W Griffin - The Corps I - Semper Fi

They spent most of Sunday at the Smithsonian Institution. And again, Pickering was pleased that they had come. He was surprised at the emotion he felt when he saw the tiny little airplane Charles Lindbergh had flown to Paris and when he was standing before the faded and torn flag that had flown "in the rockets' red glare" over Fort McHenry.

At half- past ten on Sunday night (Pickering was still not fully accustomed to thinking in military time and had to do the arithmetic in his head to come up with 2230), Second Lieutenants M. Pickering and K.J. McCoy presented their orders to the duty officer at the Marine Barracks and held themselves ready for duty.

"Your reporting in early is probably going to screw things up with personnel," the officer of the day said. "I'll send word over there that you're here, and they'll call you at the BOQ [Bachelor Officers' Quarters]."

"We're in a hotel in town," Pickering said. "Okay. Probably even better. As you'll find out, the Corps is scattered all over town. What hotel?" "The Lafayette," Pickering said.

"Very nice," the officer of the day said. "What's the room number?"

"I don't know," Pickering said and started to smile. "Then how do you know where to sleep when you get there?" the officer of the day asked, sarcastically.

"Actually, we're in the bridal suite," Pickering said. And then, quickly, he added: "In the maid's room off the bridal suite."

At 0915 the next morning, the telephone in the maid's room of the bridal suite rang. It was a captain from personnel. Lieutenant Pickering was ordered to report, as soon as he could get there, to Brigadier General D.G. Mclnerney, whose office was in Building F at the Anacostia Naval Air Station. Before McCoy's reconnoitering over the weekend, Pickering had only a vague idea where Anacostia Naval Air Station was. Now he knew. He even knew where to find Building F. He had seen the building numbers-or rather building letters-in front of the office buildings there. Lieutenant McCoy was to report to a Major Almond, in Room 26, Building T-2032, one of the temporary buildings in front of the Smithsonian. They knew where that was, too, as a result of McCoy's day-long scoping of the terrain.

"You drop me there," McCoy said. "I can walk back here. Anacostia's to hell and gone."

Pickering found Building F without difficulty. It was one of several buildings immediately behind the row of hangars. Three minutes later, to his considerable surprise, he was standing at attention before the desk of Brigadier General D.G. Mclnerney, USMC. Unable to believe that a brigadier general of Marines would have thirty seconds to spare for a second lieutenant, he had simply presumed that whatever they were going to have him do here, his orders would come from a first lieutenant.

General Mclnerney looked like a general. There were three rows of ribbons on his tunic below the gold wings of a Naval Aviator. He didn't have much hair, and what there was of it was cut so close to the skull that the bumps and the freckles on the skin were clearly visible.

The general, Pickering decided as he stood at attention, was not very friendly, and he was unabashedly studying him with interest.

"So you're Malcolm Pickering," General Mclnerney said finally. "You must take after your mother. You don't look at all like your dad."

Pickering was so startled that for a moment his eyes flickered from their prescribed focus six inches over the general's head.

"You may sit, Mr. Pickering," General Mclnerney said. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Yes, sir," Pick Pickering said. "Thank you, sir."

A sergeant appeared, apparently in reply to the pushing of an unseen buzzer button.

"This is Lieutenant Pickering, Sergeant Wallace," General Mclnerney said. "He will probably be around here for a while."

The sergeant offered his hand.

"How do you do, sir?" he said.

"Lieutenant Pickering's father and I were in the war to end all wars together," General Mclnerney said, dryly.

"Is that so?" the sergeant said.

"And the lieutenant's father called me and, for auld lang syne, Sergeant Wallace, asked me to take care of his boy. And of course, I said I would."

"I understand, sir."

Pickering felt sick and furious.

"I think we can start off by getting the lieutenant a cup of coffee."

"Aye, aye, sir," Sergeant Wallace said. "How would you like your coffee. Lieutenant?"

"Black, please," Pickering said.

"Aye, aye, sir."

"You get fixed up all right with a BOQ?" General Mclnerney inquired. "Or are you perhaps staying in a hotel? A Foster hotel?"

"I'm in the Lafayette, sir."

"I thought you might be," General Mclnerney said. "I mean, what the hell, if your family owns hotels… how many hotels does your family own, Lieutenant?"

"There are forty-two, sir," Pick said.

"What the hell, if your family owns forty-two hotels, why not stay in one of them, right? There's certainly no room service in the BOQ, is there?"

"No, sir."

The coffee was delivered.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Pickering said.

"Certainly, sir," Sergeant Wallace said.

"I guess it took a little getting used to, not having someone to fetch coffee for you. At Quantico, I mean?" General Mclnerney asked.

"Yes, sir," Pickering said.

"Well, at least here, you'll have Sergeant Wallace and several other enlisted men around for that sort of thing. It won't be quite like home, but it will be a little better than running around in the boondocks with a rifle platoon."

"Yes, sir," Pickering said.

"It's not quite what the Corps had in mind for you," General Mclnerney said, "but I've arranged for you to be my junior aide-de-camp. How does that sound?"

"Permission to speak frankly, sir?" Pickering asked.

"Of course," General Mclnerney said.

"My father had no right to ask you to do anything for me," Pickering said. "I knew nothing about it. If I had any idea that he was even thinking about something like that, I would have told him to keep his nose out of my business."

"Is that so?" General Mclnerney said, doubtfully.

"Yes, Sir," Pickering said fervently, "that's so. And with respect, Sir, I do not want to be your aide-de-camp."

"I don't recall asking whether or not you wanted to be my aide. I presented that as a fact. I have gone to considerable trouble arranging for it."

"Sir, I feel that I would make you a lousy aide."

"You are now a Marine officer. When a Marine officer is told to do something, he is expected to reply 'Aye, aye, sir' and set about doing it to the best of his ability."

"I am aware of that, sir," Pick said. "But I didn't think it would ever be applied in a situation where the order was to pass canapes."

"You're telling me that you would prefer to be running around in the swamp at Camp LeJeune to being the aide of a general officer?"- General Mclnerney asked, on the edge of indignation.

"Yes, sir, that's exactly my position," Pickering said. "I respectfully request that I not be assigned as your aide."

"I am sorry to tell you, Lieutenant," General Mclnerney said, "that I have no intention of going back to Headquarters, USMC, and tell them that I have now changed my mind and don't want you as my aide after all. As I said, arranging for your assignment as my aide wasn't easy." He waited until that had a moment to sink in, and then went on: "So where would you say that leaves us, Lieutenant?"

"It would appear, sir," Pick said, "that until I am able to convince the general that he has made an error, the general will have a very reluctant aide-de-camp."

General Mclnerney snorted, and then he chuckled.

"Lieutenant, you are a brand-new officer. Could you take a little advice from one who has been around the Corps a long time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Don't jump until you know where you're jumping from, and where you're going to land," General Mclnerney said. "In other words, until you have all the intelligence you can get your hands on, and have time to evaluate it carefully."