The Irony of It All

My husband served in the USMC -- first in Korea, where he was the last combat Marine ordered out -- and also later at HeadQuarters Marine Corps in Arlington, VA. He was a desk jockey, which stood him in good stead for a lot of the rest of his life.

We listen to news over the radio, namely on NPR. Lately he's been a little depressed. To him, Gitmo was always a symbol of the USMC holding onto a tiny bit of land in Cuba, holding off against a Communist regime. He dispairs over its current use -- doesn't say anything, but I see it in his eyes.

A couple of days ago, he went into his bureau and took a dusty dark red book from his bottom drawer and brought it into the living room to read it. It was presented to him in 1959 while he was in California, but he got the most use out of it at Henderson Hall -- it's the Manual for Courts Martial, United States, 1951. It's thumb indexed in three colors and shows a lot of use.

He was stenographer to the Commandant of the Marine Corps for over three years -- he knows that book forward and backward. He read it for a while, shook his head and put it aside. The look on his face said that someone was in trouble, but didn't say who.