We only got to Parris Island 4 days ago and I already have been gigged twice. Once for scratching under my arm pit without getting permission and the other time for saying “No” when some picklehead who says he is a drill sargent asked me “Aren’t you a piece of shit Private?” Was I suppose to tell him yes??? He can kiss my ass first. Then they lined us up so they could yell at us some more and Stuke asked if he could go to the crapper but they wouldn’t let him. And then they wondered where the fart came from.
I read your changes on the contract a couple of times on the bus and I am only letting you keep 2 of them in. So don’t get any funny ideas about forgetting to sign it or saying that a dog pead on it or etc. I will be back for 10 days between boot camp and when they ship us to Pendleton in Calif. We can do alot of things in 10 days such as the Radio City and dinner and ice skating and everything else we can think of—but only if I have your John Hancock. Otherwise you can forget it. Come to think of it, I even heard about G. Cooper in “Pride of the Yankees” playing by then. Stuke is all ready to go with me in case you can’t. (They have a word for this and it is called “blackmale”. If that pisses you off, tell it to the Marines.)
Pvt. Charlie
* * *
* * *
P.S. TO CONTRACT FROM DEC. 1940
Mine
11. You will remember that we lost over 2000 boys at P. Harbor, some of them not much older than you. If you think that going on a road trip with me is more important than that, you are a chowderhead. And if I sometimes think “I wish I was with Joey at Coney Island instead of here” (which happened to me twice today), then I am one too.
12. You will write to me at least one time a week even if your sore at me or if you do not have anything to say (fat chance). I will do the same thing. You will also keep a glim on the NY Giants and tell me what place they are in and what kind of a knucklehead they got to play 1b and 3b without me and Stuke on the team.
13. You will remember that you are my buddy and even a World War can’t change that. When all of this is over we will be back at the Polo Grounds and Saint Louis and saying such things as “They cannot bean Carl Hubbell on account of his halo gets in the way” and etc. just like before.
14. On Oct. 25 me and the Rabby said a Blessing to you and turned you into a man. I am going to hold you to that. Your not allowed to act like a kid anymore except once in a while since your still only 13. The fake letter from your principle used up your ration through Feb.
15. You will remember that in a few more months I may be on some island with K’s and J’s and W’s in it such as Kwajalein, which we just heard of and thought it was somebody pulling our leg on account of it sounds like what they give you when you have clap. And suppose I am in a fox hole some night and I maybe get a little scared (which they told us happens to everybody no matter how big their balls are)? Who do you think I will tell? Not Hazel, on account of girls like to hear such things as “Dear Toots, The weather is good and so is their food and I just washed my own sox” and etc. even though I may be pulling a hand grenade out of my ass while I am writing it—and not Stuke who will probably be right next to me in the same fox hole and pissing in his pants too. So your the one who is elected. “Dear Joey, It is 4:00 in the A.M. and we can hear them a mile off, but instead of getting the shakes I was just thinking about that night in Chic. when you got soused and danced a jitter bug with D. Walker.” I need to know I can count on you for this.
* * *
* * *
Yours
16. If I can figure out a way to get smuggled onto a troop transport and I wind up on Guam or someplace else with you, you won’t get sore at me.
17. If I get into trouble, you’ll come back.
Okay, but this has rules in it:
If your sick, your Mom and Aunt Carrie will take care of you the same way they always do. If you are having girl problems with Rachel or etc., Hazel will handle it. I already have cleared this with her and she is ready.
If you get hurt, I will find a way to be there myself.
18. You can’t call Roosevelt any more names until the war is over.
19. If you get wounded or anything, you’ll come home for good and tell the Marine Corps to kiss your ass.
I will even let you tell them for me.
P.S. But I don’t have to like any of this, Charlie.
Neither do I Bucko.
* * *
* * *
United States Marine Corps
Semper Fidelis
RECRUITING OFFICE
3156 EMPIRE BOULEVARD
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Mr. Joseph Margolis
236 Montgomery Street
Brooklyn, New York
Dear Mr. Margolis:
We are unable to process your enlistment application for the following reasons:
You do not meet our height requirements;
You do not meet our weight requirements;
We do not accept library cards as proof of age—especially when they have been altered.
Check with us again in five years, son.
Very truly yours,
Capt. Hank Brunner
United States Marine Corps
* * *
* * *
Dear Charlie,
Craig is gone. People kept throwing bricks through their window and painting “Dirty Japs” on the fruit store, and then some kids from Crown Heights who we don’t even know ganged up on him and broke his nose and his collarbone. So they went to California to live with his uncle. Five things I hate more than anything else in the world:
Hirohito
Brooklyn
Pearl Harbor
Hitler
Emily Brontë
And by the way, you’re a pretty chintzy sport too. You and your damned contracts. I checked the Business and Professions Code and it says “No written agreement shall be considered valid or binding if either party has been forced to affix a signature under duress.” “Duress” means Gary Cooper and Radio City and etc. So here it is anyway. Signed, sealed and delivered. I’ll see you in Court.
