W.e.b. Griffin - The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

"I don't know about that, but he's back. He applied for a reserve commission as a major, and they gave it to him. And then they promoted him. He knows some very important people."

"I hadn't heard that," Stecker said, thoughtfully. "Well, hell, why not? He's a good Marine. And here I sit wearing captain's bars."

"You didn't answer my question, Jack," Colonel Harris said.

"Do I get along with him? Sure. Is he here?"

Colonel Harris did not reply to the question directly.

"From this point, what I tell you is between us girls, Jack. I don't want it repeated."

"Yes, sir," Stecker said.

"Within the next couple of weeks, maybe the next month, the Corps is going to establish two separate battalions. One of them here. The one here will be commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Carlson."

"What do you mean, separate battalions? To do what?"

"Commando battalions," Harris said.

"I'm lost," Stecker confessed.

"A reserve captain wrote the Commandant a letter," Harris said, "in which he recommended the establishment of Marine units to do what the English Commandos do. Raids by sea on hostile shores."

"A reserve captain wrote the Commandant?" Stecker asked, incredulously.

"And the Commandant has decided to go along," Harris said.

Stecker didn't reply, but there was wonderment and disbelief all over his face.

"The captain who wrote the letter has friends in high places," Harris said.

"He must," Stecker said.

"His name is Roosevelt," Colonel Harris said.

"Captain Roosevelt," Stecker said, suddenly understanding.

"You know him?"

"I saw him a couple of times at Quantico," Stecker said. "I don't know him."

"Captain James Roosevelt will be the executive officer of the Second Separate Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Carlson, when it is activated," Harris said.

Stacker's eyebrow rose but he said nothing.

"I have been directed to do whatever can be done to grease the ways for Colonel Carlson and his separate battalion. He will have the authority to recruit for his battalion anywhere within the Corps. And simultaneously he will be able to transfer out from his battalion anybody he doesn't want. He will have the authority to equip and arm his battalion as he sees fit, and funds will be provided to purchase whatever he wants that can't be found in the warehouse. If there is a conflict between Carlson's battalion and some other unit for equipment, or the use of training facilities, Carlson will get what he thinks he needs. You getting the picture, Jack?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, because as of this minute, it's your job to take care of Colonel Carlson and his separate battalion for me."

"I had hoped to get a company," Stecker said

"No way, Jack," Harris said. "Even without Carlson, there would be no company for you. We have company commanders. We're damned short of people like you. Once you get Carlson formed and trained and he's gone from here, I've got a spot from you in S-Three. If you handle Carlson right, there'll probably be a major's leaf to go with it."

"And if not?"

"Carlson has to be handled right, period," Colonel Harris said. "Or you and me will both be doing things we won't like."

Stecker frowned thoughtfully. Finally he said, "Aye, aye, sir."

"There's more, Jack," Colonel Harris said. "And if this goes outside the walls of this room, we're both in trouble."

"I understand," Stecker said.

"Carlson not only wants to have a commando outfit, he has some very strange ideas about how it should be run."

"That I don't understand," Stacker said. "How do you mean, 'run'?"

"Well, for one thing, the original proposal would do away with the rank structure. Instead of officers and noncoms and privates, there would be 'leaders' and 'fighters.' There would be no officers' mess. Everybody would 'cooperate.'"

"You're serious," Stecker said, after a moment. "That's crazy."

"Odd that you should use that word," Harris said, dryly. "There are some very important people who think that Carlson is crazy."

"You mean really crazy, don't you?"

Harris nodded. "And the same people think that he may have been turned into a Communist," he added.

"Then why are they giving him a battalion?"

"Because the President of the United States has got a commando bee up his ass, and he thinks Carlson is the man to come up with American commandos," Harris said.

He waited for that to sink in, and then went on: "The Commandant is worried about three things, Jack. First and foremost, that Carlson has gone off the deep end, and after he's picked the cream of the crop for his Raiders, he'll get a bunch of them wiped out on some crazy operation. Or worse: that he'll be successful on a mission, and the entire Corps will be converted to the U.S. Commandos."

"What's wrong with that?" Stecker asked, thoughtfully. "We do what I understand the commandos do, invest hostile enemy shores."

"The British Commandos have neither aviation nor artillery," Harris said. "If the Marine Corps is turned into the U.S. Commandos, there would be no need for the Corps to have either aviation or artillery either. And after the war, Jack? What would the Corps become? A regiment, maybe two, of Commandos."

"I hadn't thought about that," Stecker admitted.

"The Commandant has had this commando idea shoved down his throat," Harris said. "And like the good Marine he is, he has said 'aye, aye, sir,' and will do his best to carry out his orders. There are some other people, close to the Commandant, who are not so sure they should go along with it."

"I don't understand that," Stecker said. "What do you mean, not go along with it?"

"There's some interesting scuttlebutt that Intelligence is going to get an officer assigned to Carlson with the job of coming up with proof that he is a Communist, or crazy, or preferably both. Proof that they could hand the Commandant, proof that he could take to the President."

"Jesus!"

"Jack," Harris said carefully. "If something out of the ordinary, something you believe would be really harmful to the Corps, comes to your attention when you are dealing with Colonel Carlson, I expect you to bring it to my attention. But don't misunderstand me. I want you to do the best job you can in supporting him."

Stecker met his eyes. After a moment, he said, almost sadly, "Aye, aye, sir."

(Two)

The USS Pickerel

178 Degrees 35 Minutes West Longitude

21 Degrees 20 Minutes North Latitude

0405 Hours, 14 January 1942

Captain Edward J. Banning, USMC, awake in his bunk in the captain's cabin of the Pickerel, knew that it was a few minutes after 0400. He had heard the sounds of the watch changing, and that happened at precisely 0400.

He also knew that it was Wednesday, 14 January.

Not quite six hours before, the Pickerel had crossed the international date line; and Thursday, 15 January, had become Wednesday, 14 January, once again. From 180 degrees (which was both west and east longitude, exactly halfway around the world from Greenwich, England, which was at 0 degrees, east and west longitude), it was 22 degrees and some seconds-say 675 nautical miles-to the U.S. Navy Base at Pearl Harbor, on the Island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii.

Captain Edward T. Banning, USMC, was aware that there was a very good chance that this Wednesday, 14 January 1942, would be the last day in his life. After a good deal of what he believed was careful, unemotional thought, he had decided that he did not want to continue living if that meant he had to live blind. And after reaching that decision, he had calmly

concluded that today was the day he should do what had to be done.

He would remove the bandages from his eyes, open his lids, and if he saw nothing but black, he would use the.45 on himself.

With a little luck and a lot of careful planning, this could be accomplished with a minimum of disruption to anyone else's life. And that was important-not to make a spectacle of himself. It would be much better to go out here and now with a bullet fired through the roof of the mouth into the brain and to be buried immediately at sea than it would be, say, to jump out of a window in a VA hospital somewhere, or to swallow a handfull of pills. A.45 pistol was the answer, and today was the day.