Once a Marine always a Marine
Editor’s note: Bill Duncan, who normally writes the weekly column, The View From Here for The Capital Press. is on a writing assignment this week. His wife, Ada, who is also a writer, thought readers would like to have a different viewpoint than his usual musings. She is writing his column this week.
By ADA GRACE DUNCAN
The View From Here September 10, 2007
I’m married to a Marine. Not a career Marine. Nor an active Marine. Not even a retired Marine. Certainly not an ex-Marine. Never mind that at age 79 he no longer stands ram rod straight. Nor does he fit into the dress blues hanging in his closet, sealed in plastic garment bags along with a set of greens, chevrons still attached and emblems in the collar flaps.
I knew that I had married a Marine on our honeymoon 58 years ago when I discovered the undershorts he wore were green, Marine Corps issue, even though he had been out of the Corps two years. Even today our laundry bag is his old white canvas seabag stenciled W.J. Duncan, 28th Marines.
When our son, John, was 10 years old he needed disciplining for some infraction none of us remembers today. What we do remember is John down on his hands and knees scrubbing the concrete patio of our home with a toothbrush. Any self-respecting Parris Island DI would have heartily approved.
Our oldest daughter hooked him a small, round rug with that famous eagle sitting on top of the world which is firmly secured by an anchor. Everyone of course can recognize this as the Marine Corps emblem.
Do you think he’d allow this to be on the floor? Not on your life. What Old Leatherneck, he said, would allow that sacred emblem to be trampled underfoot. It hangs on the wall surrounded by Marine memorabilia ranging from his dog tags, to brass buttons from his dress blues, to campaign ribbons and those famous Marine Corps shoulder patches that went the way of the Sam Brown belt after World War II. That display of Semper Fidelis takes up a whole wall.
You’d think this kind of behavior would come from someone who was a third or fourth generation Marine. Not so, He is the only member of his family who has ever been in the Marines. This is hard to believe, but when he went to enlist, he intended to join the Navy. The Navy recruiter spotted him as being under age and sent him packing. The Marines, always looking for a few good men even though they are not old enough to shave, took him on the rebound. When asked about this Navy rejection, he comes back with a typical Marine reply:
"I chose the better part of the Navy." By some mysterious charisma, no matter where we go, he can ferret out every person who has ever been in the Corps. He’ll spend hours swapping sea stories.
I have challenged his Marine Corps logic from time to time. I remember one such occasion when we were invited to a picnic for newspaper reporters and their families at Irvine Ranch in Orange County, Calif. The event included a mini-rodeo.
It should be nothing for a Marine to throw a bull, right? But when the public information officer from El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, Calif. got his lasso around the horns of one bull, the bull would not surrender. Neither would the Marine lieutenant.
The bull dragged him around and around the pen. Layers of skin started to peel off his bare knees and the rope began to cut gouges in his hands. "Let him go" the crowd cried.
"He can’t let go," my husband said.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because he’s a Marine and Marines never give up," he replied, just as the rope broke and the lieutenant was rushed off to the infirmary.
"But he lost," I argued."
"Marines never lose," my husband said. "The lieutenant just fell back for a better position."
(Bill is off on a writing assignment, but he can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470, or you can send a sympathy card to his wife.)