Word: vernon
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...inconceivable to me.'' cried crusty U.S. Navy Captain Douglas Dismukes in 1925, "that an officer with my record should be passed over for promotion to admiral." Largely to appease Sea Dog Dismukes, who, although credited with saving the torpedoed transport Mount Vernon in World War I, was being forced into retirement because of age, Congress that year passed the so-called "Tombstone Law." Under it, all battle-cited Navy, Marine and Coast Guard officers are promoted one grade upon being piped out of service. This allowed a generous wash of war-decorated four-stripe captains, for example...
...Navy captains and five rear admirals have put in for retirement before Nov. 1. when the Tombstone Law goes out of operation. And last week three of the U.S. Marine Corps' four top officers decided that they too should depart before the deadline. The three, all lieutenant generals: Vernon E. Megee, 59, commanding the Fleet Marine Forces in the Pacific; Edwin A. Pollock, 60, commanding the FMF in the Atlantic, and Merrill B. Twining, 56, commandant of the Marine Corps School at Quantico (and younger brother of Air Force General Nathan Twining, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...
...stranger came to town, Otto D. Standke by name, 5 ft. 7 in. tall, 71 years old, with hokum in his manner and magic in his bones. Starlings? There's a way to get rid of them. Step a little closer and we'll talk terms. Mount Vernon stepped a little closer, saw the shimmering words on the stranger's golden tie pin. He was, by self-proclamation, THE BIRD...
...holes, the bird man was soon out on Commonwealth Avenue collecting crowds in skeptic ranks. In his hands he carried what looked like two thin aluminum cricket bats. Around his neck was a lanyard from which dangled a long aluminum tube. The trees were ripe with starlings; Mount Vernon was ripe for a laugh...
...done it, too, in Des Moines, Wichita, Louisville, and his home town, Great Bend, Kans. His fees are staggered to protect the customer: the Indianapolis job was worth $2,500-half is paid, and half is still to come if the birds do not return. The Mount Vernon contract calls for $4,000 in three installments...