Joey
P.S. My Mom says I can go and visit Craig in Santa Monica when I’m 15. That’s over a year. Smokes, what if he finds a new best friend by then?
* * *
* * *
Dear Joey,
Craig will find other regular buddies and that is the way it is suppose to be. But a best friend can only happen one time in his life and your it. So don’t worry. You are safe on that score.
Bucko I really need your help with something important. All around the base guys are getting married right and left to everything from school sweeties such as Millie and Poopy and Dolly and Pissy or whoever the Hell, to dance hall girlies they just met yesterday and do not even know their name yet. That is why I have been thinking about Hazel and how she could of been Mrs. Charlie Banks 3d Base by now, but she isn’t. I guess it serves me good and damn right. I knew which side my bed was made on and now I have to lie in it. But it is too late to ask her anymore. What if she says yes just because I might get shot at and she thinks that saying no will make me sad while I am ducking? So I need you to help her come up with the idea on her own on account of nobody in the whole world does that better than you do. But watch your step. She is alot smarter than either one of us and she can smell a corn cooking all the way to S. Carolina. Think of it like a mission. And do not take any prisoners.
Today they showed us how to pull a rifle apart and put it back together again, like this is something we are going to get in the habit of doing in the middle of an air raid. They also cut all of our hair off and stuck a flashlight up my ass and made us run most of the way to N. Carolina only so we could turn around and run right back. Then we had lunch. The tray they gave us had three compartments in it. In the middle was green stuff and on the top left was white stuff and on the top right was brown and yellow stuff. During the usual grabass, Stuke threw up on the tray and nobody could tell which was the food and which wa
s the vomit.
Stuke and Shiloh are teaching me how to talk Marine, which is an important thing to learn on account of some muck-a-muck (who I didn’t know was a sargent) telling me “The old man wants a muster” and me saying back “So?” on account of not knowing what the hell he was talking about and getting to wash toilets for 4 days while I figured it out. So far I have learned that an Asshole is anybody in the Air Corps (this is one that I made up myself due to Wendell Bodie, who I will tell you about if he does not wind up being my first kill) and that “Semper Fi Mac” either means “Fuck you, I’m all right” or “Tough shit and handle it yourself” or “Hell no!” or “Glad to see you buddy” or “Hang in there on account of help is coming.” I think it also means “Heil Hitler”, but so far this is just scuttlebutt and has not been confirmed yet.
Now how am I suppose to remember all of these things and aim a gun at the same time?
Charlie
P.S. I just got a box of pointy coconut things in the mail. Are they going to follow me to the S. Pacific too?
P.S.2. Guess who turned up in our outfit? D. Marantz from Springfield and the Chic. Cubs. And he still pisses on the toilet seat.
P.S.3. Shiloh’s name is not really Shiloh, it’s Garth Puckett and he’s from the Shiloh part of Tenesee. We figured we would give him a new moniker so the other guys wouldn’t keep calling out such things to him as “Oh Garth. Federal men comin up the hill. Better hide the possum gizzards and git the moonshine out of the still” and etc. He swears he is 17 but he will probably not start shaving until 2 yrs. after you do.
P.S.4. Did you hear what Jello-Head in the W. House just said? “I think it would be best for the country to keep baseball going throughout the war.” Now he tells me.
P.S.5. And who in Hell is Emily Brontë? Some new cutie who is giving Rachel a run for her money? Tell her if she took the damn dots off her e, maybe you would like her better.
* * *
* * *
Dear Charlie,
Emily Brontë wrote Withering Heights or maybe it was her sister. They were both working for the Gestapo anyway, so what’s the difference?
Want to hear some top secret war news? The Marine Corps can go to Hell. When they wouldn’t let me join I told them I wasn’t leaving until they changed their minds, so Capt. Brunner made me an honorary private first class—which means that I get to bring him coffee and say “Next” to the guys who are waiting in line for physicals. Who does he think he’s kidding? That was the same kind of job they gave to Mammy in Gone With the Wind and she sure as Hell was no Pfc. What a pudding-mouth. And if he calls me “son” one more time, I’m gunna knock his block off. But I think I found out some things you need to know, so pay attention.
Marine: Playing possum hockey
English: Shooting the breeze (the bullshit kind)
Marine: The day the eagle shits
English: Payday
Marine: Shower of shit
English: the bombs at Pearl and others like them
Marine: Wakey-wakey call
English: reveille
Marine: Nervous in the service?
English: You’re supposed to answer with “Well, I sure ain’t crackin’ up from shackin’ up” but nobody knows how come. What a bunch of dopes.
Marine: Jam it, cram it, and ram it
English: This already sounds like something you would say.
Marine: Dugout Doug
English: MacArthur, from still sitting on his butt.
Marine: Snerp
English: Any “ass hole” who gets made Father of the Year by Mrs. Roosevelt and then skips out on everybody just so he can shoot people he doesn’t even know.
They also say snafu, tarfu and fubar, but Capt. Brunner won’t tell me what they mean. Maybe it’s classified. Or maybe he’s just a chowdermouth like you.
