The Stitch

Camp Pendleton, Cal.
November 2, 1943

Dear girls,

This last week was again a pretty tough one. Amphibious operations, three two-day problems, each of them starting with a landing – and while the days are still pretty warm here, take off your shirt warmth, the nights are getting damned chilly, especially for sleeping on the beach under one blanket. So cold that I went on patrol all night rather than hit the sack.

Several days ago we had at least two days of rain, and immediately the hills started to get green again. A couple more rains and this country will again look like the paradise it was when we first came – lush green fields, velvety hills dusted with acres of nodding wildflowers.

I’ve been having a series of headaches with my platoon all of a sudden – I had a wonderful record so far as they were concerned – ever since I first got the, not a man AWOL, and in almost a year only one man had to come up before the Captain for reprimand; almost a perfect score, which was amazing. But about a week ago, one of my steadiest and most dependable men – the man who waited on table, mother, at the Officer’s Mess, decided to go on liberty for the first time in three months – got blind drunk, got picked up for disorderly conduct, resisted arrest and knocked down an MP – and he got off comparatively lightly.

Then my very best NCO, my pride and joy – the section leader of the mortars, got all fouled up in his personal life – his girl married somebody else, so he went AWOL back to Utah for four days to tell her what he thought of her, and had to be broken – now a PFC, and as such I have had to put him back in a squad, under the men he was commanding – a bad situation.

Then one of my squad leaders, a new man in the platoon, just back from overseas, refused to jump the 33 foot tower in the swimming course, then in the rubber boat training, trying to launch a rubber boat against a very heavy surf, seeing a big wave coming he jumped out of the boat, deserted his squad, swam in and walked up to the Captain and told him that he just couldn’t take it. I don’t know when I’ve been so furious – I immediately relieved him of his squad, and am sending him out of the company as soon as possible.

And to top it off, my new second in command and I don’t hit it off – he babies himself and bullies the men – if he hasn’t got blisters on his feet then his legs ache, and if his legs don’t ache it’s his stomach. I don’t like him, and neither do the men, yet he’s smart enough not to make any open mistake.

And there won’t be enough furloughs to go around to let all the men get home again before we shove off – one squad leader has an incurable Samoan disease, a section leader is having his tonsils out, one man has chronic appendicitis, and another has bad flat feet and can’t march, another has a trick knee that was ruined on maneuvers.

All this has caused wholesale re-juggling of the squads, which is also bad. I just didn’t realize how lucky I had been for a year. I just wish all this had happened long ago instead of at the last minute.

Oh well, with all of this, I’ve still got a swell bunch of boys, who I know will be a credit to me when the chips are down.

Wrote to Weyer a while ago; have been dating some Navy nurses stationed at the Santa Marguerita Hospital. Got a letter from Ed Keyes the other day, and he is very happy – landed in the First Marine Raider Battalion, which just got back from Kedova, and will surely go out again very soon.

Spent a very pleasant day yesterday, which we had off, back up in the hills, hunting with another Lt. and a jeep – strange to say we were successful, we got a deer – successful in a way, that is, for while the chase was very exciting and all that, both of us were overcome with pity when we found out what we had killed – worse yet it was a very pretty little doe – neither of us had any desire to eat it, so we rather sadly buried it. And I’m quite sure that I will never go deer hunting again. It’s got to be something that can fight back, like a great big ferocious grizzly bear – that is, if anything at all. Didn’t exactly feel like great big rugged Marines when we were through, either.

Write soon. Keep writing all the time.

Love,
Phil

***

Camp Pendleton, California
December 30, 1943

Dear Girls,

There is so much to say - somehow I’ve been unable to just sit down and scribble off any kind of note - things have been so rushed - “So Little Time” as J. P. Marquand says. And you’re not always in the mood to say things that are tender and loving.

This has been a sad time in a lot of ways. Of course, I am glad that we are at last under way. I am eager to be tempered in the heat of battle. I want to know the result of the last year and a half of work. I’m not sure that battle will show any results at all. I don’t think that it will have as momentous consequences for me, for my way of life and thought, as we of this generation have been led to believe. I think that I subconsciously expect to be shaken down to the marrow of my moral bones, and if battle should be anything less than “all quiet” then its effect should be slight. This is all surmise, of course; I have no way of knowing what battle will be like. The one thing I do want to find - expect to find - is proof of personal courage and competence under fire. I have no qualms about that. I know it will be there when I need it. But still the mind dwells on it. In idle moments now I find myself fighting imaginary battles - leading my men - hand to hand encounters with lone Japs fought desperately, in silence - stealthy night patrols which invariably, though rather childishly, bring me great glory.

It’s hard to explain my state of mind right now… perhaps not even necessary, because it’s so traditional. Take equal parts of nervous apprehension and the most poignant nostalgia, and you have it. Wondering, not knowing, even fearing what is to come, yet glad that it will be soon. Yes, fearing - not bullets or pain, but that through them I may somehow lose the great happiness that I have come to identify with life. For I have had much more than my share - I sing instinctively. Though Daddy and Rusty are gone, I still love them.

