A Tribute to a Marine

Our mothers were three Irish sisters.  Fred’s mother, my Aunt Viola married a gentleman from Finland and they had five children, Fred was the youngest of three brothers and one sister.  Gerry’s mom, Aunt Geneva married and Irishman and they produced a family of twelve, four boys and eight girls, Gerry was the eighth child.  My mom, Alta married a Swede and I was right in the middle of nine children, one boy and eight girls.

The whole family was very close, but the three of us just seemed to develop a deep bond and Gerry and I often went riding with Fred in his old Chevy coupe.  For as long as I can remember, Fred wanted to be a Marine.  On our rides he would always bring a book he called his Marine bible, and Gerry and I would read to him while he drove mostly over what we called the Burma Road in Lordship, Connecticut.  The road had signs every mile advertising Burma Shave.

Gerry and Fred were older than me, and I cannot remember what ages we were, but when Fred was old enough to join the Marines he applied and was not accepted.  I am not sure what reason they gave him, he certainly looked the part, big and muscular, with the stern face I would expect on a military man.  My sisters always said it was because he was not the brightest person in the family.  But he persisted with his desire to join the Marines, and while he waited to be accepted he joined the paratroopers, 101 Airborne.  He looked magnificent in his uniform.  When on leave from boot camp he taught me to “spit and polish” his boots, saying that when he became a Marine he had to look good.

Sometime along the way he met a girl, Cathy, a beautiful blond with big blue eyes, and Fred (maybe too soon) gave her a diamond ring and said he would send his checks to her and she could bank them so that when he got into the Marine Corps they would be married.  I remember a song that year “Cathy’s Clown” by the Everly Brothers, it was what people began to call Fred.  It seems that Cathy pawned the ring, shortly after he left and took all the money he had sent her, and then wrote him a “Dear John” letter.  I am sure he was devastated, but he never talked about it.