Every waking moment he'd have the urge to gamble on something and sometimes even in his sleep he'd dream up new ways of self destruction. If he had a nickel, quarter, or dollar, in his pocket (which was seldom) he'd look for someone who had money and try to finagle it out of them. Liars poker, cards, dice, sport scores, or anything he could tease someone else to get involved in became his arena of expertise.

   He really enjoyed Monte Carlo night at the Non Commissioned Officer's Club but now that he was no longer an NCO he couldn't utilize that facility. The most stupid part of his dilemma was the fact that he was such a rotten gambler. He drew to inside straights, held kickers that seldom matched anything he drew, and when shooting dice had the luck of Elmer Fudd trying to catch Bugs Bunny. He always felt on the next bet lady luck would shower him with water from her enchanted pool.

   How could anybody with the intelligence to make Master Sergeant be so juvenile when it came to gambling and where did this sickness come fromthat so completely bollixed up his life? He was always confusedby his disease and devastated by the loss of his monthly pay check, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Without money, without friends, he was leading a lonely life and an aura of bad luck always surrounded him.

   He had been court-martialed twice and almost dishonorably discharged because of this mischief maker, but was saved by a once addicted ally. His commanding officer had intervened because he knew from experience, being a recovering alcoholic, once the monkey is on your back, body and soul are servants to it. He also knew in his younger years Jim had been a workaholic and after twenty years of military service was now on the threshold of retirement.

   The only thing he had gained from gambling was the lousy moniker that had been tagged on him, "Moocher." What a name it was and how well he lived up to it. When the few pennies he had left from hispayday were gone he would beg for cigarettes, or anything he needed. He learnedto use toilet paper as a handkerchief. Soap that was used to clean the barrack she used to shower and shampoo. Baking soda and salt taken from the mess hall became his tooth paste.

   His pay went to reimburse some of his gambling debts from the previous months (when his collectors could find him) but he had become a master of evasion.

   As a Master Sergeant he had enjoyed wealth and the privileges that came with the rank but now his life was one of confusion and disarray. BUT, things would be better tomorrow for he was on his way home and would be retired within the month.

   Deep down inside he had a gut feeling that once back in thestates this foolishness would cease. It was a sickness that had settled onhim in Hawaii, and like the Hawaiian rains after they had fallen and dried up, maybe....just maybe....his soul would be cleansed.

   It was an hour before daybreak, on a Sunday morning,and the ship taking him stateside was due in from Guam at thirteen hundred hoursthat afternoon. The one pleasing thought that flooded through his worried mind, and kept him from surrendering to deep depression, was the knowledge that he would soon be discharged and it would all end. But his leaving was mentally destroying him for he would have to sneak out owing one time friends, good people, money he didn't have to repay them.

   He had his duffel bag packed long before the sun would make an appearance and had clandestinely left the barracks before most of the others had arisen. Some men had spent the night in town with girlfriends and somehad frequented bars hoping to pick up that petite, intellectual, starlet thatnever turned out to be petite, intellectual, or even slightly pretty the next morning after the alcohol had run its course. Others were sleeping off hangovers.

   Moocher looked over the barracks, silently said "Good-bye" to all his ex-friends, hoisted his duffel bag to his shoulder and shuffled his way to the patio adjacent to the Base Exchange. His mind was so consumed with the thought of running off without paying his gambling debt he considered himself to be a thief. He sat at one of the tables with his head lowered and nestled in his hands. His whole body shook and hurt because he couldn'tshake the hands of his friends and say a simple good-bye.

   Tears rose. Not tears like the tears he had cried when he saw his wife suffer her awful labor pains. Not like the tears he had shed when his parents died. Not tears like those he cried until no more wouldcomewhen his wife and son were killed by a drunken teenager. These tears werethe worst tears of all; tears of shame. These tears were here and now. Tears of disgust, of self contempt, and of hatred for hislife-style.

    It was December 7, 1941, about five minutes to eight when Moocher arose and started to amble toward where his ship would arrive later that afternoon. His guilty conscience was dogging him every step of theway.

He looked heavenward and saw cloudlets drifting in anotherwise clear blue sky and noticed specks in the distance getting larger with every passing minute.

  He hadn't walked but a few feet when panic hit the island as tons of bombs fell from the sky like ripe fruit from a tree during a torrential downpour. Buildings were burning and falling and American planes that had no chance of becoming airborne were exploding and slinging pieces of jagged metal through the air as barbed projectiles. Ships, with men on board, were being bombed, torpedoed and strafed by machine-guns as people cried, screamed, prayed, and died.

   Moocher thought about going back to the barracks but there was no place he could go that was safe from this plague that was raining fromheaven. He raised his fisted hand toward the planes that so proudly displayed their rising sun and cursed the day some women had given birth to such agroup of heartless killers.

