For one thing, while Banning was a career officer, he did not graduate from the Academy. If memory served, Banning went to the Citadel. If not the Citadel, then to VMI or Norwich, one of those quasi-professional private mili-tary colleges that for some reason, most likely political, were permitted to com-mission their graduates into the Regular Service. It was common knowledge that Norwich, Citadel, and VMI graduates were jealous of those who went to Annapolis and West Point, and that whenever the opportunity presented itself, stuck knives into the unsuspecting backs of those who had that privilege.
Furthermore, at the time, Banning's own career was in jeopardy, and he had no one to blame for that but himself. While the Citadel, or wherever he actually went, wasn't the Academy, Banning must have had the opportunity to learn what would be expected of him, in his personal life, as a Marine officer. Teaching potential officers what would be expected of them was one of the major reasons the Army and the Navy sent West Point and Annapolis gradu-ates to serve on the staffs of the private military schools.
Becoming involved, as Captain Banning did, with a Stateless Person, a Russian woman, was conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in fact, if not in the law. If the war hadn't come along, it would have meant the end of Banning's career, and he must have known that.
Banning, furthermore, should have known better than to become close to an enlisted man, particularly one like Corporal "Killer" McCoy. McCoy was typical of the enlisted men in the 4th Marines, a product of the lower classes, obviously without a decent education. For those people, service in the Marines meant three square meals a day, a cot, and the opportunity to frequently forni-cate with the native women.
There are reasons for the line drawn between officers and enlisted men. Banning certainly knew about the line and the reasons for it, and he chose to ignore it. At the same time, it was perfectly clear that McCoy knew all about Banning's Russian mistress-and God only knows what other secrets Banning was hiding. That knowledge gave him a totally unacceptable advantage over an officer.
And then there was the matter of Lieutenant Ed Sessions's support of McCoy's outrageous charges. So far as that was concerned... it was, in fact, very disappointing. As a fellow graduate of the Academy, Sessions should have demonstrated at least a modicum of loyalty toward a fellow alumnus when that alumnus was under attack by an enlisted man. But Sessions not only knew that Banning was going to write his efficiency report but that Banning had gone off the deep end where Killer McCoy was concerned, and would take his enlisted buddy McCoy's word against anyone else's about what really hap-pened. So he went along.
The usual mechanism to keep personality conflicts out of efficiency re-ports was their review by a more senior officer. But that failed. Major Puller, the reviewing officer, already overworked preparing the 4th Marines' move to the Philippines, had the choice between believing Banning, whom he knew, and an officer who wasn't in their clique. It was as simple as that.
His subsequent assignment as a mess officer at Quantico was, Macklin knew, a direct result of Banning's efficiency report. That sort of duty does not fall to graduates of the Naval Academy. But he resolved then to do the best job he could.
And then-and he still found this incredible-Corporal Killer McCoy showed up at Quantico as an officer candidate. The only officer candidate in his class from the ranks. The only one who had not spent two weeks in a col-lege classroom, much less taken a degree.
In the matter of his encounter with McCoy at Quantico, Macklin was will-ing to admit that he made an error in judgment. On the one hand, obviously, he owed it to The Corps to do whatever was necessary to keep such a man from being commissioned. On the other hand, he should have approached the appro-priate officer at the school and told him what he knew of McCoy from personal knowledge-information that made the notion of commissioning him an offi-cer absurd on its face.
His personal knowledge would reveal that McCoy was not only insubordi-nate and untruthful, but the reason he was known in China as "Killer" was that he had become embroiled in a barroom, or brothel, encounter with Italian Ma-rines; he'd stabbed two of them fatally. Some sort of technicality kept him from getting what he deserved-twenty years to life in the Portsmouth Naval Prison. But clearly a man with murderous instincts who wallowed in drunken-ness and depravity was not qualified to be a Marine officer.
At the time, however, doing something official did not seem to be the best course of action. His good intentions, his concern solely for the good of The Corps, it seemed at the time, might be misunderstood.
If he had done something official, the question could very well have been raised, "Who is Lieutenant Macklin"? His service records would have proba-bly been examined. And they contained, of course, Banning's efficiency re-port. Until his performance of duty proved how unjust it was, the less frequently that efficiency report came to light, of course, the better.
And, of course, as an officer and a gentleman, it was beneath him to bear Killer McCoy any ill will. It wasn't, in the final analysis, McCoy's fault that he was in Officer Candidate School. Banning had arranged for that, written him an absolutely unbelievable letter of recommendation.
McCoy belonged in the ranks. In time, under the leadership of other offi-cers, he would probably become a decent sergeant. So the thing to do was to get him back to the ranks. Failing to make it through Officer Candidate School, with his background, was to be expected.
At the Club, he spoke to one of McCoy's tactical officers. Without getting into specifics, he made it quite clear that commissioning Killer McCoy would be a disaster. That officer also believed it ill-advised at the very least to com-mission a high-school graduate; and he seemed sympathetic to the idea of re-turning McCoy to the ranks by seeing that he failed Officer Candidate School, if not academically, then in the areas of "potential leadership" and "charac-ter."
That probably would have worked. However, at the time it seemed a good idea that there be some failure on McCoy's part on the military aspects of the course. Arranging for McCoy to fail the course's marksmanship requirements seemed a good way to do that.
Such a failure would do McCoy no lasting harm. As soon as he was back in the ranks, he would be given the opportunity to refire the standard course, and he could probably do that. In the meantime, he would be dropped from Officer Candidate School.
But the Post Sergeant Major put his nose in where it properly had no place and challenged McCoy's rifle range scores. McCoy fired again for record, and qualified as High Expert.
Shortly afterward, Macklin was called into the office of Deputy School Commandant, where he was told it would be in his best interests to apply for a transfer. There was no question in Macklin's mind that the Sergeant Major had gone to the Deputy Commandant, carrying tales about what he thought Mack-lin had been doing in the rifle range butts.
His application for parachute duty was quickly approved. And from there things moved quickly. First, they grew worse with the transfer to the Pacific and the invasion of Guadalcanal. It was only by the grace of God that he wasn't killed during the invasion. Quite literally, he missed death by inches.
But then, in the hospital in Australia where he was sent for treatment of his wounds, things started to get better. He was selected to participate in the First War Bond Tour, as a wounded Guadalcanal veteran. He did so well dealing with the public that on the completion of Tour I, the public relations people asked that he be permanently assigned to supervise Tour II.