Post #460638 by Jungle Trader on Tue, Jun 9, 2009 10:20 PM

I've had enough crap so I'll give you a gem found inside.
This under "Restricted Security Information" an excerpt by James Michener from the book "The Tale Of South Pacific", a book I found in an antique store.

"Toward the end of World War II. I got one of the best breaks of my life. I was stationed on a rear-area South Pacific island where the commander, a good guy, was determined to make an extra stripe. To insure his promotion, he kept his roster as crowded as possible, so that even though I had nothing to do I was reported as absolutely essential. I complained, but it didn't do any good because my commander's boss was trying to make admiral--and he needed all the people under him, too.

The system left me free to do pretty much as I wished, on a remarkably savage yet lovely island. I had as my assistants a wonderful Tennessee shoemaker named Jim, a cocky little Los Angeles Mexican named Garcia, and a worldly-wise Maine storekeeper named Morrison. To them I turned over all my naval responsibilities and the use of my jeep at night. It was little Garcia who thought up the idea that kept me out of trouble. Whenever anyone asked for me, he replied, "Mr. Michener is on the other side of the island...on important business."

Actually, my days were invariable. After handling all business routines in fifteen minutes, I got into the jeep and explored my island. I traveled with the medical man who cared for the native children. I spent long hours in the bar at the submarine base. I flew with hot-shot pilots from the airfields. I became good friends with the Catholic priest who looked after a noticeably free-living and free-loving French community. And I took long trips both into the jungle and across South Pacific seas to remote islands.

On one such trip I happened to stumble upon the idyllic set-up that some naval officers at CASU-10 had built in the heart of the jungle, on the property of Madame Gardel. Through the simple process of stealing everything that wasn't nailed down--refrigerators, generators, canned food, beer, soda fountains, and plush furniture intended for officers' clubs--CASU-10 had constructed a magnificent night club, complete with orchestra, catering service, and gushing bar. And all within a few miles of the war.

In later years, after I had written a book about this island called "Tales of the South Pacific", a lot of military people gave me hell for having described some aspects of a pretty exciting and sometimes delightful life. They called me, among other things, a damned liar. But nobody from CASU-10 ever made such charges, because they knew better. They knew I had tracked down their jungle hideout at Madame Gardel's.

The book, from which the play and motion picture SOUTH PACIFIC were taken, was born one night at the CASU-10 hideaway. A Navy nurse, whose name I never knew, was married to an Army pilot, whose name I have forgotten. To celebrate the nuptials, we had assembled a pretty substantial wedding feast; the best, in fact, that could be stolen from closely guarded naval stores. Madame Gardel had invited to her plantation an entire tribe of jungle dancers. French planters had brought in jeeploads of wine and cognac. And we killed about half a dozen steers for a barbecue. There, in the depths of the jungle, the wedding was performed by a military chaplain who alternately read from the Service and stared at the tons of government gear around him.

Nothing that I have ever written about the South Pacific could equal, in inventiveness, the facts that occured there, and I have often wished that self-appointed critics, who dismiss my report of the Pacific as 'made-up romancing,' could have seen that 'improbable' weddding.

In the evenings, while Jim and Garcia and Morrison made their tours of the island in my jeep and made their own discoveries--Garcia ferreted out Madame Gardel's, too, and muscled in on the joint--I sat in the long, drafty tin hut and typed out my recollections of what I had seen and heard. Next morning the touring trio would read what I had written and tear it apart.

With the division of labor we proceeded to fight our war. In time I suppose I came to know my island as well as any man could, and from this knowledge I tried to compose a report of what life was actually like on a Pacific backwater. The fighting part I had experienced earlier at the front; and my mid-night notes became a fusion of these two aspects of war.

The book, when published, bore no dedication page. Today, if I were writing it, I would surely dedicate it to Jim and Garcia and Morrison, and to the navy nurse whose wedding I attended. (I was invited because I had found a way to hijack nearly a half truckload of beer.)

My commander made admiral. Little Garcia won a commendation for one of thwe bravest acts I have ever known a man to perform, and the Navy nurse and her pilot husband lived happily ever after...I hope.
Signed, James A. Michener