SENATOR McCORMICK

I broke my back in Viet Nam. No heroics; just happened. I woke up the next day. I have no memory of it. 

Being from Philadelphia, I was lucky to recover in the orthopedic ward at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. Nestled right up against the shipyard at the very end of Broad Street, it sat just across from Veterans’ Stadium, the brand new home of the Phillies and Eagles. 

It was March of 1971. 

After two days in a MASH unit in Da Nang, I was medevac’d to Japan. Then to the Philippines, and ultimately to the ortho unit at the naval hospital on Guam. 

It was a tough place to be. You could feel people’s pain. 

Guys were here just days off the battlefield. Their wounds had to be opened even further to properly clean them. Over the next day or so, they were treated with some kind of topical preparation. The treatment required the gashes to be left open and exposed during the whole procedure. It was a really raw process. 

After that, they could be stitched up.

I spent two weeks there.

After almost three weeks, I finally got to the hospital in Philly. 

I had compression fractures of three bones in the center of my back. The ‘cure’ meant a month or more in traction. It went from cross-eyed painful to ultimately bearable. Eventually, I could sit up and put my legs over the side of the bed. 

It worked! Sort’a. 

After they got me walking again, I was transferred to ‘ambulatory recuperation’ for about two more months. This was a transition ward to basically rest and regain your strength. It was also the departure point from you which either got discharged, transferred to a VA hospital, or like me, sent back to active duty.

I still had nine months left on my four year deal. They wanted every day of it. I wanted out. I was in pain all the time. They told me I had a critical job specialty and that I would just have to suck it up.

The recuperation ward was located in a different building, away from the main hospital. For good reason. It was a wild place that bubbled with a special kind of Marine Corps crazy. The whole ward was filled with guys who had been blown up, banged up or shot up. Many had lost arms or legs. Some were missing all four limbs. 

This very loose platoon was run by a Gunnery Sergeant who had gotten ding’d pretty hard and was getting out. Everybody had a short-timer’s attitude. Even him. Most people were just waiting to be discharged. 

The air was thick with brotherhood. On steroids. Or should I say seconals. Too stubborn to give in to their profound wounds, these corpsmen and Marines were still mutherfucking Jarheads.

Nobody talked about war. Except at night. People would cry out in their dreams. It was chilling. 

Every night, just before lights out, a corpsman with a pill cart stopped at each bed. He would pour a seconal sleeping pill into your hand out of a paper cup. Then, he’d fill the cup with water and wait for you to put the pill in your mouth and swallow.

On the street they were called ‘Reds’. They made you feel re-e-a-a-l good. 

Almost everybody put the pill in the hollow of their cheek. When the corpsman moved to the next bed, you spit it out for later recreation. Everybody had a stash. 

They came in handy for the wheelchair races. 

The massive old red-brick hospital was divided into many wings. It was a fair distance from one end to the other. To avoid the elements, each building was connected by a covered hallway. Glass and government green, waist-to-ceiling windows made them bright during the day - and eerie at night. 

Each hallway was actually two gently sloping walkways that joined midway between buildings. 

Ours included. 

We had a lot of autonomy on the ward. Considering the give-a-fuck nature of the inhabitants, it was just as well. 

The Gunny lived in his own quarters down the hall from us. We didn’t bother each other. 

People arrived and left daily. The odd outburst aside, things were fairly copacetic. Of course, everybody self-medicated. We all had our ways of sneaking in booze, pot. Whatever. Some guys snuck in heroin. Nasty habit from Viet Nam. 

So, the wheelchair races. 

This happened just after I got on the ward. 

When the weather started to warm up, we developed a kind of a ritual. 

We’d go outside in small groups and wander the grounds. A pint in each overcoat, we’d hobble along, quietly eating seconals and getting loaded on bourbon. 

We’d meet back in the squad bay, pretty well toasted, after lunch. 

After one of these tipsy jaunts, two amputees got into a drunken argument as to who could go the fastest in his wheelchair. On the ward for more than five months, these guys were starting to lose it. 

Crutches, wheelchairs and walkers gathered around to egg them on. Somebody yelled.
“The ramp!”

