Guy had a new tattoo. It was only three days old, and it wasn’t fully healed yet. He wore a bandage on his left forearm a couple days, but he took it off for Saturday night. Guy wanted everyone to know that he was a U.S. Marine. The tattoo showed a bulldog, wearing a drill instructor’s hat, with the letters U.S.M.C.

There were four of us that night. We were stationed on the windward side of Oahu, but we’d come in to Honolulu to drink beer. As would be expected with young men, we would have been open to any romance that we might encounter. Romance, of course, was a euphemism; our interests had a more basic thrust.

The Army operated an E-Club at Fort DeRussy, which was right on Waikiki Beach. Any military enlisted man could use any E-Club, and it was hard to beat the location of Fort DeRussy. We’d get loaded first on cheap E-Club beers, then hit some nightclubs, sip more expensive beer, and try our luck.

First we drank, and bullshitted. Johnny Cash entertained us from the jukebox. When we were properly loaded, we left Fort DeRussy, and walked along the beach to check out the nightclubs.

Eventually we found a spot that looked promising. We nursed some beers and checked out the scene. Near us was a large group of men and women. They appeared to be quite a bit older, like 30 or so. We were encouraged by the fact that there were more women in the group than men. We were staring unashamedly, hoping that they were as drunk as we were. They were.

One woman came up to me and asked me to dance. I was then, as now, a non-dancer. No one, least of all me, can explain how an above average athlete who loves music can be so totally lame on the dance floor, but that flaw persists. I did manage to stagger out to the floor and wrestle around with the woman while the slow music played.

She then proposed to teach me a new dance. It involved linking elbows, back to back, with heels together, and then putting toes together and heels apart. It involved buttocks touching buttocks, and I thought it was a fun activity. Probably one is supposed to keep time with the music – but I couldn’t have done that sober.

During the course of this, the band was playing, so it counted as dancing, I suppose. We continued to wrestle/butt dance for a while. My buddies watched and drank. This older woman and I seemed to be hitting it off well, for new friends. I had high hopes. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she wasn’t hideous, either (she probably thought the same of me). She was somewhere in between, which I thought was very good fortune for a young pup with short hair and a thin wallet. I thought she looked pretty good for a woman of her age.

After a time one of the guys from her group and spoke quietly into my ear. “Her husband has been watching you, and he’s not amused,” he said. I’d assumed she was single; she’d approached me. Then the guy went on, “He’s not even a little bit happy. He went up to the room, and said something about getting a gun.” Was it true, or not? Probably not, but I didn’t wait to find out. I grabbed my half empty beer and hit the beach. Lewie, Tom, and Guy followed after me.

Guy must have had more than one sipping beer at the nightclub, because he was in even worse shape than the rest of us. He decided to climb a coconut palm, for reasons that weren’t particularly clear. He fell off a couple of times before giving up. Fortunately, he was too intoxicated to achieve any height in his attempts. It wasn’t far to the sand below. He became angry that his friends were laughing at him. He decided that he was going to fight.

He came at me first. I had something like a 50-pound advantage, and every time he rushed me I would push him down into the sand. He tried Tom next. Tom was about my size, and pushed him off as I had. Guy decided to try to fight Lew, who more in his weight class. Lewie couldn’t fend him off, so the fight was on.

Tom and I, rather than separate our two friends, watched. They were well matched. Although Lew was not as drunk as Guy, he was still more than a little tipsy. They hit each other a couple of times. Guy managed to throw Lew down, and get on top of him.

Lew bit Guy. On the left forearm. It was not a gentle nip. It was a full and vicious bite, worth of a large dog. Guy screamed in pain and anger, and jumped to his feet.

“You ruined it,” said Guy. “That tattoo cost me a lot of money. My new tattoo, and now it’s totally f####d!”

Were his eyes a little moist? I thought maybe. There were eight tooth marks, four upper and four lower, coming right through the fresh tattoo. It was bleeding. It was beyond any repair. Lew was totally unsympathetic, reminding Guy, in rather plain language, whom had been the aggressor. Tom and I found it all rather amusing. The tattoo became infected, of course. It finally did heal in time, but with eight tooth marks as permanent features.

Our time in Hawaii didn’t last. 1/27 was deactivated, and we were sent to Vietnam as replacement troops, to separate units. Tom served a full 13-month tour. Lew and I were reunited at Great Lakes Naval Hospital after sustaining serious wounds.

Lew is Dr. Lewie, Ph.D., now, and teaches at the university level. Tom owns a business in Lansing. I retired from the State of Michigan after having been a social worker at Department of Social Services, and a field agent for Department of Corrections. I do part-time work investigative work for the court. We never heard what happened to Guy. I hope that he made it home safely, and that his mutilated tattoo is the worst of his wounds.

A photograph was taken early during the evening described. Thanks go to Tom for sending it. I’m on the left, with Lew next to me, Tom next to him, and Guy on the right.  I’m wearing a yellow shirt with blue flowers, over orange shorts with green flowers, and, of course, government issued eyeglasses.

My wife, who had the good fortune to meet me after my time in the military, looked at the photo for a nanosecond, and remarked, “I see you had your same fashion sense even back then.”