Art Buchwald's war stories.He died in Jan 2007,

Art Buchwald (late) syndicated columnist tells a very nice story about his service in marine corps.

At seventeen he hated the high school.So he figured he would join the marine corp.He went to see his girl friend in the town and she was not sympathetic.This motivated him to the marine corp recruiting office .The recruiter asked how old was he.On finding out that art was 17 the Sargent said he will have to get permission from his father and it must be notarised .Art was walking in the street his saviour show's up in disguise of a drunk and asks him for a dime for a drink.Art gets the piffany and offers the man one dollar to be his father for short time.Man asked what he has to do he said he needs to sign the paper as his father so he could join the marines .The drunk felt that it would be patriotic to do so and agreed and Art joined the marines.
When he was training in the marines he accidentally dropped a 500 pound bomb on his foot.Commanding general on finding this said he is recommending him for the naval cross for protecting the lives of 500 people by taking the hit on his foot .Then he was transferred to an isolated island in pacific and had hard time wasting away the time .
As he was a writer and wrote many articles on war he was honored by marines for his service.He also said as he had no exciting stories to tell when asked he started making the war stories .It came to the point that he was the soldier who raised the iwo jima.Then he felt it was not good enough and he became the man who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.This was the lonely life of a soldier who had no exciting stories to tell.

Marines straightened him out and he had a good life.