy said.

"Between now and midnight tomorrow," Stecker said, "get yourself a campaign hat."

McCoy chuckled.

"That's funny?"

"I just came from the Navy Yard in Philly," McCoy said. "The first thing the first sergeant said to me there was 'get rid of the campaign, hat.' "

"That was there, this is here," Stecker said. "What were you doing in Philly? You ship home the long way around?"

"I shipped home to Diego on a tincan," McCoy said. "Diego shipped me to Philly via Portsmouth."

"Prisoner-chasing?" Stecker asked, and when McCoy nodded, went on: "Then you must just have bought the LaSalle."

He enjoyed the look of surprise on the kid's face, but left him wondering until after Doan delivered the coffee and left. "My clerk doesn't miss much," he said.

"Just bought it," McCoy said.

"Like it?"

"Except that it drinks gas, I like it fine," McCoy said.

"What kind of a rice bowl did you have going for you in China?" Stecker asked, and again enjoyed the look of surprise on the kid's face. "To bring home enough money to buy a car like that?"

"I spent a lot of time on back roads, drawing ration money," McCoy said.

"Motor transport?"

"Sort of," McCoy said.

"What do you mean, 'sort of?"

"That's my skill," McCoy said.

"And you made corporal on one hitch, driving a truck?"

"Yeah," McCoy said.

"Why don't I believe that?" Stecker asked.

"I don't know," McCoy said. 'it's the truth."

"You must have got along pretty good with the motor officer," Stecker said. The translation of that was, "You must have had your nose pretty far up his ass."

"Most of the time, I worked for an officer at regiment," McCoy said.

"I did a hitch, '35-'37, with the Fourth Marines," Stecker said. "I guess I still know some of the officers. Who did you work for?"

"Captain Banning," McCoy said.

Stecker was very pleased to hear that. It reconfirmed his first judgment of the young corporal. (His second, more negative judgment sprang from questions about his making corporal in one hitch in motor transport.) Ed Banning was the China Marines' S-2. If this kid had been made a corporal by Banning, that was a whole hell of a lot different from making it as an ass-licker.

"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.

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."

He turned to look at his _reflection again.

"Maybe," Elly said, "you should take it off now, so it'll be fresh when you get sworn in."

He looked at her again. She was unbuttoning her dress.

"Don't look so surprised," she said softly. "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I've always wanted to go to bed with a Marine officer."

"I'm not a Marine officer yet," he said. "Not until oh-eight-thirty day after tomorrow."

"Then I guess you want to wait till then?" she asked.

"No, what the hell," Captain-designate Jack NMI Stecker, USMC, Reserve, said. "Take what you can whenever you can get it, I always say."