GI GENE

There is a restaurant in Woodstock named Sempe Fi Bar and Grille. It was founded by two retired Marines and they still run it. They have a lot of Marine remembrances on the walls. They also have good hamburgers. They celebrated the 244th US Marine Corps Birthday, Sunday, November 10th, 2019. I think a certain braggart was there. Apparently, there is a braggart that shows up there occasionally that brags about some combats he wasn’t really part of. They call this “Stolen Valor” and it is a Federal crime. They take it very seriously. Stolen Valor reminds me the movie MY DOG SKIP and a young man named Gene in Marietta in the 1940s. He was home from the war. He drover a motor scooter around town. On the edge of the Clay Homes, behind the newly Greyhound Station was a new school for vets home from the war and needed to learn a trade. there a lot in the parking lot sitting on his scooter telling his heroic stories. We little kids thought he was a war hero, like "Why did they need all those other soldiers for?" I don't know if Gene attended classes there or not. I don't know if Gene made it all up the tales or heard them from other soldiers. Gene was shell shocked, as they call it back then. The reason Gene was shell shocked was he faced combat conditions. The enemy was trying to kill him and his fellow soldiers. It got the best of him.