I keep thinking of the past - always with longing – Minturn Avenue – Rex the First and his game on the aqueduct after dinner - Gretchen’s white dress with wide, red embroidery - Shredded Wheat in the morning - sawing wood in the cellar - Mother and Daddy sitting on the patio outside my window talking in low tones, all night, it seemed - Gretchen looking for fairies under the Queen Anne’s Lace – Kim throwing spears of dried goldenrod taken from the lot across the street – selling the Literary Digest – the day the girl next door embarrassed me terribly by saying that I kissed her in the library, which I never did do! Tennis with Mike – playing, it seems amazing now, with Mother, and inwardly seething because she beat me. I used to be a Hell of a poor loser. Daddy laughing as he shook the old silver cocktail shaker with the battered spout that you had to hold your thumb over. Grandaddy standing by the radio that stood on the tall white bookcase and telling funny stories Watching Daddy shave in the bathroom when it was painted light blue and arguing about how to spell “promise.” The little love seat that we were all so proud of, and Mother appropriated – her one selfish trick – of establishing as her own the most comfortable chair in our living room. Remember the deck chair that rocked somehow?

The memories pour out – of Carlo, the dog that never slept, but always smelled – Aunt Is laughing about Sistie and Buzzie’s latest antics – the faint musty smell of warm brown shingles in the sun. Aunt Buck’s “grove” down by Broadway of half a dozen trees – Nana buying choke cherries by the cup, and Mother secretly but eagerly filling cup after cup perched precariously up on the roof. All this and volumes more of Minturn alone – before I was eleven - Christmases that were always happy and light-hearted and together, and all red balls and silver garlands… laurel over the fireplace, and presents rewarded by a kiss, however inadequate my blue box of powder bought at Jakobsen’s Drug Store might be - and now we are separated by distance, and more than distance.

And there is so little time to do so much remembering in… for I want to be sure I know what lies in back of me and what it means before I go on.

Now is the time to evaluate the proceeds of a third of a lifetime - to take stock of oneself, measure the capabilities and limitations - though I must be far from mature yet, for I can realize but few limitations in myself so far. I haven’t failed yet - though I haven’t tried to do much. Or was Rusty a failure?

My mind is in a state of uproar at times - questioning purposes, wondering just why I am here today. For I am certainly not fighting for any political theory - they are all too impermanent - not even for a way of life, for I have none that I know of - my only aim in this war is the extremely personal one of securing the safety of two charming women whom I love very dearly. The book says I should have more of a Holy Grail feeling - if that’s good, then I hope I get it.

What did I do on Christmas? – nothing much – I thought of going up to the Wings’, but decided against it, and stayed in my room. Christmas morning I opened my presents as soon as I awoke - shame on you, Mother, for thinking I would do otherwise. And then we got the word that we were to be packed and ready to go completely by noon on Christmas Day - which we did.

Thank you, dears, for your wonderful package - especially the pipe – which I remember asking for as we crossed third avenue going to see Gretchen - and the Bedside Esquire, which I now have to pull out of the grasping hands of one or another of my bunkies every night - and the socks which I shall wear for luck. Uncle Ham and Aunt Kit sent Woolcott’s Long, Long Ago among other things – but best of all, a handful of pictures - of them – us - the Vineyard, and some treasured ones of Daddy as a boy - the old days…. Gone are the Days. Fred with a package of goodies. Howard with some needed handkerchiefs, writing paper, and a volume of Mr. Tutt, lest I forget. Oh, and could you send me more of this paper, Mother, several tablets of it.

I had planned a big box of things for you all – Mexican shawls, perfumes, et al – but when I saw the ring it seemed just right for Gretchen – it is an aquamarine – and gold of course – but it made any further gifts impossible at the time. You’ll only be able to wear it on special occasions, formal afternoon, black dress and high heels, but I think that you could carry it off, dear. And it will accent your very lovely hands.

I’ve been working awfully hard lately - the usual thousand and one details - also I am the company’s loading officer, and have loaded our gear on each maneuver. I know quite a bit about the longshoreman’s trade now - our ships are new, and built for the job they are doing - though the crowded life in a transport is no exaggeration. The other night I figured out that 16 other officers sleep within an arm’s length of my sack. Usually you have to sleep in just your scivvy drawers – not even a sheet. And the ventilating fans and blowers whirr and whistle night and day… you can feel every step in the companionway overhead, and these lights are feeble and flickery.

A sad time in a lot of ways – the ending of almost a year of good times in California, for one thing – a year in which I learned a good deal about what is called fast living – or at least learned enough to know that I don’t care for it, or for the hollow but pretty women you meet – I wouldn’t trade Nan for this whole coast full of them.

Of some things I feel sure - and one is that it will be a fierce but short fight - I like that… a man can take almost anything for 76 hours and not have it affect him too much.

It can’t come too soon now - preparations are over and a deadly period of waiting has begun. I know we will all do well, for we are Marines, but I want to see it - and soon.

It is very late – “I will write more later, dear” quote Mother

Love,
Phil

P.S. I have your Christmas card pasted up in my locker, Gretch. Pinned up, you might say.