Читать книгу Over There with the Marines at Chateau Thierry онлайн

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“It’s up to us to make good,” declared Tim with characteristic bullet-headed doggedness. “The Marines have been criticised a good deal lately. Some say we ought to be eliminated from the service.”

“We’ve got to make good,” Phil echoed emphatically. “The reputation of the Marines is at stake.”

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Sergeant Phil was a year older than Corporal Tim. The latter, unbeknown to anybody except himself and his parents, had entered the Marine Service in not the most regular manner, but it was real patriotism that had caused him to misrepresent his age, which was the only bar to his eligibility. A wait of eight months longer would have put him “over the top” in this respect but he decided not to wait. He looked 18 years old, and boldly declared this to be his age, and, as some of his slangy boy friends would have said, he got away with it. When his Philadelphia father learned of his enlistment, the bullet-headed youngster was already on his way for probation at the Paris Island, South Carolina, recruit depot.