mother had assembled over a two-day period from all papers throughout the state, from Chicago, and three from Washington, at an incalculable cost in whisky and food, that he had seen his duty to join up as “a private, an officer, or anything else in the United States Marine Corps,” the newspapers and radio foamed with the news and the UP put the story on the main wire as a suggested boxed news feature because of Raymond’s mother’s angle, which had Johnny saying: “They need a judge in the Marines to judge whether they are the finest fighting men in the world, or in the universe.” The Marines naturally had gotten Raymond’s mother’s business because, she told Johnny, they had the biggest and fastestmimeographing machines and earmarked one combat correspondent for every two fighting men.
She started to run her husband for governor as of that day, and the first five or six publicity releases emphasized strongly how this man, whose position as a public servant demanded that he not march off to war but remain home as part of the civilian task force to safeguard Our Liberties, had chosen instead, had volunteered even, to make the same sacrifices which were the privileged lot of his fellow Americans and had therefore enlisted as a buck-private marine. She had only two objectives. One was to make sure Johnny got overseas somewhere near, but not too near, the combat zones. The second was that he be assigned to a safe, healthy, pleasant job.
It was at that point that something got screwed up. It was extremely embarrassing, but fortunately she was able to patch it up so that it looked as if Johnny was even more of a patriotic masochist, but it brought her anger she was careful not to lose, and because of what happened to outrage her, it spelled out her brother’s eventual ruin.
This is what happened. Through her brother, whom she had never hesitated to use, Raymond’s mother had decided to negotiate for a Marine Corps commission for Johnny. She would have preferred it if Johnny had enlisted as a private so that she could arrange for a field commission for him, following some well-publicized action, but Johnny got stubborn at the last minute and said he had agreed to go through all this rigmarole to please her but he wasn’t going to sit out any war as a goddam private when whisky was known to cost only ten cents a shot at all officers’ clubs.
Her brother was sitting on one of the mostinfluential wartime government commissions that spring of 1942, and the son-of-a-bitch looked her right in the eye in his own office in the Pentagon in Washington and told her that Johnny could take his chances just like anybody else and that he didn’t believe in wire-pulling in wartime! That was that. Furthermore, she found out immediately that he wasn’t kidding. She had had to move fast and think up some other angle very quickly but she hung around her brother’s office long enough to explain to him that her turn would come someday and that when it came she was going to break him in two.
She rode back to the Carlton, shocked. She blamed herself. She had underestimated that mealy-mouthed bastard. She should have seen that he had been waiting for years to turn her out like a peasant. She concentrated upon preserving her anger.
Johnny was pretty drunk when she got back to the hotel, but not too bad. She was sweet and amiable, as usual. “What am I, hon?” he asked thickly, “a cappen?” She threw her hat away from her and walked to the small Directoire desk. “A cappency is good enough for me,” he said. She pulled a telephone book out of the desk drawer and began to flip through the pages. “Am I a cappen or ain’t I a cappen?” he asked.
“You ain’t a cappen.” She picked up the phone and gave the operator the number of the Senate Office Building.
“What am I, a major?”
“You’re gonna be a lousy draftee if something doesn’t give,” she said. “He turned us down.”
“He never liked me,
She started to run her husband for governor as of that day, and the first five or six publicity releases emphasized strongly how this man, whose position as a public servant demanded that he not march off to war but remain home as part of the civilian task force to safeguard Our Liberties, had chosen instead, had volunteered even, to make the same sacrifices which were the privileged lot of his fellow Americans and had therefore enlisted as a buck-private marine. She had only two objectives. One was to make sure Johnny got overseas somewhere near, but not too near, the combat zones. The second was that he be assigned to a safe, healthy, pleasant job.
It was at that point that something got screwed up. It was extremely embarrassing, but fortunately she was able to patch it up so that it looked as if Johnny was even more of a patriotic masochist, but it brought her anger she was careful not to lose, and because of what happened to outrage her, it spelled out her brother’s eventual ruin.
This is what happened. Through her brother, whom she had never hesitated to use, Raymond’s mother had decided to negotiate for a Marine Corps commission for Johnny. She would have preferred it if Johnny had enlisted as a private so that she could arrange for a field commission for him, following some well-publicized action, but Johnny got stubborn at the last minute and said he had agreed to go through all this rigmarole to please her but he wasn’t going to sit out any war as a goddam private when whisky was known to cost only ten cents a shot at all officers’ clubs.
Her brother was sitting on one of the mostinfluential wartime government commissions that spring of 1942, and the son-of-a-bitch looked her right in the eye in his own office in the Pentagon in Washington and told her that Johnny could take his chances just like anybody else and that he didn’t believe in wire-pulling in wartime! That was that. Furthermore, she found out immediately that he wasn’t kidding. She had had to move fast and think up some other angle very quickly but she hung around her brother’s office long enough to explain to him that her turn would come someday and that when it came she was going to break him in two.
She rode back to the Carlton, shocked. She blamed herself. She had underestimated that mealy-mouthed bastard. She should have seen that he had been waiting for years to turn her out like a peasant. She concentrated upon preserving her anger.
Johnny was pretty drunk when she got back to the hotel, but not too bad. She was sweet and amiable, as usual. “What am I, hon?” he asked thickly, “a cappen?” She threw her hat away from her and walked to the small Directoire desk. “A cappency is good enough for me,” he said. She pulled a telephone book out of the desk drawer and began to flip through the pages. “Am I a cappen or ain’t I a cappen?” he asked.
“You ain’t a cappen.” She picked up the phone and gave the operator the number of the Senate Office Building.
“What am I, a major?”
“You’re gonna be a lousy draftee if something doesn’t give,” she said. “He turned us down.”
“He never liked me,
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