   As he turned to walk away a bomb fell on the bank across the street from him and catching the top left corner of the vault split a hole down the side a truck could drive through. Moocher could see insidethe vault and there were packets of bills everywhere. Moocher had prayed for a force majeure to cure his problems and it had just happened. He ran to the vault and with the speed and agility of a cat burglar, being pursued by a speedy police force, dumped all his clothes from his duffel bag. He started loading packs of beautiful, green, new hundred dollar bills into his bag. When he finished with the hundreds he started on the fifties and twenties. The sound of the bills filling his duffel bag elated him to an apex he would probably never know again.

   His fabric bank was nearly full and getting almost too heavy for him to carry comfortably. He carefully selected one clean dress uniform, two sets of clean fatigues, clean underwear, a clean towel and his shaving gear from the items he had dumped on the ground. He meticulously placed them on top of his new bank account and pressed close the lock. The remaining clotheshe sprayed with lighter fluid and discarded them into some of the profusely burning flames. All his clothes had been laundry marked, as per military orders,and he could ill afford to leave any tell-tale evidence. His instincts were honed to a keenness that would make a supersleuth proud and each movement of his adrenaline boosted body was directed in completing the perfect crime."Make it look natural," he said to himself as he ignited a small fire inside the vault. He added several one dollar bills and extinguished the fires before the bills were totally burned. Now it would appear the other bills had been destroyed by some diabolic twist of fate.

   Before his departure he reached down and lifted six packs of hundred dollar bills, six packs of fifty dollar bills and six packs of twenty dollar bills from a teller's drawer that had been blown from its normal resting place and onto the floor. With the adeptness of a new criminal he quickly buried the money deeply into his fatigue pockets. He started a small fire in the drawer so it would appear the money had burned, picked up his duffel bag, and scurried back to the barracks. With noticeable abandonment he threw the bag on his bed and assisted some men who had been hurt.

   Had he still been line chief his duties would have dictated that he report to the flight line but he was no longer a leader of men, only a peon among many peons. He carried three people outside where the medics had set up a makeshift hospital and then joined in with men fighting a fire.

    Within three hours things had become more serene but the damage was devastating. Moocher had never seen so many dead people at one time, noteven in his most heinous nightmares, and those cadavers he had seen had all bodily members attached. Here he witnessed the results of a dastardly onslaught that left bodies, some alive, some dead, some with limbs severed, mashed or dangling like tree branches broken by heavy winter ice.

   The restoration of the base had begun in earnest but one nagging, vexatious, thought kept coming back to Moocher. What if they returned, or worse still, it was possible Japanese soldiers had already landed and agargantuan army, bayonets at the ready, would march on Hawaii as they had marched in China. Mutilating, raping, and killing men women and children inuncountable numbers.

   He felt his trip stateside was off. Even if the ship miraculously arrived from Guam there was no place left where it could dock for the harbor was full of sunken or burning ships. A wee voice floating through his mind kept saying, "Go try." Moocher knew he'd obey this mystic specter but not until after he regained his self esteem. He scanned his list of names, a longlist, of those to whom he was indebted. He tripled the amount of money hehad borrowed from each friend, put it in envelopes, and as he passed them out heartily shook hands with his friends wishing each of them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The chagrin he had suffered for two years now evaporated into nothingness. He had cleared himself of all debt and what had started as a very gloomy day now displayed itself as a rainbow with a pot of gold at each end.

   Moocher shouldered his duffel bag and walked outside.In an hour and a half the ship from Guam would either dock, return to port of origin, or bypass Hawaii and go stateside. He was walking toward the docks when he saw a group of men fighting a barracks fire and they seemed to be losing the battle. One man was overcome by smoke so Moocher dropped his bag and sped to his side. He quickly dragged the unconscious man away from the building and called for the medics. Moocher glanced up and saw a man running from the building yelling at the top of his voice. His clothes ablaze with yellow-red flame. Moocher ran toward him, tackled him to get him on the ground, and yelled for someone to bring him a blanket to roll the victim in. Quickly he covered the burning man and tried his best to smother the flames. The soldier, glassy eyed, delirious, threw off the blanket and reaching for Moocher tried to pull him to his body. Moocher put out his hands to break the man'sgrip and pain hit Moocher as though it had purposely bounded from the burning soldier and aimed itself at the would be rescuer.

   The burning man had somehow been sprayed with a flammable liquid and now both of Moocher's hands were aflame. He pulled away and putting his hands behind him he squatted and sat on them. The flames instantly died but the pain in his hands lingered and increased in intensity. His burnswere not serious enough to cause lifelong problems but the blisters buildingup by the minute let him know he was hurt. The medic salved both hands, wrapped them in protective gauze, and told Moocher that was all he could do for now.

   Moocher looked at his watch and still had thirty minutes before the boat docked, if it was going to. He slipped his bandaged hand through the strap of the duffel bag until the strap was resting on his shoulder, stood erect, and headed for the pier. Upon arrival at the waterfront he noticed a large tender mooring at the dock and was happy to learn it was from the ship he had been scheduled to go home on. He had his orders shipping him stateside, and he was wounded, so he was permitted aboard the tender and transported to the waiting ship. His hands were treated by the ship's doctor and rebandaged to avoid infection.

   Every night for the next eight glorious sleep filled nights he was aboard the ship he watched others gamble. The winners were laughing, counting their money, telling jokes, and looking brilliant. All the while the losers yelled, "Deal, damn it, deal." Never once did he have the impulse to dig into his bank and distribute gratuities to strangers because they would allow him to "sit in."

   What magical potion had he digested that had cleared his brain and put his sanity back into proper prospectus. None he knew of. Then the truth traversed through his mind and settled on that part of the brain called common sense. He knew he wouldn't gamble any more because he was afraid of losing his new-found wealth.

   When the ship docked in Oakland Moocher had a dispiriting thought that engulfed him like heavy fog shrouds the hills in Tennessee. He'd have to go through customs. He'd be required to empty the contents of his duffel bag on the counter while one of the customs officers checked tobe sure he wasn't carrying contraband into the states.

   Military personnel embark and disembark according to rank and being a private made Moocher one of the last men off the ship. By the time he got to customs the custom officials were ready to call it quits for the day. Moocher's hands were still bandaged and his customs declaration form was pressed between them. He passed the form to the officer and with great difficulty threw his duffel bag up on the table.

   The officials had already heard a celebrity would honor their presence today. A real hero who had been badly burned trying to save the life of a fellow soldier. He was also the first man in the states who had gone through the bombing of Pearl Harbor and returned home.The uncertainty that Moocher felt about going through customs disappeared when six of the custom officers walked over and patted him on the shoulder.

   "Welcome home soldier. Was it as bad as we heard?" one of them queried.

   "It had to be worse," Moocher answered, "bodies were everywhere. People parts were laying around and nobody was sure who they belonged to. It was hell."

    "You look a little whey faced, son." one of the older men said to Moocher. "You OK?"

   "I'll be all right once I get to the barracks and to the hospital so I can get my hands fixed, thank you."

   "Here let me help you with that bag," one of the younger men said and lifted the bag so Moocher could slip the strap over his shoulder.

   "You have clothes in your bag don't you private?" another one of the men asked.

   "Yes, Sir, I do. Along with my shaving equipment. In fact everything I own in this world is in that bag."

    "That's fine, private. You have a good day."

   Moocher moved on as soon as possible. He had taken the biggest gamble of his life and lady luck had smiled on him. Two providential events had blessed his life. The bombing of the vault and passing through customs.

  Once through customs, scot-free, he felt so elated his whole body smiled. If the customs officer had found the money Moocher would have been the biggest fool in the world. All the money would have been confiscated, his retirement pay non-existent, twenty years of military service down the drain, and probably time in prison with a cell mate whose sexual urges were bested only by his muscles.

   Crowned by feelings of happiness, donned in a freshly cleaned and pressed uniform, and all his medals methodically aligned in five rows, Moocher reported to his commanding officer.

    "Private Wall reporting as ordered, Sir"

   "At ease Private Wall. You and I have to do some serious talking. Do you want to leave the military now that we are at war? You're thetype of person we desperately need. You have twenty years experience and canhelp with the training of our new troops."

    "I'm sorry, Sir, I'm only a private and I'm thirtyeight years old. I believe I can do more to help my country as a civilian. You can't force me to stay, can you?"

   "No, private Wall I can't make you stay because you're over the age limit of the draftees. I can, however, make you an offer I hope you'll accept. I'm authorized to offer you your stripes back and you can have your choice of any base stateside where we are holding classroom instructions. I can also have the two court-martials removed from your records."

    Moocher thought for a moment and shook his head. "That sure is a nice offer, Sir, but can you do better? I've heard of sergeants that have gotten direct field commissions because of their time in service and experience. I have both of those things in my favor."
 
    "I can't do that but I know someone who may be able to do it.I'll give him a call and let you know what happens."

   "While you're at it, Sir, would you ask for something more than second lieutenant? I'd hate to be the oldest second lieutenant in the military and if you can arrange it I'd rather go back to Hawaii as Maintenance Officer."

    "You're sure asking a lot for a private but it would take years to find someone with your experience and right now I don't have the time."

   An hour later Moocher walked out of the office on his way to the quartermaster to draw his uniform and his new Captain bars. He was probably the richest and luckiest officer in the Army Air Corps, or at least he felt like it. He had deposited six hundred thousand dollars in several different banks and still had a checking account large enough to satisfythe most selfish of men.

    What a magnificent difference the last few days had made in his life. He left Hawaii as private Moocher, lackey. Now he'd return as Captain James Wall, maintenance officer.