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With the Greatest of Ease

August 11, 2011

By Allan C Bevilacqua

Submitted by Allan C Bevilacqua on August 11, 2011 - 2:06pm

Smitten. That's a funny, old-timey word nobody much uses nowadays. But it's still the best word to describe what happened to Grady Colfax the night he saw her at Skateland. A big, barnlike place in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., Skateland attracted more than a few Camp Pendleton Marines in the years just before the outbreak of the war in Korea.

There were four of us who went to Skateland together that night: Grady, Roy Hale, Stan Zavateski and me. Like most other Marines who went to Skateland we hadn't gone to skate. We'd gone to watch girls. And there she was.

Nuts Rummel's Hole in One...Sort of

July 21, 2011

By Allan C Bevilacqua

Submitted by Allan C Bevilacqua on July 21, 2011 - 3:05pm

In the pantheon of Marine Corps eccentrics "Nuts" Rummel stands alone without peer. Back in the late '40s when he was standing sergeant of the guard watches with the Marine Barracks at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Va., Nuts pulled off one of the Corps' all-time classic loonies. Solely on its own merit, it was an escapade that should guarantee Nuts' enshrinement among the legends of the Marine Corps.

Chow Hounds are Born, Not Made

July 14, 2011

By Allan C Bevilacqua

Submitted by Allan C Bevilacqua on July 14, 2011 - 2:29pm

As any Marine who ever sailed in one can tell you, an APA was not to be mistaken for the QE2. The accommodations on those old transports, bare canvas bunks stacked six high, cold saltwater showers, standup mess tables, were enough to cause more than one embarked Marine to speculate on the possibility that the ship had originally been built for the African slave trade.

Sea Stories

The Speed Run

June 30, 2011

By Allan C Bevilacqua

Submitted by Allan C Bevilacqua on June 30, 2011 - 2:25pm

It was the Bobbsey twins, Jim Flynn and Mike Quinn, who got the idea for the speed run. After it was all over neither one could say with any certainty when the thought first came to mind or whose idea it was. That was nothing unusual, for if ever two men were so alike in mind and manner as to be almost a single entity they were Jim Flynn and Mike Quinn.

Next Time I Send Damn Fool, I Go Myself

June 16, 2011

By Allan C Bevilacqua

Submitted by Allan C Bevilacqua on June 16, 2011 - 12:27pm

Do you have a dictionary handy? You do? Good. Pull it down from the shelf and look up the word eccentric. Don't be surprised if you find a photograph of Louis Cukela right alongside.

"Get Away From Me, You Damn Lunatic"

June 8, 2011

By Allan C Bevilacqua

Submitted by Allan C Bevilacqua on June 8, 2011 - 12:34pm

An introduction from the book, The Way it Was: "In attempting to describe the life of a Marine so many authors have neglected the sheer, undiluted fun of it all ... [Marines] have carried within them a predilection to humor and comedy seldom matched by any other body of men."

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