occasionally miss the joy of helping a new Marine wife to get on her feet. Maybe I can get that joy back again."
Duke smiled into the dark. Yes, helping a young Marine to get on his or her own two feet was one of the
more intangible pleasures of the job. Funny, he had never realized that his wife could sympathize with
that. Maybe she was right and they were more alike than he thought they were.
"Okay, sweetie," Duke said. "You"ve sold me on it. Tomorrow I"m going to call the admiral and . . ." He stopped when he saw the surprise in her face. "Yes, Mike is making Simpson an admiral. But, don"t be too impressed. Last I heard, his navy consists of four people, counting himself, and no ships. Well, five, now, I guess. Counting me. Hey, would you like to make love to the whole one man Marine Corps? I"ve been told in good faith that I have ruggedly handsome looks." Duke leered and wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner.
Claire suppressed her amus.e.m.e.nt and kept him at arms" length. "Hold your horses, lover boy. We need our sleep if we"re going to start this Marine Corps off on the right foot."
"We?" Duke repeated, totally flabbergasted at the thought.
"Of course. You are going to ask Lulu, right?"
"Well, yes. After Simpson, she"s my next call. But you said we."
"Ah, my ruggedly handsome boy toy." Claire grinned, reaching for him. "For over two hundred years, Marines" wives have known that if someone had bothered to ask us in the first place, a large portion of the problems Marines have experienced would have been resolved. But what can you expect from an organization that got its start in a tavern? And, if you think I"m going to miss this opportunity to make my mark in the name of marine wives, past, present and future, you"re out of your ever-loving mind. "
Main Office O"Keefe Plumbing & Heating Company Main Street, City of Grantville Thuringia Region, Germany Tuesday, 7 December 1632 AD 1130 hours local "Here we are," Lulu said, pushing the door of the small room by the main office entrance open. "What
do you think?"
"It"s small, but I think it will do, Lu," Duke said. He entered the office, more a cubicle than a full fledged office, but it had real walls and a door. "Are you sure we"re not going to have any problems with your family?"
"Duke, remember I"m the general manager," Lulu said, smirking a bit. "Anyway, this was my brother"s office. We"ve only used it for storage since the Ring. Just consider it the O"Keefe Company"s contribution to the support of the new Marine Corps. Claire is okay with all this, right?
"Lu," Duke said, shaking his head in bemus.e.m.e.nt, "she was the one who pushed me to agree. Not that she had to push too hard. By the way, Claire is taking charge of clearing our way through the government. She also had some ideas about how to equip ourselves that she wants to explore. Do you know a Tracy Kubiak?"
"Darnn, Duke, she really wants you out of the house." Lulu chuckled as she cleaned some spider webs with her hand. "Tracy? I think she runs a canvas tent manufacturing business from her home. She used to be a parachute rigger sergeant with the Eighty Second Airborne Division. Is she joining us?"
"No." Duke shook his head regretfully. "I think Claire wants to find out if she can be our supplier.
Besides she just had a baby." As he talked, he curiously scanned the office contents for possible use.
"Oh," Lulu said. "Well, that would kind of cramp a woman"s style. Okay then, what"s first on the agenda?"
"We need to find some more Marines. Just the two of us, and Claire, is not going to cut it."
"Even if we have the strength of ten because our hearts are pure?" Lulu asked as she tilted her head to one side and opened her blue eyes in a wide innocent stare.
Duke snorted, amused. "Even then. We can only be in one place at a time. Do you know anyone who fits
the bill?"
"Not that many," Lulu answered. "People here tend to join the army or the guard. We Marines stick out
like sore thumbs. I know some WWII, Korea and Nam gyrenes but I think you mean relatively young folks."
"Yes. And I also need them with NCO experience. I think I already got one, though. Do you know
Calvin Hobbs? He used to be a sergeant armorer with the Twenty Second MEU."
"I know his wife, Nancy," Lulu said. "She once told me he was into living history and weapons. Good idea, that. He may be a big help."
"I"m going to give him a call later today, Lu." Duke stopped for a second as he scratched his head. "You
know, we need a corpsman, too."
"Way ahead of you, buddy. Do you remember Aunt Beulah"s right hand woman, Mary Pat, Elizabeth"s
good buddy? Didn"t she have a NCOIC working for her at military medical training? Dorrman, David Dorrman is his name."
"Yes, I remember," Duke said. "I was introduced to him when I was still working with Beth Pitre.
You"re right. He mentioned once that he had been an independent duty corpsman."
"He was also with the Fleet Marine Force and saw action. He"s the one we definitely need to recruit."
Lulu paused a moment, then straightened her shoulders as she faced him. "I"ve also got another one for you. But I"m not sure how you"re going to feel. Just hear me out, before you say anything, okay?"
"If you insist. But so far, I like everyone that you"ve mentioned," Duke said as he crossed his arms and
waited for her tale.
Lulu leaned against the doorframe. When she found a comfortable position, she started telling her story.
"His name is William Musgrove, goes by Wild Bill. He used to work as a mechanic at Fairmont Jiffy Lube. Since the Ring, he"s been working for the government in the repair shop. He was a corporal with
amtracks. However, he left the Corps as a private with a BCD."
Duke eyebrows went up. "A bad conduct discharge, Lu? Just tell me there"s more to his story than that."
Lulu, expecting this reaction, continued calmly after taking a deep breath. "There is. Just hear me out. I
got this from a mutual friend, because Wild Bill is as closemouthed as you are. It seems that his track was redlined even after repairs and he told that to his platoon commander, a world-cla.s.s a.s.shole. The lieutenant, a rather fresh b.u.t.ter bar, courtesy of Canoe U and the Basic School, decided to take it for a test swim anyway, regardless of Bill"s warning. His gunny was at the company, so there weren"t any older and wiser heads around to reason with the idiot. Of course, to no enlisted person"s surprise, the track sank. Bill had to rescue the trapped driver, who was not only his best friend but also his sister"s fiance. After they swam to sh.o.r.e, the lieutenant tried to put the blame on the driver. Bill lost his cool and hit the b.u.t.ter bar. He broke the idiot"s jaw."
Duke had to shake his head. In twenty years in the Corps, he had seen variations of the same story
repeated many times. "Wow, I can"t say that I can blame him. But why the BCD?"
"The a.s.shole"s father was another Canoe U grad and an admiral. Bill had to take the BCD or face serious brig time."
Duke snorted in disgust as the picture become clearer. "d.a.m.n. I see. But are you sure he might still be interested in giving the Corps a chance? If I were him, I might still harbor some resentment."
"I can see him this afternoon and invite him to come over tomorrow to discuss it, Duke."
"Works for me, Lu. Next thing, recruits. We need to set high standards for the first cla.s.s. I want down- timers mostly, with military experience, preferably as NCOs or officers."
Lulu nodded, as she followed his reasoning. "Let me guess-train the trainers, right?"
"Absolutely right, Lu," Duke replied, as he tested the chair behind the desk. "This chair is in severe need of oil for its wheels. Our main base is going to be in Magdeburg where King Gustavus Adolphus has set up his capital. It"s a river town, so we"re talking brown water operations. But if I understood the admiral"s
intentions, we"re going to end up as a blue water navy soon enough. He"s going to need Marines for both force protection and to provide his ground-fighting elements."
After making sure that the chair could support him, Duke sat down in a gingerly fashion. Lulu watched,
amused. "This means that we"re only going to have time to train one boot camp cla.s.s here before we move the whole shebang over there," Duke said. "We need to concentrate on boots who can be trained to form the NCO cadre first. We need to have a rifle company in place in Magdeburg by the end of next year. If we do the job right, they can keep running the recruit training, so we can grow exponentially. I told the admiral we can have a battalion by the end of 1634."
Lulu raised her eyebrows as she digested the news. "Wow. That"s quite a timetable, Duke. Now, I believe that Simpson went to Annapolis. They"re brainwashed with the Mahan c.r.a.p from day one. Still, I think it"s doable. It"s going to be hard on us, but doable. At least we have two advantages the guys at Turn tavern didn"t have."
"Don"t be so harsh, Lu. Without Captain Mahan"s theories of sea power we would never have had the kind of navy or, by the same token, Marine Corps that was preeminent in the twentieth century. I just wonder how the admiral is going to apply those theories in this century. Anyway, you said that we had two other advantages. What are they? Don"t keep me in suspense, Lu," Duke said, as he started clearing some of the supplies from the desk.
"Unlike them, we"ve got over two hundreds years of acc.u.mulated Marine experience. And, of course,
female logic isn"t something they had either. It"s a good thing you have me and Claire on your side."
Duke stopped emptying the desk and tried to repress his laughter. "I suspect I"m going to be reminded of that for a long time." He then went back to opening the desk drawers and looking at their contents.
"Say, Duke, I"ve got a question." Lulu cleaned a corner of the desk and perched on it. "What is going to
be our policy for women in combat?"