Tuesday, July 5, 2016

THE WORLD'S GREATEST SALESMAN



The World’s Greatest Salesman


Willow Grove, Pennsylvania is a suburb about twenty miles north of Philadelphia. It was once famous as the home of Willow Grove Park.  In its heyday, beginning in the late 1800’s, until the arrival of theme parks like Disneyland in the Fifties, it was considered the jewel of American amusement parks.  John Phillip Sousa and his band played there in the music pavilion from 1901 through 1926.  The park closed forever in 1975.

Now a populated suburb, the area still retains much of its earlier, wooded charm. Today, the Willow Grove Mall stands on the grounds where my brother Michael and I once threw pennies from the top of the Ferris wheel as the other great rides soared and whirled.

In March of 1968, above a furniture store across from Willow Grove Park, my whole world changed.  The month before, President Johnson was caught flat-footed by the success of the Viet Cong’s Tet Offensive in Viet Nam.  Even though later accounts show that he was never really behind the war, he felt pressured to do something.

In late February, he gave a speech announcing that the United States would help raise a total of 600,000 men to defeat the communist insurgency there. It was the hoary old ‘Domino Theory’ dragged out once again to justify action in Southeast Asia. 

In the main, only Korea and Australia offered any meaningful international representation.  In actual fact, the decree had the effect of broadening the US draft beyond just those needed for hard to find specialties. 

Even though it would be a full year before an official increase in call-ups using a lottery system came about, anyone not in college or married with children had much to fear.

As a recent two-months-in-community-college dropout, I was working as a pick-up and delivery boy for a Cadillac agency.  All of a sudden, me and everyone like me had a new found bulls eye on our back.  In the order of what you wanted to avoid, most everyone wanted to avoid being drafted into the Army. 

The Army had the lowest standards for entry.  It was not uncommon for judges in those days to offer to drop charges for certain crimes if the offender were to join the Army for two years.  Most everybody who was drafted, or who was forced to join that way, ended up in Viet Nam in short order.

There was plenty of subterfuge on the part of the wealthy and well-placed.  It was standard procedure for the sons of congressmen to end up in the Army Reserve or, like George Bush, to get a commission in the Air Force Reserve.  For these ‘patriots’, it meant they could “soft-serve” right here in the good ole US of A.  

For me, no such luck.  I thought.

I climbed the stairs inside the doorway next to the furniture store. Directly ahead was the Air Force Recruiter’s office.  To the right was the Marine Corps and to the right of them was the Army.  At the end of the hallway was the Navy.

Everybody wanted to get into the Air Force because they were least likely to be directly in combat.  Figuring I had nothing to lose, I went in and met with the recruiter.  He was the first real military person I ever met and I was surprised at how pleasant he was.

We spoke for a bit and then he had me take a test. All inside of forty-five minutes, I learned that I passed the entry test, and that I was accepted for a three year enlistment, in ‘technology’.  And then came the kicker.

The recruiter shakes my hand and tells me he has even better news.  He said I was eligible for their “Exclusive 120 Day Delay Plan”.  This meant that I wouldn’t have to report for training for ONE-HUNDRED and TWENTY DAYS!

I said, “Great!”  He said, “Great… see you in a-hundred-twenty days.”

Knowing that I had beaten the odds and gotten into the Air Force,  I left his office beaming. I had taken maybe a step and a half.  And then.  I didn’t see him in his doorway, but I heard him. 

“Hey kid.”  I looked up and saw a tall, muscular man in a khaki shirt and green pants.  He had a calm, yet forceful manner.  “Did you just join the Air Force?”

I stopped in my tracks. “Uh, yeah.”

He had a subtle, commanding tone to his voice.  “When you goin’ in?”

I answered without thinking.  “Uh, a hundred and twenty days.”

“C’mere.  What’s your name?”

Blindly, I answered, “Uh, Jim McCormick.”

In a flash… he snaps back, “Why, I signed up a Mike McCormick two years ago.  Brown hair.  Chipped tooth.”

I looked at him in amazement.

He went into his office.  “C’mere.  Got something to show you.”

I never heard the door slam.  

Inside, I learned about the bravery, toughness and commitment that is the hallmark of being a Marine.  I told him that I was not anything like my brother.  He was always wiry tough.  He had just survived Tet and was in combat as an artillery forward observer at that very moment.  I told him I didn’t think I had what it takes.

He rejected the idea out of hand.  He got right in front of my face, almost nose to nose.  He told me that Parris Island would bring out in me what it brings out in all true Marines.  Their honor.  And the ability to do anything they set their minds to.

I was floored.  

“You in…!”  Almost without thinking, I said, “I’m in!”

Done.

Inside of the same forty-five minutes that the other recruiter had taken, this seasoned Marine First Sergeant had me signed up for not three, but FOUR years, and some vague mention about the possibility of ‘technology’. 

Almost in passing, I asked him, “Well, wait a minute. I thought I already joined the Air Force!”

He folded his arms in front of his medal-filled chest and laughed.

“You didn’t sign anything did you?”

“Uh, no.”

“No.  You just said you’d come back in one hundred and twenty days.  You would have signed then.

He beamed.  

“Son, you’ll be a Marine by then.”

Three days later I found myself being yanked out of a bus by the shirt and pushed onto footprints painted on the macadam.  And thus began my introduction to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina.

But, that’s another story.

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