Everybody cheered. 

Others quickly wanted in on the action. 

Legs or no legs, it didn’t matter; guys wanted to race. People without a wheelchair grabbed one. They quickly chose up teams and headed for the walkway ramp. 

The timing was perfect. It was well after lunch and the hallway was empty. To start things off, one of the two instigators put his hand up.

“OK, hold up, Marines.”

He raised his pint to our fallen brothers. 

“SEMPER FI!”

We all took a swig. 

“SEMPER FI, MUTHAFUCKAS!”



The race was on.

The rules were simple: first to the bottom of the run, won. 

To race, the trick was to pull back swiftly and get the front wheels off the ground. Then you could go like hell down the hallway on two wheels. The guys with no legs were better at it. Nothing to hold the chair down. 

Some guys actually managed to make it the whole way. Of course, most often they’d slam into the walls, or one another. Swerving and shrieking, they’d careen, half-assed  down the ramp. 

The crashes were spectacular. That was kind of the point. Fueled by booze and pills, people just laughed and got helped back up. 

Out of boredom, a new blood sport was born. 


 
Before I left for Viet Nam, I made the most of my thirty days leave. I met a girl on my first day home. At a laundromat. Her name was Caroline. Our casual conversation exploded into a torrid ‘like’ affair. There was a lot about her to like. 

As soon as I had an ‘in-country’ address, her letters poured in. 

Caroline worked in Philadelphia as a secretary. Once I got to the hospital, she visited me regularly. The last few weeks there, I was free to sign out and leave for the night with her. I just had to be back by 0600 for reveille.

To his eternal credit, my brother Kenny would pick me up at her house at five a.m. I’d jump in half asleep. We’d speed like maniacs to make roll-call at six. 

It was also around this time that a buddy and I would sneak off the ward and go across Broad Street to see the Phillies play night games. He was finally getting off the ward after losing a fight with a car one night doing LSD. 

For fifty cents and your military ID, you could get into the park. We’d buy some beers and go up to the top of the stadium. Contented, we’d eat a couple of reds, smoke a joint and root for the home team. 

Years later, I sat across from Hall of Famer, Mike Schmidt, in a downstairs restaurant-bar in San Jose. He was in town for a sports show.

He was very gracious when I approached him. We shook hands. 

He got a good laugh out of hearing about how we had snuck under the hospital fence to go see him play. 

Nice guy. 




One day, a little before the end of my time at the hospital, something amazing happened. 

The Gunny made one of his rare appearances. He had a directive in hand. He also had a load on. 

With a wry smile, he told us that our ward was selected to go to a four-day party in Miami. 

The whole thing was being sponsored by the North Miami Marine Corps League. And Jackie Gleason, the famous entertainer. 
 
Exceedingly generous, Mr. Gleason was well known for his philanthropy towards injured servicemen. 

The Gunny shook his head. He said it was funny as hell that a bunch of shit-birds like us were chosen out of all the military hospitals around the country. 

Naturally, everybody started whooping and hollering. 

”Check that.”

He cleared his throat and began again. “Some of you are going to Miami.” 

We looked at one another, confused.

With zero ceremony, he had us choose lots. 

Mine was one of the seven short straws.

For the next three days, we got a ration of shit from the guys not going. 

Everything was pre-arranged. On Thursday, we flew to Miami in a DC-3. Not very fast, but they were cool, sturdy old planes. In Viet Nam, we often saw Air America, better known as the CIA, fly them in and out of Quang Tri.

After about five hours, we landed at Miami International Airport. We taxied to a stop in a special area. A bit wobbly, but all spit-shined and uniformed, we clambered off the aircraft. 

To our absolute surprise, the press and a bunch of TV stations were waiting there to greet us. It was overwhelming. Given the rough sentiment toward people in the military at the time. 

The following couple of days all ran together in a blur. We were fed and ferried and put up large in a hotel, all by our generous benefactors. 

Our first full day there, we were given a tour of the area and then left on our own. The weather was beautiful. Most of us went to the beach. Lots to see. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Gleason was making a movie and could not be with us. Nonetheless, his touch was felt everywhere. 