Pfc. Joey
USMC
P.S. I already went to work on Hazel, so don’t worry. First I sent her a rose with your name on it, then I showed her pictures of Cousin Jane’s wedding, and then last night at the club I asked her to sing “Dat Man of Mine.” I think it really got to her.
P.S.2. Guess who just learned how to play “Elmer’s Tune” on the sax? I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t you.
P.S.3. By the way. I outrank you. So when I tell you to toe the line, you do it.
* * *
* * *
Dear Joey,
When you tell me to toe the line, you better be 2 miles in front of me and moving.
We just got issued our 782 gear which we thought was going to be more pants that do not fit. (Mine are so short that you could paint targets on my calfs and Stuke’s are so big that he could have four dicks in them and nobody would notice.) Instead it turned out to be our combat hardware. We got 1903 bolt-action Springfields and real bullets and K-Bar knives. They told us not to play with them until we had training, so as soon as they left us alone we played with them anyway. Marantz accidentally shot Shiloh in the ass but it was only a flesh wound. Not even worth the candle. That reminds me. SNAFU means Situation Normal All Fucked Up, TARFU means Things Are Really Fucked Up, FUBAR means Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition and FTA means Fuck The Army. So me and Stuke started making up our own. When our top kick gives us a hard time, we say such things back to him as “SYCKMA, Sir.” Since we are saluting when we say it, he does not ask any questions. If he finds out that it means So You Can Kiss My Ass, they will probably hang us for treason.
So far I am the only boot in our outfit to get my marksman rating, even though the whole thing was an accident. At first it did not look like I was going to cut the mustard at all on account of our rifle range is at the bottom of this big hill with a road on the top, and I kept aiming too high and blowing out the tires of Jeeps and etc. Meanwhile the rest of the squad was at least hitting the targets by pretending they had Hitler or Tojo on them, but that still did not work for me—I almost killed the guy who was driving the bread truck. Then Stuke told me to pretend it was Paul Derringer’s face on the target instead. After 11 bullseyes in a row they gave me a ribbon. Stuke thinks he should get part of it. I don’t.
Charlie
P.S. Are you sure Hazel isn’t wise to us yet? Your laying it on pretty thick.
* * *
* * *
Dear Goodlookin’,
Headlines from the Home Front: our trumpet player eloped with a cigarette girl (between shows), the follow spot blew in the middle of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” so it sounded like I was singing the damned thing from somewhere in the hereafter, Cole Porter says he’s writing a new musical for me called Something for the Boys (which I’ll believe when I see it), and Ethel Merman’s favored to win the Triple Crown—they’ve thrown a saddle on the bitch and called her Whirlaway. Want to switch places? You can hunt for nylons on the black market and I’ll go live in a barracks with 75 naked men.
Joey took me to see four movies in three days: Once Upon a Honeymoon, They All Kissed the Bride, For Me and My Gal and I Married an Angel. I should have known it was your idea—he’s not usually that subtle. During the first double-feature, Cary Grant kissed Ginger Rogers and he whispered to me, “Doesn’t that make you stop and think?” So I whispered back, “It sure does. Do you suppose Cary Grant is still available?” He wouldn’t speak to me for two hours. Later he suggested that we stop by Tiffany’s on our way back to Brooklyn—a detour of a mere six miles—“just to see what’s in the window.” (Between you and me, this kid researches his assault tactics better than Eisenhower does.) There were only two items on display—diamond V-For-Victory broaches (a steal at $5,000) and assorted wedding bands “for the soldier in a hurry.” It’d serve you right if I chose the broach.
Before you boys gang up on me again I’ll give you one hint, you coward. On bended knee, by candlelight, or in the middle of Yankee Stadium, I’ll still say yes. (I’d even be willing to settle for flowers and candy, but you don’t have enough ration points.) One condition: when you ask me, make it
romantic. Otherwise it’s Cary Grant’s turn.
-H-
* * *
* * *
Dear Charles,
Mazel Tov! A mensch yet! Whatever gave you the idea?
City Hall is for goniffs. We’ll have the whole thing right here. Selmon’s Delicatessen agreed to cater, even when they found out it was for you. (Selmon follows the Yankees, he can rot in Hell.) Invite whoever you want but try to keep Jesus Christ in the hall. I’m sure he was a very nice boy with a lovely mother—but we let him in the door, we kill Rabbi Lieberman.
If they send you overseas before we choose your silverware pattern, I’ll need to know where I can wire you.
Aunt Carrie
* * *
* * *
Dear Sprout,
No fair. Foul ball. Kill the umpire. How come you get to be his best man all by yourself & I get stuck in second place? I scored the first unassisted triple play in 21 years, didn’t I? I had 8 hitting streaks, right? And so far I’m the only one in South Carolina who’s willing to tell him that it wasn’t Mickey Owen’s fault even though it was. But all Charlie says is, “Ask Joey. It’s his call.”
So here’s my plan. Let’s make him the only guy in history who ever had 2 best men at his wedding. Sort of like co-captains. One of us can hold the ring & the other one can give it to him. One of us can make the toast & the other one can drink it. One of us can invite people to the bachelor party & the other one can go to it. Sound like a sweet deal?