Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.metro From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Corps blessed with shower of stars Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 14:38:17 EST Message-ID: \SE B;METROPOLITAN;O'LEARY'S WASHINGTON \HD Corps blessed with shower of stars \BY Jeremiah O'Leary \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES A lot of years have passed since I retired from the Marine Corps, but the word "Marine" still sends chills of pride racing up the back of my neck as we approach the Nov. 10 birthday of the Corps. I've been a private and I've been a colonel and most of the ranks in between, and I know there are lots of really famous people out there who shared the arduous and exciting experience of wearing the globe-and-anchor insignia. So who is the most famous ex-Marine who ever lived? Ollie North? Jim Baker? Chesty Puller? Or was it John Wayne, the Hollywood star of "The Sands of Iwo Jima?" Probably it was Gen. Puller, the bulldog from Saluda, Va., who won five Navy crosses and was (falsely) believed by men of the 1st Marine Division to have a steel plate in his chest. But John Wayne did such a superb job as a platoon sergeant in "Iwo Jima," playing the role of Sgt. Stryker, that to this day his name has become a verb, a gerund and adjective to a whole generation of Marines who had not been born in 1945. Wayne, in the movies, was a cavalry officer, a detective, a prizefighter, and played roles placing him in every service except the Coast Guard. But he never served a day in the real armed forces. John Agar and Van Heflin and William Bendix were never real Marines either. Someone recently sent me a list of celebrities who really were Marines, and some of them surprised me because the only Hollywood star I ever served with was a handsome young actor named William Lundigan. You have to stay up pretty late at night to catch Lundigan in a movie on the tube these days. Here are some of the Hollywood celebs who did time in the Corps: Don Adams, Wilford Brimley, Bing Crosby's little brother, Bob, Brian Dennehy, Bradford Dillman, Mike Farrell, Glenn Ford, Clu Gulager, Gene Hackman, Sterling Hayden, Louis Hayward, Harvey Keitel, Brian Keith, Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, George Peppard, Tyrone Power, Pernell Roberts, Robert Ryan, George C. Scott, James Whitmore and Jonathan Winters. On the Washington political scene there are: Mark Russell, Mark Shields, Jim Lehrer, Bernard Shaw, Reps. Jack Brooks and Ben Blaz, Sens. Howell Heflin, John Glenn and Chuck Robb, and whilom presidential candidate Pat Paulsen. Columnist Art Buchwald, rotund as he is, was a World War II Marine. Hodding Carter III and Rowland Evans also served and so did Dan Rather, although I know no details of his military service. There were some pretty good writers in the Corps like James Webb, Philip Caputo, William Styron, Terry Anderson, Robert Ludlum, William Manchester, W.S. Van Dyck, Leon Uris and Joseph Wambaugh. If I was forming a posse or a rescue party, what tougher crew could I want than the late Lee Marvin, Hackman, Keith, Whitmore, Webb, Bo Svenson, Scott and McQueen? Aside from Cpl. Lundigan, who landed on the beach next to mine on fire-swept Peleliu in 1944, I never saw any of these worthies. In Korea, I was once snowed in for a week with actress Jan Sterling and her husband, Paul Douglas. We drank a lot of whiskey and managed to avoid Francis Cardinal Spellman, who was visiting the front line in that Christmas of 1951. In New Guinea, my regiment was visited for noon chow by Gary Cooper and actress Una Merkel. In 1943 at Camp Elliott, Calif., comedian Joe E. Brown came to entertain us. In Australia, Eleanor Roosevelt came calling at our sheep-ranch camp. On the whole, Joe E. Brown was a lot funnier than Mrs. FDR. * O'Leary's Washington appears Thursdays. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM