protection of the X Corps Headquarters, had been sent to the airport to provide the necessary security for the arrival of General MacArthur.
They had quickly established three areas, informally known as (1) For The Brass; (2) For The Press; and (3) For Everybody Else.
The area for (1) The Brass was immediately adjacent to the squad tents serving as base operations. Cotton tape usually used to show safe lanes through minefields had been strung in two lines, ten yards apart, from iron stakes intended to support barbed-wire entanglements.
(2) The Press was thus ten yards from The Brass, and kept from joining them by large MPs stationed at three-yard intervals. Still farther away from base operations, behind The Press, was another double row of minefield tape strung through the loops on top of the barbed-wire rods. Behind this was sequestered (3) Everybody Else.
Everybody Else included everyone with some reason, however questionable, to be in the area. There were perhaps two hundred people in this category, officers and enlisted, Marines and soldiers.
The entire area was surrounded by still more tape on rods to keep the rest of the world away. This was guarded by MPs, and the outer of the two MP checkpoints was located here.
Under the supervision of a military police second lieutenant, who was sitting with his driver in a jeep equipped with a pedestal-mounted .30-caliber air-cooled machine gun, a sergeant and three other MPs stopped every approaching vehicle to determine in which area the passengers belonged, if any, and to show them where to park their vehicles.
Getting a glimpse of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in the flesh was right up there with, say, getting a look at Marilyn Monroe or Bob Hope.
No one really knew how the word of his pending arrival had gotten out, but no one was surprised that it had.
“Lieutenant!” the MP sergeant called when he saw the funny-looking vehicle fourth in line, and thought, but could not be sure, that he saw silver stars gleaming on the collar points of the passenger.
The MP lieutenant got out of his jeep in time to be at the sergeant’s side when the funny-looking vehicle rolled up. His attention on the vehicle, he did not at first see the stars on General Howe’s fatigues.
Then he did, jerked to attention, and saluted.
“Sorry, sir,” he said. “The General’s star is not mounted on the bumper, and I didn’t—”
“It’s not my vehicle,” Howe said reasonably. “No problem. ”
“Sir, VIP parking is right beside the tent,” the lieutenant said, pointing.
“Thank you,” Howe said. “The two in the jeep behind us are with us.”
The lieutenant had seen the people in the jeep were a Marine master sergeant—he could tell because his chevrons were painted—and a warrant officer, and thus falling into Category (3), Everybody Else, but the lieutenant had been in the service long enough to know that it is far wiser to go along with general officers than to argue with them.
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, and raised his hand to salute again.
When both vehicles were out of earshot, the sergeant asked the lieutenant, “Sir, what the hell was that?”
“Damned if I know,” the lieutenant confessed. “What was that, a Russian jeep?”
A high-pitched voice from The Press caught their attention.
The voice had screamed, “McCoy, you sonofabitch!”
The lieutenant and the sergeant looked. One of the members of The Press had ducked under the minefield tape and was running toward the Russian jeep, which slowed and then stopped.
Two MPs rushed toward the member of The Press to keep the Fourth Estate where it belonged. The lieutenant and the sergeant rushed to join them.
The journalist, who had two 35-mm cameras hanging from the neck, nimbly dodged the two MPs intent on maintaining the established order, by force if necessary, reached the Russian jeep, and quickly scrambled into the backseat.
The lieutenant now could identify the errant member of the Fourth Estate as Miss Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune, primarily because as she climbed into the Russian jeep she dislodged her brimmed fatigue cap and long blond hair cascaded to her shoulders.
The lieutenant reached the Russian jeep.
“Sorry about this, General,” he said, and added, sternly, to Miss Priestly, “Miss Priestly, you know the rules. You’ll have to get behind the tape.”
Miss Priestly smiled, revealing an attractive mouthful of white teeth, and said, “Fuck you!”
“Please don’t cause a scene, Miss Priestly,” the lieutenant implored.
“It’s all right, Lieutenant,” General Howe said. “Miss Priestly is also with us.”