Richard Overton is no longer with us.

Richard Overton passed on

He was 112 when he passed. The oldest WW2 vertran at the time.

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Once a few years back at Camp Perry an old guy wandered into the Marine barracks and shot the shit with the guys.

He mentioned serving at Guadalcanal and later Pelilieu.

He was stumbling off and was just getting out of earshot when a Staff Sergeant looked at a Master Sergeant and commented that there were a lot of old guys running around that at one time had been bigger badasses than the two of them put together.

The Master Sergeant grinned and told the Staff Sergeant he was sure right about that.

Both men had extensive combat tours.

The noticed I had gotten along well with the old coot and one of them mentioned it.

I told them that those were the guys that raised me. I spoke their language and worshipped them growing up. I suppose I took a lot of it for granted at the time.

Then I looked at the pair of them and grinned. "I was raised on the shoulders of giants," I said.

"You sure were," they said.

A couple years earlier at Quantico I was Mainside and went into the McDonald's for a cup of coffee which I took outside. I was drinking it next to a corporal and saw and old man take a huge detour to avoid a lieutenant and then he made a beeline to the corporal.

"Hey, Mac," he asked. "Where's the nearest head?"

The corporal pointed to the McDonald's and the old guy stumped off toward McDuck's. When he was gone the corporal looked at me.

"He called me 'Mac'," he said.

"That's because he's a former enlisted Marine," I replied. "Probably Korea, maybe WW2. Did you watch him skirt that lieutenant? Back then an enlisted man never addressed an officer. They were to be avoided and I guess old habits die hard. He's definitely an Old School Marine. Want to talk to him when he comes by again?"

The corporal's curiosity was raised and he said he would like that.

As he left McDonald's and wandered by I addressed him. "Hey, Mac! When was you in the Corps?"

"Forty-nine to fifty-three," he answered. " Korea with Chesty Puller." Like any marine that served with Chesty he was pretty proud of it and it showed.

The corporal started talking to him. I checked my watch, saw it was time to be somewhere else took my leave and let the two talk a bit. 

As I was leaving I heard the old timer tell the corporal "I tried to get into the Corps near the end of WW2 but my mother found out about it and put the kibosh on that. I was fourteen..." I felt bad because I knew I was missing a good story.

Those old timers were the guys that mentored me. We could use a lot more like them now.












To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY