A GUEST EDITORIAL

The ambiguity of linguistics is quixotic. To wit:

It took a stinger to smoke out the reasoning that Uncle Sam's military bureaucrats used to determine whether a World War 11 Guadalcanal Marine was entitled to his Purple Heart Medal.

It echoed through the hidden city''s labryinthian tunnelsto archives in College Park, Virginia, almost the culmination of more than six decades of muscled inquiries by ex-Marine Corporal David Alter, sparring with military bureaucrats to resolve his request, have themadmit a blunder and acquiesce!.

After months of haggling, mandated by the intervention of Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave and a needling letter by Alter to National Archives and Records Administration, Alter received a letter explaining why some wounded Marines (and other combat veterans) do not receive Purple Hearts. Its intent and reasoning was and is flawed, said Alter, who tells us he'd rather fight them than eat.

"The type of unit records we have in our custody document unit organization and operations," wrote Timothy K Nenninger, chief of the Modern Military Records Textual Archives Services Division.

(And here's the rub): "They do not document individual personnel actions, or document casualties and injuries sustained by individuals, or provide other details not concerning the unit as a whole." And Yada, Yada, Yada.

Editor's note: Alter was an individual, not a unit, company, regiment or division. That he was hit while in action doesn't count?

Alter received a head injury, bruises and contusions when he was blown from a truck by a Jap-fired rifle grenade during a roadside ambush in 1943. Alter and the seven Marines tha t made up Squad 2 were on an unspecified mission. Selected from a platoon of 64, all were combat-hardened experts at ordinance and demolition. They were armed with grenades, each sporting Springfield '06 rifles, KA-Bar fighting knives, except for one BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle). To the squad the mission was "Yours is not to reason why, yours is but to do and die."

A strange thing happened to squad 2 along the way to..."Can't say," said Alter. A Jap was waiting and ambushed us.

If, as Nonninger says, records are non existent, how can he conclude that the documented injury was non related to a combat mission when two colleagues stated it was?

According to records, the medical team failed to compile eye-witness reports from the seven other Marines on the mission. How can a Marine "fly" from a truck, be treated for injuries and not be documented?

The answer is camouflaged in the ambiguity of linguistics.

David Bear Alter -- owlbeara@comcast.net