McQueen nailed me with thirty days’ mess duty after he strolled through the barracks one fine morning and spotted my open wall locker. It was a mess and I got mess duty. Thirty days of mess duty per year was allowable for anyone under E-4, but the pot shack was a special hell reserved for the worst of the shitbirds. Captain McQueen believed I was of this species because I hadn’t been using enough Kiwi dark brown and Brasso. I wasn’t spending enough of my clothing allowance on starched utilities. Furthermore my rifle was in “disgraceful condition,” a special court-martial offense! Captain McQueen was of the opinion that the drill instructor that passed me through boot camp—Parris Island boot camp, mind you—was a moron. Captain McQueen said he must have been one “sorry-ass, piss-poor motherfucker” to let a “fucking shitbird” like me squeak through. What was the Corps coming to? And so forth. Furthermore, I was “the most piss-poor, sorry-ass excuse of a Marine” he had ever seen, and furthermore, if he wasn’t in such a good mood, he would court-martial my ass, have my single stripe removed and see if thirty days in the brig would motivate me along the lines of housekeeping matters. I had never heard quite so many motherfuckers come out of a gentleman’s mouth, delivered with such vituperation and in such a short period of time since boot camp.

McQueen wasn’t through, however. Who was my D.I.? And what the fuck was I doing laying on my rack reading Ring magazine and Batman comic books at nine hundred hours?