Baa Baa Black Sheep (49 page)

The gang had answered: “Bud, we got news for you. The war happens to be over. We wont go into who won it right now, but you’re going to engrave the watch right now. And we’re going to stand here while you do it.”

So that is how the watch came to be engraved in one day, the same day as my return to the States, and in time for dinner.

All of which made just one more reason for a long time to come why I wished that all my own Black Sheep could have flown wing for me through all the problems that followed. Now I know that even my Black Sheep could not have helped.

During the day of the party, among the multitude of reporters were a couple of reserved gents who impressed me right off as nice guys. One said: “We understand you boys are having that party tonight. The one that was supposed to be in San Diego.”

“Yes, that’s right. By the way, if you’re not doing anything, drop over, and I’ll see you get a few drinks.”

The two men thanked me and left, and one of the Marine Corps Public Relations officers said: “Just how naïve can you be, Pappy? Don’t you know who those two guys are?”

“What difference does that make? How nice do you want me to be? I invited them to our party, didn’t I? By the way, who are they?”

“Stupid, those are
Life
magazine representatives. Don’t you know you can’t buy or even ask for mention in their coverage?”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I said to this P.R. officer. “But how was I supposed to know? I’ll know better next time.”

It had completely left my mind, even when these two
Life
men showed up at the party, for I didn’t see any cameras. I figured they were just two nice guys who had accepted my invitation. I believed them when they volunteered to cover the party, but
Life
had never covered a drinking party since its beginning.

And that was that!

I found myself on the beginning of a scheduled but seemingly endless bond-tour drive that was to last for three months. I was to make appearances several times a day, going to most of the major cities in the United States. Our government wanted to sell bonds, and the Marine Corps wanted the
publicity. So my squadron intelligence officer, Major Frank Walton, and I were to accompany one another about the country.

It was a couple of weeks after the Black Sheep party, which was by now a pleasant memory to me, when Frank and I got off a TWA plane in Denver for a breather. We noticed a woman pointing in our direction and looking back into a
Life
magazine. So, there was nothing to do but buy one ourselves and take a look.

Unbeknown to us, one of the fellows from
Life
had come to the party with a candid camera. There were over six pages of unposed pictures of our gang, which are about the only kind
Life
takes, I found out later. But it was a surprise to us, for we hadn’t seen him. I thought the pictures very cute.

Then
Life
had thought so much of the Black Sheep that they had gone against their rules and printed their first pictures of a drinking party of any kind. Not that I could have done anything about it, but I have often wondered if they were sorry they had, because the end for the leader of the Black Sheep turned out pretty sad in most people’s estimation. They were right the first time, and should have stuck by their rules, the way things turned out. But then, how dull life would become if we knew all the answers.

A number of other people besides my traveling mate Frank, some of whom I didn’t know, assumed charge of me and appeared to have the authority for doing so. I was going crazy trying to figure out a way to take care of some of my personal affairs, but I didn’t have a chance.

I would ask how long I could sleep and they would look at their watches and say: “Well, you’ve got just fifteen or twenty minutes.” And I would take off my shoes and lie down on the bed and then they would shake me and say: “It’s time to go.”

I seemed to be talking every place under the sun, over the radio or at some luncheon or dinner or public square. I was so groggy with this new life, and needed sleep so much, that there were times when I didn’t recognize friends I had known for years. The faces I recognized, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of their names. These talks were not for me. I got nothing out of them. I was still broke. These talks were mostly for War Bonds or other causes.

The reason I had not received any money or back pay is
that before going away in the Pacific I had all my wages put into a trusteeship for my three children. I had done it through a reputable law firm and a bank in San Diego. But arrangements like this take more than a reputable law firm and bank, for they can’t do anything about an alcoholic’s friends. Anyhow, my friend (female) had taken care of things until her alcoholic buddy was missing in action, then things ceased being carried out as planned.

