That night we had a real banquet at which I bought the champagne and the red wine. While we were celebrating I was going over the whole matter and long before I went home that night I realized that it was more than luck and a “handful of Marines” that had saved me from those seven Huns. It was manifest destiny, for I found that the reason those German planes did not attack when they had me cold was that one of the aerial tactics in vogue at that time, was to send one plane low as I was, with a strong pursuit patrol high in the clouds above so that when the enemy attacked the lower plane the pursuit planes high above could dive on the enemy, thus having the great advantages of position, speed and surprise. The seven Huns thought I was a dupe—I was, but not the kind they thought. Mine was a case of ultra-distilled beginner’s luck.
Every soldier from the General to a private sooner or later gets his reputation. It comes through observation of a man’s action and attitude by his fellow soldiers. Those who early in the game get a favorable reputation are indeed fortunate while those who get in bad, so to speak, are generally strictly out of luck for reputations are like postage stamps—when once stuck on they are hard to take off.
There was one reputation which many sought but which represented to me exactly what a real man’s nature ought not contain—this was the common prefix to one’s name of “hardboiled.” The accepted meaning of this word varied with localities, but I did not like it even in its most liberal and favorable interpretation.
In every locality except the front, the common acceptance of the term “hardboiled” indicated one who in any position of authority was a pinheaded, tyrannical crab, who was so engrossed in himself and his big stick position that he was entirely oblivious to the feelings and rights of those he commanded. In other words, one who neither sought counsel nor permitted argument. At the front, however, common usage had changed the meaning of this famous term. There it ordinarily referred to the soldier who had the maximum quantity of bravery and the minimum amount of common sense and who purposely flirted with death for the fun of it and who valued life somewhere between eight cents and two bits, war tax not included. I paraphrase Mr. Shakespeare in that some people are naturally hardboiled, others acquire it and still others have it thrust upon them. I must add another class which has grown quite common since the war is over; that is, assumed hardboiledness, and it is ordinarily recognized in the blowing of one’s own horn lest it be not blown for true enough the genuine hardboiled soldier in the fighting interpretation of that word, is strictly a man of action and not words.