He then went to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he received permission for the nine ex-drill instructors and forty-one others (to be named when they became available) to go through the Army’s Jump School en route to the Marine Parachute Training School at Lakehurst.
As the drill instructors reported aboard Lakehurst from Fort Benning, the Marine Aviation parachutists would be returned, on a one-to-one basis, to Marine Aviation. He couldn’t get rid of all of them, of course; he had to keep some around-parachute riggers, for example. But by the first of the year, Major Neville’s broom would otherwise have swept a new and clean path through Lakehurst.
PFC Steven M. Koffler, USMC, of course knew nothing about any of this. All he knew was that he was being carried as AWOL when he returned from the "extended" three-day pass the Sergeant of the Guard had arranged with the First Sergeant for him to have when he had first reported aboard Lakehurst.
There is legally no such thing as an "extended" three-day pass. Absences of less than seventy-two hours are not chargeable as leave. Absences over seventy-two hours are. Consequently, someone who is absent over seventy-two hours and is not on leave orders (which will charge the time against his accrued leave) is absent without leave, or AWOL.
Steve Koffler, who did not understand this technicality, told his First Sergeant what had happened. The First Sergeant, who had had a number of "extended" three-day passes himself over the years, decided to buck the problem up to the Company Commander. So Steve Koffler repeated his story to the Company Commander, First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin.
Lieutenant Macklin, who was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, was very concerned with his professional reputation. He was a very senior lieutenant whose promotion to captain was long overdue.
Before the war, he had been stationed in Shanghai, China, with the 4thMarines. There, for reasons he had never been able to fathom fully, he had earned the dislike of the Regimental Intelligence Officer, a captain named Banning. Banning, for still more reasons Macklin simply couldn’t understand, was held in the high regard of the Regimental Commander, even though, in Macklin’s professional judgment, Banning’s performance of duty left a good deal to be desired, and his off-duty conduct was inexcusable.
Among other things, Banning maintained a White Russian mistress, and didn’t particularly care who knew it. If that wasn’t conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, Ed Macklin couldn’t imagine what would be.
Banning had entered the Corps from the Citadel, a civilian trade school, which of course was not the same thing as coming out of Annapolis. That probably explained some of the trouble such people had. It was well known that men from places like the Citadel, Norwich, and VMI were not only jealous of Annapolis graduates, but went out of their way to get them, whenever and however they could.
What happened in Shanghai was that Banning, demonstrating a clear lack of good judgment, had assigned a corporal-a corporal!-to gather intelligence data on Japanese troop dispositions, while he was ostensibly serving as a truckdriver in a motor convoy under Macklin’s command.
Predictably, even though Macklin tried to help him, the Corporal was unable to perform his mission in the best interests of the command. Not only that, but he managed to touch off a confrontation with Chinese bandits that saw more than twenty Chinese killed.
Macklin wrote a report about the failure of the intelligence-gathering mission and the causes of the shooting incident. The report made clear that the whole thing could have been avoided if a low-ranking enlisted man had not been placed in a position he could not be expected to handle. Instead of accepting the report for what it was, namely constructive criticism, Banning wrote a wildly imaginative, wholly dishonest reply in which he placed on Macklin the blame for both the failure of the mission and the shooting incident.
It was difficult to believe, but the Colonel (who had gone into the Corps from Princeton, of all places!) took Banning’s side. And an efficiency report was placed in Macklin’s personnel file that questioned his judgment, his honesty, and his potential for command.
At the time, Macklin was so upset by this gross injustice that he did not demand, as was his right, a court-martial to determine the truth of the accusations against him. It was his intention to just leave the Corps. After the way he had been treated, he no longer could serve in good conscience.
But with war on the horizon, resignations were no longer being accepted. He was consequently assigned to the Marine Corps Base at Quantico, Virginia, as a mess officer at Marine Corps Schools. He was prepared, of course, to carry out to the best of his ability that and any other assigned duty.
Several months later, he was shocked but not especially surprised, when he later thought about it, to see Banning’s corporal from Shanghai enrolled as a candidate for a commission as an officer. The man had no education beyond high school, and was, literally, a murderer.
Corporal Kenneth R. "Killer" McCoy was so called because he had stabbed three Italian Marines to death on the streets of Shanghai. And here he was, about to become a Marine officer!
While he realized that he had no proof of any allegations he could make about McCoy, he was sure it was his obligation to the Corps to see that a man like that never became an officer.
Macklin therefore had had a quiet word with several of the noncommissioned officers in the school. If McCoy could be terminated from the school for failure to meet its high standards, that would be the end of the matter. He would be no worse off than he had been; he would be assigned as a corporal.
It was then that Macklin learned just how much the Corps was infiltrated and corrupted by secret alliances, and how much power they had. Corporal McCoy must have gotten the word out that he was in trouble; for the next thing Macklin knew, a master gunnery sergeant named Stecker (he was the senior enlisted man at Quantico, and presumably had more important things to do) was nosing around the rifle range. And the day after that, Ed Macklin was standing in front of his Colonel, accused of improper interference with the officer candidate class.
"Find yourself a new home, Macklin," the Colonel told him then. "Or I’ll find one for you!"
It was at that point that Macklin volunteered for and was accepted in the Marine Corps parachute program.
He and Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville saw eye-to-eye from the first. And after a period of time, he was able to tell Neville how unfairly he had been treated in Shanghai and at Quantico. Neville understood and was instantly sympathetic.
"You do a good job with my parachute school," Neville said, "and I’ll write you an efficiency report that will take care of any problems you had in Shanghai. You should be a captain, and if you do a good job for me, you will be."
Macklin knew all about "extended" three-day passes: he considered them an affront to his perception of good order and discipline. So armed, he concluded he had in PFC Koffler a fine opportunity to make his position on "extended" three-day passes known to his new command.
He announced to Koffler that he didn’t believe a word of his story; that no Marine NCO worthy of the name would tell a PFC not to worry about the seventy-two-hour limitation. He went on to explain that absence without leave was nearly as heinous an offense as cowardice in the face of the enemy, and that he really deserved to be brought before a court-martial.