The people in whose care he put us could not have been more hospitable. 

The highlight was Saturday night. 

After a relaxing day at the hotel pool, we changed into fresh uniforms and assembled to meet our limo. All we knew was that we were going to a banquet at Jackie Gleason’s famous Golf Club and Resort in North Miami. 

At six sharp, a long black Cadillac pulled up to the hotel’s marbled entry. We got in and shuffle-butted along the plush leather seats to make room. 

Our driver was a chatty Jamaican. He said we must be pretty special to be guests at the Resort. Pulling onto the interstate, he casually let it slip that everybody really called it the Miami Millionaires’ Club. 

It didn’t take long to arrive at the resort. It was bordered by a stone wall that ran left and right of a gated entryway. A security guard saluted smartly and waved us through. Into a vision of lush tropical opulence. 

Our driver slowly drove the curving road. Coral stone walls, alive with plants and flowers, bled the profuse colors of a painting by Gauguin. The manicured lawns were plush and deeply green. Peacocks and flamingos wandered the grounds freely. 

Ahead, a mansion of stately proportions settled plumply amidst the floodlit royal palms, banyan trees and fountains. 

The entire environs were surrounded by a world renowned, 18-hole golf course. 

At the main entrance, a gloved hand opened the door. The attendant inside stood erect and welcomed us. To our right, an array of gorgeous women peeled off, one by one, from a semi-circle. Each taking one of us in tow as we entered.

They were to be our escort for the night. 

The hotel manager introduced himself graciously and asked if we would all pose for a picture. After that, he led us to a lavishly decorated auditorium, brimming with exotic flowers and potted palms and ferns. 

To our amazement, the place was already packed. 

Billowing above us, draped clouds of silk bunting gave the room an unexpected sense of intimacy. Linen covered tables in crescent rows faced the dance floor and bandstand dais. 

A combo filled the air with mellow jazz. Well-connected guests mingled with celebrities and notables at one of three open bars. 

This was a bigger deal than we could have ever imagined. 

Georgette, my new friend, was great company. She was from England. Beautiful and very witty. 

To break the ice, I jokingly asked my beguiling host for her definition of ‘escort’. 

Straight away, with a gentle poke in the rib, she told me she had recently become engaged to a former Marine officer. 

That settled that.

She went right on being herself. 

Georgette was a great listener. She also had a fascinating story of her own. She had been a musical child prodigy in England. And hated it. Her lifelong ambition was to go to America and get in the fashion business. She did and never looked back. 

She clearly had met her goals. And then some. 

Georgette and her beau were club members. In small talk, she remarked that our dinner was being held in a space normally used for swimming laps. She said they have a system to do it for special occasions like this. 

I got the oddest feeling as she explained how the wooden floor we were on had an Olympic swimming pool underneath. 

The lights came up and the Master of Ceremonies, a former Marine, called everyone to be seated. The stage was directly in front of our table. About twenty feet away. 

The MC was an old-style comic who had everybody cracking up from the git-go. After a few minutes of warming us up, he got serious for a moment. 

The band played a somber flourish and he bowed his head. With great reverence, he asked that we quietly reflect on those who were in harm’s way. And to remember the dead and wounded. And the MIA’s who might never come home. 

It was quite moving. 

The MC raised a toast to the evening. The band struck up a light-hearted samba. The lighting dimmed and waiters swarmed out of nowhere.

Amidst all the chatter, with a minimum of clatter, each had their platter. 

Of course, once things settled down, there was the obligatory nod to their special guests. Us. 

We were asked to stand. The people in the room applauded us. It was all quite surreal. Here we were, the ultimate hard core fish out of water. At the front table. At the center of all this attention. 

The meal that followed was sensational, with toasts aplenty. I had never eaten ‘gourmet’ food before. And I liked it. It wasn’t long before I started to think there might even be something behind this ‘wine’ thing. It made my steak taste so good. 

I ate like a Norseman. All the while chatting with my superlative company. 

Throughout the meal, there was a sort of variety show. With comics and talented performers of every stripe. My favorite was “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” played on crystal glasses. I am easily entertained. 

After dinner, many couples broke away to the dance floor. Georgette and I sat at the table getting to know one another better. She told me about how growing up without a real childhood only made her more determined to live her own life. 

I told her about growing up Catholic. Usually at the wrong end of a nun’s brush. 

After a while, we ventured around the crowded room. To our delight, we found ourselves having casual, easy conversations with people you might call ‘names’ of the day. Pro athletes. TV and movie stars. You name it. They were all there and having a good time. 

The most affable person we spoke with was David Jansen. He played “The Fugitive” on TV. He was quite engaging. Really interested in what you had to say. 

Sadly, but hours later, after everyone had had enough wine and conversation - enough being defined as too much - the MC called the evening to a close and thanked everyone for coming. 

One last cheer for the Marines, and we all filed out. 

I told Georgette that I had never met anyone like her. I would never forget this night.
She gave me a big kiss on the lips and a warm hug. 

She walked away and waved. I never saw her again. 



It was surprisingly quiet on the short ride back. We got to the hotel and went to the bar.

We closed it. 

Over too many drinks, we talked excitedly about our escorts, and how the night went, and how many celebrities we had spoken with. 

Hands down, it was the most amazing night any of us had ever had. Or would likely ever have again. 



The next day, I woke up with the taste of raccoon in my mouth. I was so thirsty, I drank a quart of orange juice. 

The phone rang reminding us that there was a barbecue in our honor at a former Marine major’s house. With hangovers of biblical proportions, we shagged down to the street and got on board the awaiting bus. 

I sat next to an open window. No sooner did my butt hit the seat than I rocket-spewed the orange juice out the window. I just missed a guy walking down the sidewalk. 

I hunkered way down into my seat. I felt ill. Very ill. 

Every jiggle of the bus made me want to let loose with more, but I had already emptied the tank.

Mercifully, the bus eventually stopped in front of a beautiful home on a cull-de-sac. The major was waiting there with his wife and a few of his friends. We gingerly got off the bus and followed him to the back of his house. 

A bracing back-slapper with a death grip for a handshake, he greeted us individually.
I shuddered when it was my turn.

He shook me silly and welcomed me onto his deck. It had a view of the ocean. I thought about jumping.

I wanted to be in bed. Or under one. 

After a bit of light banter, he introduced us to his stylish Brazilian wife. In her radiant fractured English, she proudly told us she had stayed up all night making home cooked delicacies for us. Like her, they were spicy, quirky and hot. 

The major invited us to be at ease and enjoy their home as though it were our own. Corporal McLaren - always inappropriate - said, “Fine. Get out.” 

Another guy headed off to the guest room for a nap. 

Endless snacks and flowing beers kicked in and the day took on a new resonance. The view from the cantilever deck was exhilarating. Waves were up from a storm at sea and distant sailboats bobbed like floating map pins on an ocean chart. 

The major appeared with a basketball in hand. He bounced it a few times pointedly. A couple of the guys joined him in a shoot around. 

While this was going on, he told us to keep it together, because later he was going to tell us about his recent journey across the Pacific in a raft. 

The major turned out to be a pretty right guy. We played choose up basketball and shot pool with him and his friends in his elegant game room. 

After a couple of hours and some great barbeque, we gathered back inside to hear his story. It was really amazing and quite harrowing. 

He explained that he had just returned from a journey retracing Thor Heyerdahl’s epic 1941 Kon-Tiki expedition. Heyerdahl’s purpose was to demonstrate how ancient cultures could have traveled great distances and met and mixed with one another. 

Propelled only by currents, the major and his mates successfully floated five thousand miles in an open reed raft from Peru to Polynesia. 

We barraged him with questions as soon as he finished. Someone asked him about fear. He described pelting storms that blew up out of nowhere and endless broiling days. Drifting with the peak and flow of the currents. Sharks. 

He admitted that at times, by look alone, they each knew they might never make it back. 

But they went on anyway. 

With the secret timing of a couple that knows one another well, our bombshell hostess flowed into the room and invited us to see the impending sunset. 

More trays of food and drink awaited us on the deck. Impressed and amazed by the day’s proceedings, we toasted our gracious hosts and their inviting friends. 

Sun and day both gave way to night. Still warm, a breeze blew, laden with floral scents.
We sipped our drinks and chatted quietly until air brakes announced the arrival of our bus. This time, it was us who shook the major’s hand profusely. We couldn’t say enough about the unique day they had all provided for us. 

We waved out the windows the whole way down his street. 

A half-hearted rally at a sleaze bar near the hotel fizzled quickly. We were some wrung out Devil Dogs. 

Morning found us at the airport. Our asses were on backwards.

With no fanfare, we climbed back into the DC-3 and took off for Philly. We belonged in the clouds. 

We got back on the ward around the time the nightly news came on. We weren’t on it.
In just a few days, the composition of the ward had changed. The Gunny was gone. So were a couple of other guys. Including the two amputees of race acclaim. 

The guys who remained did their best to give us a boatload of grief. Especially after they heard our stories. 

I got orders to Viet Nam on June 3, 1970. My twenty-first birthday.

A year later, almost to the day, I was being discharged from the hospital.

My orders said to report to Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina. I had thirty days to show up. 

The next glorious couple of weeks I kicked back at good old Thirty-oh-One Limekiln Pike. The house I grew up in. There, I reunited with my mother and my sisters and brothers. And Caroline. My family. 

Less my father. 



To get around, I bought a big honkin’ Pontiac Bonneville. It was a cruiser. A living room on wheels. 

Back on base, it would come in handy for “The Swoop”. 

This was the weekly death race to one’s home city over the weekend. The farthest I knew of was a group that went from North Carolina to Boston and back. An eleven hour, white knuckle, ball-buster each way. 

By that comparison, only eight hours to Philly was a ride through the park. Gas was thirty-three cents a gallon. 

Every day home was different. Dawns and nights spun into a puree. Blurry calendar scribbled with a joyride of friends, food, and debauchery. 
 
Tasteful. Of course. 

We went camping and fishing in the Pennsylvania wilds. Almost drowned on the Susquehanna River. Came damn close. 

We picnicked in New Hope. Then skinny-dipped down the Delaware in inner tubes. Drove my big bruiser to drink six-packs under the Jersey boardwalks. 

Some of the best times were when we just stayed home. Eating, drinking and smoking until we passed out. 

Until.

Ever beckoning. Taunting.  

Only one unhappy scribble remained on the calendar. 

‘Leave over’. 

Time to be swallowed whole again and emerge as a military person. Salutes. Shaving. Starched uniforms. 

The whole neighborhood showed up for our send-off. Caroline was riding shotgun and would fly back. 

The ignition shook the brute black Pontiac awake.

We waved one last time. And drove away.

Road trip!


You could drive to Mars in those plush, pleated, white leather seats. 

The rambling ride to North Carolina was pleasant and leisurely. Ending up at a Marine Corps base in North Carolina. Not so much. 

I reported to duty and led an uneventful life. Like the hospital, the place was full of Viet Nam short-timers counting off their last days in the ‘Crotch’. 
 
The “critical MOS”, my job specialty that had made me ineligible for early discharge, was being phased out. That meant I had nothing job-related to do. 

Not good.

Our CO did not like me. Hated me. Gave me permanent night guard duty. 

Word of this got to my father. 



Everything I learned from my father, I learned by reverse-engineering. 

My old man, Big Jim McCormick, had a double degree from Penn Wharton School. The Navy sent him to Harvard. He was really smart. And not. 

The pampered son of a doting Irish mother, the world was his oyster. After Penn, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Navy. He flew all over China sitting on bags of money as a pay officer in World War Two. 

My brother Kenny and I used to speculate where he buried the Jeep with the million dollars in it. He had to have. 

My father was a natural charmer with the gift of gab. To outsiders.

He was an aloof, hard drinking, quick-buck, ‘b.s.’ artist. To my mother and we seven siblings. 

Over my youth especially, he was more out of my life than in. 

He loved sales. Unfortunately, he never stayed sober long enough to get very good at it. Instead, like many of his generation, he believed in the ‘Rainbow’. 

