All Is Grace_ A Ragamuffin Memoir - Brennan Manning [18]
Following the weeks of basic training, my friend Joe Mulligan and I were assigned to the Ammunition Demolition School in Quantico, Virginia. We worked with every kind of weapon the corps had at the time, learning the intricacies of everything from rifles to howitzers. The feeling was strong among us that deployment to Korea was not if, but when. Saturday nights found the enlisted men at the beer hall trying to forget about life for a while. I had no problem with that. One Saturday night about midnight we were sitting around drinking beer and I offered to get one last pitcher. A man by the name of Ray Brennan had joined us a few minutes earlier and said, “None for me, thanks.” I couldn’t believe it—“What? What’s the matter with you?” He turned to me and said, “I’m meetin’ the rail tomorrow.”
What Ray meant was going to Communion. The rule in the Catholic Church was nothing to eat or drink after midnight if you were planning to receive Holy Communion the next morning. Now here’s a strange thing. While those words “meetin’ the rail tomorrow” registered with me, I also heard something entirely different: “I’d like to be your friend.” Don’t ask me how I heard it that way, but I did. It must have been something in the look on his face or the tone of his voice. So I got another pitcher and drank while Ray sat and refrained, and in the days that followed, we forged a friendship that outlasted our time in the Marines.
We were given a ten-day leave prior to heading to Korea. I invited Ray to Brooklyn and he agreed with the proviso that we’d stop in Chicago to see his parents as well. I thought it was a swell idea. Ray introduced me to his family as “my best friend.”
It was then that I met Frances Brennan, Ray’s mom. She and I had a great connection, and from that point on, that lady doted on me as if I were her own. And in many ways after that day, I was.
Back: Tom Fitzgerald, Charlie Peterson
Front: me, Joe Mulligan
We left for Brooklyn, and I introduced Ray to my family in the same way, as “my best friend.” My family was cordial enough to Ray, but the atmosphere was full of fear; you see, in a few days we were headed to LaGuardia Airport to depart for Korea. My brother had shipped off to Korea about a year earlier, so here I was, the next son, going in to harm’s way as well. It was strange in a way, knowing that could be the last time I would see my family. I don’t think any of us quite knew how to feel. My family did know what to do though: They came to the airport to see us off. In a move that caught me off guard, my father stepped forward, shook my hand, and said, “Good luck, son. Come back safe.” I felt closer to my father on that day than I had in years, maybe ever. Ray and I left for Korea, arriving there in June 1953. One month later the armistice was signed, and the war was over. All my thoughts of potentially coming home a war hero dissolved. If you don’t get the cards, you can’t play ’em.
What remained was a three-year commitment to the few and the proud as an ammunition demolition expert. I don’t remember all the details of what happened next, but our division was sent to Japan for eighteen months. During that time I decided to play the hand I’d been dealt and use the time to work on something I enjoyed—my writing.
I adored the sportswriter Red Smith, and I read and studied all the columns he wrote. He was the first writer I ever tried to copy stylewise. Our Marine division put out a weekly newspaper, and I started sending in comments on some of the articles, especially the ones that had anything to do with sports. Someone must have taken notice, because the next thing I knew, I had my military occupation specialty switched from ammunition demolition expert to combat correspondent. I was transferred to a newspaper office where I was