Free Leon Uris by O'Hara's Choice Page B

the wind lashed in, swinging open a window, which the Gunny closed as Ben refilled his cup.
    “Up in Newport in the war college, I can smell the tidings. Our military planners have set the table for the coming century and there’s no place at it for the Marine Corps,” Ben said.
    “I’m ready for the farm anyhow,” the Gunny said.
    “And I’m ready to become a respectable importer of yin-yang ebony tables and to introduce Washington to chopsticks and fake Ming dynasty vases,” said Storm.
    “The Corps is bogged down with relics,” Ben pressed on, “a bunch of old farts hanging on to feeble ranks, getting bench sores on their asses, waiting for rigor mortis to set in. I can think of over a dozen officers I’d like to put to pasture . . . present fucking company excluded.”
    “I heard you, Ben,” Storm said.
    Kunkle laughed. “Remember old Captain Penrose? Hell, he was sitting in his chair dead for five days before anyone noticed it.”
    “What’s the difference?” Storm said. “We can’t replace them with new people anyhow.”
    “Maybe we can,” Ben said.
    “Let’s have it, Major, in English,” the Gunny said.
    “Commandant Ballard is a hell of an officer. He’s kept us alive, but he spends these nights counting Marines. Senator Foley, one of our own, thank God, got some pork attached to the military budget. We’re authorized now up to a strength of seventy-five officers. That’s fifteen more than we have now. A dozen retirements on top of that would open up the possibility of two dozen new young second lieutenants.”
    “To what avail?” Gunny Kunkle asked. “Who wants in, anyhow? We’re already the shithole of the military.”
    “You’ll only get dregs through the patronage system. Look at me, all the way up to captain in nearly a half century. Fucking good thing I gave that Chinese warlord a pair of seals.”
    “Gentlemen,” Ben said, “you have just made my point.”
    “Hark, there’s a raven looking in the window,” Tobias said.
    “Evermore.” The Gunny burped.
    “Let the man talk, Gunny, we’ve traveled far.”
    Ben was out of his chair with a sudden burst of excitement. He stretched and cracked his body into alignment. “See, the problem is . . . Let me tell you what the problem is. Once we had a doctrine. We rode American vessels and kicked ass on pirates and we went on kick-ass expeditions, like yours in the Bering Sea and yours, Gunny, in Montevideo, and mine in Panama and Seoul. Now thenavy has a real fucked-up notion that they can cruise into any bay, anywhere, and the king and all his people will kneel down, shivering. One day we’re going to have to put a battalion down in some swami balmi island and swami balmi island has got a German regiment defending it, waiting for us, and the navy is going to look around and say, ‘Where the hell’s the Marines?’”
    “You’re out to save the Corps, again,” Storm said. “How many times does this make?”
    “It’s an ongoing process,” Ben retorted. “We’ve had no doctrine since the Civil War. We’ve never made a clear statement since the debacle at Fort Fisher.”
    “I remember it well,” Storm answered.
    “And I remember Sumter,” Ben said back. “Our doctrine has been sitting there, staring us in the face. When the Civil War was done, the country said, ‘War no more,’ but a generation has passed and now America wants to play with the big boys. The big boys send in big expeditions and there will be more expeditions as we plant our flag, hither and yon.”
    “Sir,” Kunkle said.
    “My fucking name to you is Ben, Ben-the-fucking-hillbilly.”
    “Ben-the-fucking-hillbilly, you’re talking about amphibious warfare, again.”
    “I’m talking about the future of warfare.”
    “Let me remind you that we got the shit kicked out of us.”
    “Because we had no doctrine!” Ben cried. “We’ve never been able to train men our way. We’ve never been able to school our own officers. Big expeditions