MY UNCLE BILL



Proud to be a Marine
courtesy photobucket.com

                

Uncle Bill Moon lived in South Carolina while we were in North Carolina, and I only saw him a couple of times.  

As a young man Bill joined the Marines, and after serving for a few years he was sent to the Far East where with a small contingent of marines, they held a small outpost something like an embassy today.
 
Advancement came slow for it was between the two world wars and it was hard to get upgraded, even in the marines.  On one occasion a young lieutenant over imbibed and offended some of the local citizens.  It created quite a scene and my uncle Bill was sent to get the lieutenant out, because things had escalated.  He ended up wounding some of the locals in order to save the Lieutenant's life.

This started an international incident where the locals were calling for the death of the two marines. The lieutenant was shipped out immediately and in order to quell the tumultuous situation the marines agreed to drum Uncle Bill out of the corp.  The officer in charge called Bill in and explained the circumstances.   Something had to be done and done quickly to cool things down. They played up the action as being a disgrace for life for the marine who had offended (shot) the people and the fact he was losing face helped to calm the community down.

They went through with the court martial with some locals present and Bill the private citizen was sent home.  Bill was the scapegoat in this matter and upon his arrival home the government gave him a position in the post office with his time served in the marines going toward his retirement, and the raises for time served as if he had worked for the post office all this time.

Bill married a young southern woman who wasn't fat but she did have a couple of extra pounds.

I was about six at the time, and we were preparing to move to California but my dad wanted to see Bill and his wife May before we left. He didn't know when he would see him again for it was about three thousand miles away and people didn't travel as much as now.   

We drove to South Carolina and when we got there, they had planned a fishing trip for us the next day. We left around noon for the lake we were going to stay at and no one brought any food for breakfast.  The plans were that we would have fresh caught trout for breakfast (which I didn't like).

Aunt May did fix some good food for our supper, and we got ready for bed for they planned to be up early with the sun.  There were several of Bill's friends that accompanied us, and everyone was up at day break. What made it easier getting up early was the fact that they slept on the ground while I bunked in the car.

As the morning went on no one caught any fish, and about noon everyone was hungry.  For myself I thought I was going to die of starvation.  After we packed up it was still twenty miles to where we were able to get some food after which we headed home, back to Uncle Bill’s place.  

We left the next morning with a few mosquito bites received at the lake, and were happy to be headed for California.        

 

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This post has been linked with Joan Davis at: Sharing His Beauty

 
Also shared at Hazel’s:  “Tell Me a True Story” http://letmetelluastory.blogspot.com/
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