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

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said, in English. "Does that mean I will go with the assault force, sir?"

"Uh- huh," Carlson said. "I thought you'd want to go."

"Oh, yes, sir," McCoy said.

And then he thought, Oh, shit! What the hell have I done?

(One)

The San Carlos Hotel Pensacola, Florida 8 August 1942

Second Lieutenant Richard J. Stecker, USMC, was in direct violation of the uniform regulations of the U.S. Navy Air Station, Pensacola, which, in addition to specifying in finite detail what a properly dressed officer would wear when leaving the post, took pains to specifically proscribe the wearing of flight gear except immediately before, while participating in, and immediately after aerial flight.

He was wearing a gray cotton coverall, equipped with a number of zippered pockets. This was known to the Naval Service as "Suit, flight, aviator's, cotton, tropical," and to Stecker, who had copied Pick Pickering's description, as "Birdman's rompers." Sewn to the breast of the rompers was a leather patch, stamped in gold with Naval aviator's wings and the words "STECKER, R.J. 2ND LT USMC." Pick said they did that so that professional Marines could look down and see who the Marine Corps said they were.

The flight suit was dark with sweat. Enormous patches of it spreading from the back and the armpits and the seat nearly overwhelmed the dry areas. The patches were ringed with white, remnants of the salt taken aboard in the form of salt pills and then sweated out.

Stecker was aware that he was learning bad habits from Pick Pickering. Or, phrased more kindly, that Pickering had given him insight into the functioning of the Naval establishment that had not previously occurred to him. Previously, he had obeyed regulations, no matter how petty, because they were regulations and Marine officers obeyed regulations. He had in fact cautioned Lieutenant Pickering (a friendly word of advice from a professional Naval establishment person to a temporary officer and gentleman): "You're gonna get your ass in a crack if they catch you driving home in your flight suit," he'd told him.

Lieutenant Pickering had not only been unrepentant, but had patiently pointed out to Lieutenant Stecker the flaws in his logic.

"First of all, I don't intend to get caught. I drive through the woods, not past the Marine guard at the gate. Secondly, I think the MPs have better things to do than establish roadblocks to catch people wearing flight suits. And I come into the hotel through the basement, not the lobby. I think the chances of my getting caught run from slim to none. But, for the sake of argument, what if I'm caught? So what?"

"You'll find yourself replying by endorsement," (When an officer was caught doing something he should not be doing, such as being out of uniform, he would receive a letter from his commanding officer specifying the offense and directing him to "reply by endorsement hereto" his reasons for committing the offense) Stecker argued.

"And I will reply by endorsement that since officers who live in quarters on the post can go from the flight line to their quarters in their rompers, I thought I could go directly to my quarters so attired. And that if I have sinned, I am prepared to weep, beat my breast, pull out my hair, and in other ways manifest my shame and regret."

"You can get kicked out of here."

"Oh, bullshit! We're nearly through this fucking course. They might throw us out for showing up on the flight line drunk, or something else serious like that. But so much time and money has been invested in us, and they need pilots so bad, they're not going to throw anybody out for wearing rompers off base."

And he was right, of course.

Lieutenant Stecker had spent three hours that afternoon between six and ten thousand feet over Foley, Alabama. He had been at the controls of a Grumman F4F-3 wildcat, engaged in mock aerial combat with an instructor pilot.

The Wildcat had been rigged with a motion picture camera. The camera was actuated when he activated the trigger that would normally have fired the six.50-caliber Browning machine guns with which the Wildcat was armed.

The film was now being souped, and they would look at it in the morning. Dick Stecker knew that in at least four of the engagements, the film from the gun camera would show that he had successfully eluded his IP and then gotten on his IP's tail and "shot him down."

It had been almost-not quite, but almost-pleasant tooling around at six, seven thousand feet with the twelve hundred horsepower of the Wright XR-1830-76 moving the Wildcat at better than three hundred knots. And, although he had consciously fought getting cocky about it, it had been satisfying to realize that he had acquired a certain proficiency in the Wildcat. The odds were that in about two months, certainly within three, he would be flying a Wildcat against the Japanese.

When the training flight was over, however, it was not at all pleasant. He opened the canopy before he had completed his landing roll at Chevalier Field. By the time he had taxied to the parking ramp, the skin of the aircraft was too hot to touch, and he was sweat-soaked. The temperature had been over one hundred degrees for three days, and the humidity never dropped out of the high nineties.

He actually felt a little faint as he walked to the hangar, carrying a parachute that now seemed to weigh at least one hundred pounds. His IP came into the hangar red-faced and sweat-soaked, and went directly to the water cooler, where he first drenched his face in the stream, and then filled a paper cup and poured it over his head.

The post- flight critique was made as brief as possible. Then the IP had walked to his car in his rompers and drove off. That left Stecker with a choice: He could be a good little second lieutenant who obeyed all the rules. Or he could do what he ended up doing. What he did was get in his car and drive through the woods to the Foley Highway and then to the hotel.

He parked the car behind the hotel and entered through the basement. He planned to use the service elevator, but it wouldn't answer his ring, so he had to summon a passenger elevator.

With my luck, he thought, the elevator will stop in the lobby, answering the button-push of the base commander, who will be accompanied by the senior Marine Corps officer assigned to Pensacola.

But the elevator rose without stopping to the top floor, and there was no one in the small foyer when the door opened. Stecker crossed quickly to the penthouse door, put his key in, and opened it. A wave of cold air swept over him. The basement of the building was not air-conditioned, and the allegedly air-conditioned elevators seldom were.

Stecker emitted a deep, guttural groan of relief.

Then he worked the full-length zipper on the rompers to its lower limit and spread the sweaty material wide. When the cold air struck his lower chest, he groaned appreciatively again.

Then he walked into the penthouse and found it was occupied.

The occupant was a female. The female was clothed in brief shorts and a T-shirt decorated with a red Marine Corps insignia. And she was smiling at him. Not a friendly smile, Stecker quickly realized, but a "see the funny man, ha ha" smile.

"What am I expected to say in reply to your groans?" Ernie Sage asked. "You Tarzan, me Jane?"

"Not that I really give a damn," Dick Stecker said, "but how did you get in here?"

"I told them I was Pick's sister," Ernie said. "Where is he?"

"I'm Dick Stecker," Dick said.

"How about this to start a conversation, Dick Stecker?" Ernie said. '"Your fly's open.'"

"Oh, Jesus," he groaned and dived for it.

"To quickly change the subject, you were telling me where Pick is," she said.

"He took off about an hour after we did," Stecker said. "He should be here in about an hour."