The End of World War 11

It is a treat for me to meet Paul every-other Saturday at seven o'clock. His 1967 Pontiac stands in front of Dennis across from the Motel Six. My legs are shot from a night of dancing at a club in Carlsbad. He had already eaten and had placed a five dollar bill on the table. His wide moon-like smile greeted me this colder than average morning. In fact, he was bigger than life. 

   "Looks like you've already eaten. Couldn't you have waited for me?'
    "You know George while a Marine, My  Coronel worried about me since I arrived at least twenty minutes early for every meeting.  I brought a picture of my wife Cathy with me.  And inside this calender is one of General Vandergrift."
     I took he pictures on my digital camera. The waitress comes over and I order the same: a pancake and two scrambled eggs. At 88, Paul Stevenson is a picture of health. And the picture of the both of them after a renewal of their wedding vows proved he could have been the poster boy for all Marines. As he said many times, once a Marine always a Marine.
     "You know George, we took our second wedding vows in a small town outside Maryland. A Justice of the peace drove up, got out of his car, and did the quick service in no time. The little town was famous for fast marriages."  I asked him a little more about the Midway Islands the battle of Bougainvillea. To simplify this exchange, I will piecemeal what surfaced this morning.
    

 'I had a few months of training at Fort Elliot in San Diego before going on a transport ship to New Zealand in 1942. The Transport Ship left from the  Broadway Pier. The First Marine Division was getting ready to invade Guadalcanal. We learned everything needed to stay alive, including hand-to-hand combat in the four months of training on that Island.  He told me that Major General Vandergrift had left Henderson Field and had left the mopping up to Paul Stevenson.   .
     "The remaining Japanese hid in the trees or inside tunnels.  Sometimes they tied themselves to the many coconut or banana trees. These snipers didn't miss often. The fruit and fish were plentiful. Anyone shot above the waist was in trouble. We didn't use Agent Orange in that war. 
      "Like many, I came down with Malaria and was given quinine to quell the terrible headaches and diarrhea it brought on. "I will never forget those nasty headaches. My head pounded like a baseball bat was hitting it. I always readied myself for the next day, except my Coronel saw how bad I looked and sent me to sick bay."
   "One of our worst days was when the Yorktown took a hit and limped back to Pearl Harbor. A Japanese torpedo hit the Juneau where the explosives were and went down in a flash. George Sullivan survived the fire only to be killed by a shark while bathing in the Pacific."
     "At the tail end of the war, I will never forget the sound of those B-29's taking off at four o'clock. Their sound shook the ground in the early morning hours. We were on Wake Island and some B-29 bombers took off for Japan. A few didn't return and some came back with one or two engines missing. 
    Some newly arrived recruits on this Island ran up to me excited. 'The Japanese have surrendered.' This  Pachuca regiment came from East Los Angeles.
    
The clock entertained 8:30. Paul could not stop talking. This time I needed to remind him. He paid the waitress for my pancakes and eggs and told me he would be busy the next week. "We are having at Camp Pendleton a reunion of our First Marine Division. You probably could make it for our Thursday dinner but it is expensive. They are charging $45 dollars for it. 
     I walked the tall hunch-back Marine to his steady 1967 Pontiac. The red but sturdy car mirrored Paul. It had over 500,000 miles on it but never meandered too far from his garage. "By the way George, could you look for a hospice for my ailing wife. No longer can I give  Cathy the care I would like to. 
    In the west, the sun had risen as smiling Paul left in his old but reliable car. And aren't all good Marines reliable?