Please don’t get me wrong, because I am not trying to pass the buck to anyone, let alone a woman. I know that nobody was to blame for my being incapable of managing my own affairs prior to the war. It was caused by alcohol alone, by the alcohol that I myself drank, not the alcohol that anyone else drank.

But in regard to women whose company I chose prior to the war they all seemed to have one thing in common, and this one thing above many of their other varying qualities that I apparently liked, because it gave me an excuse to drink. Most of these gals didn’t drink like I did, but nevertheless they were drinking partners as far as I was concerned. This one thing in common was that all of them could talk on for hours on end about how noble they were for the particular quality they had least of. Honesty was the forte of the kleptomaniac; virtue was the stand of the nymphomaniac; learning was the blabber of the illiterate; social drinking was the soapbox trail of the dipsomaniac; and I seemed to cherish all of these different types equally well at one time or another. I cherished them because their endless conversations about qualities they didn’t have gave me an ideal excuse to get drunk while I listened to them. So I cannot honestly place a particle of blame for my mismanaged affairs on any of these poor sick females. But because I was gradually getting my health back, and because I was unable to have the opportunity to take care of the females I was mixed up with financially, I automatically returned to drink for the answers.

Frank must have recognized some of my old patterns because he looked worried. Finally he said: “The Marine Corps was terribly worried about you before we started this bond tour.”

“Like hell they are, or they wouldn’t have sent me on this rat-race, letting all these publicity seekers wear me out.”

“Some of them back in Headquarters, knowing how you used to drink, were hoping that you wouldn’t start again.”

I laughed this off, saying: “Don’t worry, old boy, I am forced to take a few on this tour to be polite like you are. But after it is over, I’m going to quit.”

Frank looked relieved and said: “Well, I wasn’t worried, but I’m sure glad to hear it, because you have too much to lose. And I know you’re going to do it.”

It wasn’t that I was trying to kid Frank, for I think that was the furthest thing from my mind. I really meant what I said. Just like I meant what I said many times afterward.

Our itinerary took us to Washington, D.C., and Admiral Nimitz Day, where the nation was going to pay homage to our great Navy and its heroes. I was scheduled there too, for I was to pick up the Medal of Honor from our President, Harry Truman, and a Navy Cross from the Commandant of the Marine Corps General Vandegrift.

The Navy Cross took but a brief moment of Vandegrift’s time. He shook my hand, pinned the Cross on my blouse, and his chief of staff gave me the piece of paper to go with it on the way out—all of two minutes.

After leaving the Commandant’s office I read the citation, then I couldn’t help likening myself to some guy who was being buried on “boot hill.” The only reason dirt was thrown in one’s face was to keep the odor from offending those who remained. By their standards I should have picked up at least a dozen medals of various denominations, but it was apparent that not one of my combats had ever been cited, even in this lone booby prize I had just received. Someone had composed this citation at Washington from an old newspaper version. It stated briefly, gallantry in action, shooting down one enemy plane, and then being lost in action on January 3, 1944.

Not that I thought a Navy Cross meant anything, for I was certain that it meant very little. I recalled two very affable colonels in the Guadalcanal days; both were aviators and had been buddies since their academy graduation. These two colonels thought they were heroes for ducking bombs by going in and out of an operations bomb shelter, so they each wrote the other up for a Navy Cross, which happens to be the top award the Navy gives. And do you know, both of them received their Crosses.

Then I thought back about the three-page night letter I had wired over the heads of everybody, and the little cutthroat who sat in the office of the director of Marine Corps Aviation’s most of his career. A great many things became clear in my mind. They were intending to squeeze the last drop of publicity out of me for the Corps, then somebody was going to cut me from ear to ear—and I knew who my executioner was going to be.

Receiving the Medal of Honor turned out to be quite a lengthy process. Not that its presentation takes long, for this honor has a loop they throw around your neck, thus obviating the chance of sticking one’s fingers like some of the lesser medals that are pinned on.

Our group of sailors and Marines had to wait in formation on the White House lawn so damn long they became faint. I thought Harry Truman took his damn sweet time coming out. We were in two rows standing at attention, one row facing the other, sailors facing the Marines.