The big score.

He was always scheming up some improbable cornering of some obscure market. Like the collapsible screwdriver.

Collapsible screwdriver? 

Exactly. 



My brother Mike was a Marine forward observer who saw combat in Viet Nam in 1968.
He came home and got out. His coming home brought my father back onto the family scene after years of absence. Somewhat tamed from his exploits. 

He still drank.

And yes, even I made my peace with him. 

And so, when my father got wind of my life back on active duty, he did what came natural. He got drunk. With his sister, my spinster Aunt Marguerite. Those two were jolly good drunks together. 

They polished off a bottle of gin. And hatched a plan.

They would call the Commanding General of the Second Marines. 

And get me out. 



At the time, in the State of Washington, there was a senator named Mike McCormack. Based on the similar name, my Aunt got through to the General’s Headquarters. She announced that the senator would be coming on the line. 
 
My father, no slouch when it came to grandiose eloquence, spoke as soon as he got on the phone. In no uncertain terms, he let the person on the other end know that he wanted his son promoted to Staff Sergeant and out of the Marines in two weeks. 

He did not wait for an answer. 

Around 3:30 that same afternoon, a voice sounded over the insistent pounding on my door. I startled awake. I had been up all night. Permanent guard duty. 

“Sgt. McCormick, the major wants to see you in his office. Now.” 

I jumped into my uniform and bolted out the door. In the Jeep, the driver asked me if it was true that my old man was a senator. 

I didn’t answer.

This couldn’t be good. 

In short order, I was standing tall in front of the CO. He was angry. He told me I was going to be in the brig by nightfall. 

He couldn’t have been happier. 

He called the driver into his office and told him to take me directly to the Commanding General. 

I was completely in the dark. 

The Jeep pulled in front of Headquarters. It looked the part. Imposing and scary. As I approached, a full-bird Colonel came out the door. Right toward me. 

I slammed to a stop and gave one of the most squared away salutes ever served up by a Marine going to jail. 

The Colonel returned the salute. We went inside. 

“At ease.”

He pointed to a chair.

He pulled another up and sat next to me.

His hard, crystal blue eyes locked onto mine. 

“Sergeant. Does your father drink a little?” 

“Uh. No sir.”

“My father drinks... a lot!” 



He thought so. So did the FBI.

They located the two merry impersonators within a half hour of their call. He said they got away with a warning. 

“Sergeant. What do you know about this?”

I said that all I knew was the major told me I would be in the brig tonight. I told him I had been sound asleep. Permanent guard duty. 

The colonel told me that I was a very lucky Marine. He was the general’s Adjutant. He ran the place. While the general was in Europe. 

He made it clear the general would have pressed more serious charges. I would probably have gone to the brig. Just on principle. 

But, the colonel was a salty old Marine. He saw things differently. He said it was bizarre. But innocent. 

A dad looking out for his son. Then he really blew me away. 

Before I arrived, he had checked my record. He congratulated me for a job well done. 

He said it qualified me for the early release to go to college that I had requested. 

I was getting out in three weeks. In spite of the day’s proceedings. The moment was dripping with irony. We both laughed out loud. 


Then, over the better part of an hour, we spoke about our experiences in the Corps. I couldn’t believe he was so genuine and generous with his time. 

This tough old guy, Colonel McCutcheon, had won a battlefield commission in Korea. As a sergeant, he assumed command and saved his platoon when his lieutenant was killed. He went on to learn how to fly. He was the first Marine to land a jet on an aircraft carrier. 
 
He had seen it all from private to pilot. Loved every minute in his beloved Marine Corps. 

And earned a meaningful place in its history. 

This guy was cool. Here I was shootin’ the breeze with a general’s adjutant. Instead of getting my head lopped off. 



The Jeep arrived to take me back to my unit.

The colonel told me to lay low and my papers would arrive shortly. 

“Sir. What about the Major?” 

“The Major? He’s an asshole.” 

“And permanent guard duty?” 

“Done.” 

I saluted sharply.

He returned the salute. 

“Give my best to the Senator.” 


- This story is true. jim mc cormick