The reason my parents had doubts about my being accepted into the service was a serious kidney operation that I had undergone at the age of 12. It had left me with a 14-inch horizontal scar on my left waistline. As a matter of fact, I had been discharged in from the National Guard in 1948, after five months of service because of the scar. The Guard unit used a contract doctor who gave physical examinations to persons who had joined the Guard during the previous 6 month period.

On the night I was to have my physical the doctor came from a party and was 3-sheets to the wind. He took one look at the angry looking scar on my side and screamed, "What the hell is that?" As I attempted to tell him about the operation and that I was now healthy and feeling fine, he interrupted me and said, "You're physically unfit, boy. Get the hell out of here."

So ended my career as a private, serial number 21264875, with the Ammunition and Pioneer Platoon, Headquarters Company, Headquarters Battalion, 101st Infantry, 26th (Yankee) Division, Massachusetts National Guard. I was discharged at the age of 15. My brother, Don, who had joined with me as my bogus 17 year old twin, left the Guard shortly thereafter. He had no big, scary scar, he just decided to resign. He was 14 years old.

As I rode the bus and then the subway to the Marine recruiting station on that brisk April day, I had serious thoughts about what might take place. My first worry was that I might run into one of the recruiters, Sergeant Wolf, who had grown weary of my repeated visits asking for recruiting material. But, I had not been there for about a year, and I hoped might he might have been be transferred or that he would not remember me.

The second worry, and the biggest was the long, ugly scar on my left side. If the National Guard had kicked me out, the Marine Corps and Sgt. Wolf would certainly do the same, after beating me to a pulp for messing up his quota.

But, I was prepared to fight to get into my Marine Corps. I would not easily accept defeat. Before I left home that morning, I took a 20-foot length of quarter-inch clothesline cord and wrapped it snugly around my waist, under my clothes. Looking in the mirror I was careful to make sure that the cord covered the scar. I had tried it out before and looking at my reflection in the mirror, it appeared as though I had worn a belt very tightly and had a humdinger of a belt mark all the way around my waist. I hoped that it would also look that way to the Navy doctor.

I got to the recruiting station and my nemesis, Sgt. Wolf, was nowhere to be seen. I asked a Marine corporal if Sgt. Wolf would be coming in later, and I was informed that Wolf was on leave. Whew! One critical worry out of the way. I sat down and filled out the enlistment papers and was then told to take my physical examination forms upstairs to the medical department. I asked if I could use the bathroom before I went up and was told to go ahead, but not to lollygag. I didn't what lollygag was, but I certainly didn't intend to do anything but uncoil the rope from around my waist and get up to the medical department. In the men's room I entered a stall, dropped my trousers and my underpants and uncoiled the rope. I dropped it into the used paper towel container, straightened out my clothing and went upstairs to the physical exam room.

There were several other guys there who were applying for the Navy. At least I would not be the sole object of the examiner. At one point in the exam a corpsman checked me over for the "Marks and Scars" section of the exam report. My heart was in my mouth as he tapped my side with his pen and asked, "What's that?" But, as soon as he asked the question he answered it himself by saying, "Oh, a belt mark." He then wrote "None" under marks and scars. My hearing was tested by the doctor who clicked two coins together and asked me how many times I heard the click.

A short time later I was bounding down the street, a mile-wide smile on my face, whistling the Marine Hymn. In my hand I had a large, brown manila envelope containing enlistment papers. And I had been ordered by the recruiter to report to the Second Infantry Battalion, United States Marine Corps Reserve, headquartered in the Fargo Building, near the Boston dockyards. I had made it, I was going to be a Marine!

My mother and father, true to their word, but with a bit of apprehension on my mother's part, signed the parental consent forms and on April 12, 1950, I was sworn into what was known then as the Organized Marine Corps Reserve. Two months later the United States went to war. So did the Marine Corps and so did I, at the age of 16.

Semper Fi!

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