Owing to the delay, one of the official party waiting on the lawn walked over behind me to kill some time. He was an old acquaintance, a brigadier general now, and the last I had heard of him he had been sent over to England on some kind of mission as an observer.

He addressed me by an old nickname: “Hey, Rats?”

“What do you want, General?” This was out of the corner of my mouth, because I couldn’t break ranks or turn my head.

He laughed and said: “There are those who never counted upon your showing up again, don’t you know?”

“Yeah, they say a lot of nice things about you when you’re dead that they wouldn’t say when you’re alive. But I sure screwed ’em, didn’t I, Dad?”

“I wonder what’s holding up the show. Maybe Harry has to check first and see that you guys are all Democrats.”

“The way I feel, I might get this thing posthumously after all.”

“Rats, your case reminds me of a deal I saw in England.”

“How’s that, General?”

“Their head man was out pinning on medals one day, and it was quite a chore for him. He had a hell of a time with one fellow in particular.

“He started out: ‘Sergeant F-f-f-f-lanagan you have been
awarded the Distinguished F-f-f-f-lying Cross f-f-f-f-or shooting down f-f-f-f-our F-f-f-f-olke-Wulf f-f-f-f-ighters.’

“Then this sergeant interrupted: ‘But, Your Majesty, I shot down
five
Folke-Wulf fighters!’

“So the head boy gave it another try: ‘Oh, very well then, Sergeant, f-f-f-f-or shooting down f-f-f-f-fuh-fuh-fuh—shooting down f-f-f-f-fuh-fuh-fuh—it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference how many—you are only going to get one f-f-f-f-uh-fuh-fuh—ing medal.’ ”

Of this group of sailors and Marines I was the first to march up to the President, as I was senior in rank. Truman was brief. A handshake apiece, followed by these words: “Congratulations, I would rather have this honor than be President of the United States.”

This line sounded awfully corny to me and I wondered who had written it, because they hadn’t even trusted him to pronounce our names. As I said before, the only man I really felt for was the hospital corpsman who refused to kill anyone but got shot all to hell saving Marines on Mount Suribachi.

Now that this was all over, the picture couldn’t be complete without New York giving a hero’s welcome home, as only New York can. From the world’s tallest buildings they throw torn up telephone books and used ticker tape, a gigantic display, regardless of who is being welcomed.

I had finished riding up the New York streets on the back seat of a Cadillac convertible like many before me, waving, nodding, and watching torn pieces of paper come down like snow. The police were busy holding back a mob of well-wishers. A middle-aged man with a thin face and graying at the temples broke through the line and grabbed me by the arm. A policeman grabbed him and started to put him behind the line, but I said: “Wait a minute. I think he wants to tell me something.”

He did: “Enjoy it today, my boy, because they won’t give you a job cleaning up the streets tomorrow.”

In New York I was housed in the most pretentious quarters I ever hope to be in. Yet, I was able to enjoy these only for the time when I was sleeping.
Look
magazine had graciously supplied the Prince Edward Suite in the towers of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for two weeks, while Frank and I commuted in and out of the area surrounding the city making talks.

As closely as I can remember, for I would have been as well off in a basement room in the Y.M.C.A., the few brief glances were out of this world. Seven rooms, fancy chandeliers, master bathtub one could swim in, and all the other luxuries too numerous to mention were at our disposal. Yet we had barely enough time to complete a full-course meal in privacy.

Oh, how sick I was of the celebrity business! All places seemed the same to me. All people responded the same to me. My reactions and feelings can best be explained in telling about the famous Mayor Kelly of Chicago fame.

More than once during publicized “Boyington Day,” in this city or that town, I was given my own clue in this regard. Perhaps the sharpest clue occurred in Chicago, where I stayed two days, was invited into the great Mayor Kelly’s office, and was presented with a key to the city. While our photographs were being taken together, and so on, I couldn’t help notice the writing inscribed on the key. It had been presented to some joker back in 1937.