Make It 2 Rs in Harrold

I knew this wouldn’t be an ordinary interview when I remarked to Harrold Weinberger that for a guy of 91, he was in great shape, and he replied, “Like hell I am.”

You don’t usually get that kind of response when you’re paying someone a compliment, however perfunctory that compliment may seem. Admittedly, I was trying to soften Harrold up a bit, but I meant it, too.

Moments earlier he had almost crushed my right hand shaking it, and while I had not anticipated being greeted by a carrot in a wheelchair, neither had I expected the likes of Harrold Weinberger, with two Rs.

“I’m supporting more goddamn doctors and hospitals than you ever knew existed,” he said, dismissing my observation of his physical condition.

He led me across the living room of his precisely organized home and said, “Sit down. Not there, there. “

I was talking to Harrold because he is one of America’s oldest ex-Marines and today is the 215th birthday of the Corps, in whose ranks I also once served.

While I couldn’t wait to get out, Harrold stayed for a 20-year period that included both World War II and what he refers to as the Korean Experience, retiring as a major in 1972.

He also served in World War I with the Canadian Army and, during other phases of his career, saw duty in the Navy, the Merchant Marines and the California National Guard.

Harrold, you might have guessed, liked the military. “Why not?” he demands when confronted with the question. “They fed me.”

It would take volumes to tell Harrold’s story, and when I explained I had only two hours for the interview, he looked at me as though I were crazy.

“That won’t even get us through the first war!” he said, glaring across a table.

His thinning white hair was neatly trimmed in a military manner and his eyes blazed with a ferocity rarely seen in a man of any age, much less 91.

“I’m sorry, Harrold,” I started to say, but he waved me off.

“Don’t sidetrack me,” he said.

He began reading from a manuscript he had written that dealt with his life, declaring at the outset that he was Harrold with two Rs and I should try my pathetic best to get it right.

I stopped him in mid-paragraph and explained once more my time was limited and I was not going to spend it listening to him read. It isn’t often an ex-corporal talks that way to an ex-major.

He continued to glare for a moment, then threw up his hands in a gesture of despair. “All right,” he said, “what do you want?”

I learned that Harrold was raised by a stepfather named Max Glick over whose back he broke a chair before running away from home at 16.

“Max Glick,” he said, “was the only man I ever knew who could keep a wad of tobacco in one cheek, a wad of candy in the other and drink beer down the middle. He was a mean s.o.b.”

Harrold joined the Navy but was thrown out when they discovered he’d lied about his age. Undaunted, he lied again and joined the Canadian Army, just in time for World War I.

“I was gassed once,” Harrold said. He shook his head. “Terrible stuff.”

His true love was the Marine Corps. He enlisted at age 42 and was accepted because of his experience as a newsreel photographer during a brief period as a civilian.

No organization in the world is more concerned with its image than the Corps, and if Harrold with two Rs could record its exploits, it was sign here, Mister, and Semper Fi.

Record its exploits he did.

Harrold played a tape of combat footage taken during the battle of Iwo Jima, and it was 13 minutes of stark terror.

Marines charged ashore, planes filled the skies and thunderous artillery barrages rocked the blood-drenched sands.

He was wounded here, Harrold said, staring intently at the images that flashed across his television screen. An enemy mortar shell slammed into the beach. Bodies flew.

“I looked down at one of the men who’d been killed by that shell,” he said, his voice softening. It was a different Harrold I was hearing.

“He was about my age, about my build, had the same rank and wore a wedding band like mine. As I looked at his body, it became my body, and I realized I was grieving for myself.”

He’s never forgotten that moment and thinks of it as he considers what’s going on today in the Persian Gulf.

“Any man who has ever seen combat hates war,” he said. “But I’m an old-fashioned patriot. If I were 40 years younger, I’d be there too.” Pause. “Make that 60 years younger.”

When I left he hollered, “Make damned sure that’s Harrold with two Rs.”

Aye aye, sir.