I am looking forward to Sunday’s debut of the HBO miniseries The Pacific, which focuses on the experiences of the marines who fought America’s island war against Japan. One of the early episodes will focus on the battle of Guadalcanal. It was there, relatively early in the long campaign to control of the island, that my uncle, Marine Sgt. Andy Malanowski, died a hero’s death.

I do not know much about Andy, mostly because my father was seldom given to talking about his childhood or upbringing or family. But some years ago I grew curious about Andy and his service and the circumstances of his death, and so I contacted the Marine Corps, which sent me a copy of his service record. I also published a notice in a Marine Corps Veterans’ newsletter, and a number of Andy’s comrades shared with me their recollections of him.

Anthony Peter Malanowski Jr. was born in Baltimore on January 31, 1914, the fourth, I believe, of Rosalie and Anthony Malanowski’s ten sons (one ahead of my dad), and called Andy to distinguish him from his father. He enlisted in the marines in July 1933. Obviously this was a Depression-era choice made by more than few 19 year olds, although perhaps unique in his family; although his brothers Babe, Mooney, Steve, Cliff and Joe all served in the armed forces, I believe Andy was the only one who enlisted during peace time.

Andy’s records show that he was a good marine, scoring 4.5’s on a five-point scale for Military Efficiency and 5’s for Obedience and Sobriety (the only three categories) in his regular evaluations. At various times during the 1930s he was stationed in San Diego, Norfolk, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. From 1933 to 1935 he was part of the marine detachment aboard the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga as it conducted exercises in the Pacific and Caribbean, and he spent 1938 (and perhaps 1937 as well—the copy of his record is feint here) with the marine garrison in Peiping, China.  (A marine who met him in 1940 would refer to Andy as “an old China hand,” even though this service occured a scant two years earlier.) One can assume not as was well with that assignment; Andy, who had been promoted to corporal, was busted back to private for Intoxication, and his evaluations show a drop in his marks for Sobriety to a 3 and then to a 1. Whatever difficulties he was experiencing, however, seem to have been resolved up when he returned to the States. By 1940, his commander in Portsmouth was recommending that Andy, by now again a corporal, receive a Good Conduct Medal based on his long clean record prior to the drinking incidents. “Malanowski is an excellent man,’’ wrote H.L. Smith, “and is reenlisting.’’

H.L. Smith wasn’t the only  person who had a positive view of Andy during this period. In 1934, Joseph Seborowski, who went on to have a distinguished career in the Marine Corps, was a ten year old neighbor of the Malanowski family on Chester Street . In a private memoir he shared with me, he remembers Andy returning home on leave:

“Small events are the origin of great world history. So it is with the life of a man. For Joe, there was a singular event during that enchanted summer of boyhood in 1934, which ordained him to his journey. He looked up one day from his boyish games, and saw striding toward him down Chester Street a rare Being of blue and gold and shining brass. A United States Marine.

Marines do not simply walk. They march. They might even strut, or even swagger, but they never merely walk. This one strode in Dress Blues, coming home to the old neighborhood where he was born. Women turned their heads to see him better. Ordinary men watched with pretended disinterest, and envied him in their hearts.

Joe knew him. He was Anthony P. Malanowski Jr., who had become in the eyes of a ten year old boy, a god of battle. Maybe Joe was not entirely sure what marines did, but he resolved to someday wear that excellent uniform.’’

By the end of 1940, Andy had reenlisted, been promoted to platoon sergeant, and was transferred to the seventh regiment of the First Marine Division (1/7), which was commanded by the famous Maj. Chester `Chesty’ Puller. Andy spent 1941 and the first half of 1942 in Guantanemo Bay, Cuba, training for amphibious landings.

In a letter, Leland de Rocher of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, who became Andy’s runner and tent-mate in March 1942, wrote “I can honestly say that my platoon sergeant was the finest man’s Marine I ever met during my four years in the Corps. I never heard him swear; he did not smoke or chew. He had one close friend, the company’s 1^st Sgt. Ford. They had both served together in China. Sarge was always neat in appearance, setting a fine example for us all. The best I can recall is that he was a man 180 pounds, 5’8’’, barrel-chested with very strong arms and legs, and without any facial hair on his round face, and none on his head. He always wore a cap or helmet. His carriage was that of a military man.  He was not inclined to talk unless there was a need to. While I am not sure, I think he went to mass when available.’’

De Rocher reports that the 1/7 left Cuba for Guadalcanal on Easter Sunday 1942. It was, he reports, “a great trip,’’ one that took them through the Panama Canal and eventually to British Samoa, where they spent three and a half months training. “We set up camp on the former British polo grounds,’’ wrote de Rocher. “ Pineapples and coconuts were plentiful and also fresh water to bathe in. We played baseball and were allowed two cans of beer a day. The friendly natives spoke fluent English and we got along well. They treated the marines to a luau when we were leaving the island.’’.

They were leaving for Guadalcanal, a 2,510-square mile island, about 90 miles long, part of the Solomon Island chain in the southwestern Pacific.  The Japanese landed there in May 1942 and were constructing an airfield which would have served as a base for bombing Australia and Allied shipping. Elements of the First Marine Division landed in August and entered combat almost immediately. They captured the Japanese airfield, renamed it Henderson Field, and defended it against several furious Japanese counterattacks that resulted in high casualties on both sides. The 1/7 arrived on September 18 and saw action almost immediately. Before a week had passed, on September 23, de Rocher, standing next to Andy on a patrol, was shot in the hip by a Japanese sniper. The wound became infected, and he was sent home.

On September 27, the marines launched a three-pronged offensive operation near the mouth of the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal’s northern coast. One detachment of a regiment called Edson’s Rangers was supposed to land on the coast and move inland, and join up with another detachment of Edson’s Rangers that was already in position. Meanwhile, further east, near Point Cruz, elements of the 1/7,  Andy among them, was supposed to land on the beach, move inland, and at the appropriate moment, join the two groups of Rangers in converging on a Japanese position that was supposedly lightly held by about 200 troops. But as Richard Wheeler writes in A Special Valor, his history of the marines in the Pacific, “the operation was a fiasco from beginning to end.’’

Essentially, both Ranger forces encountered heavy resistance, and neither was able to come close to meeting its objective. Meanwhile, the 500 men in the 1/7 moved up the hill from the beach, through a coconut grove, and into position on a grassy ridge, where they saw not 200 Japanese troops, but a large column advancing against them, and moving to encircle them and cut them off from the beach.

A desperate fight began. The 1/7’s commander was killed and his second-in-command wounded by a single mortar round. Radio communication was knocked out. Japanese soldiers assaulting the ridge came so close that the marines had to aim their mortars almost straight in the air so that the descending shells would hit  their targets. With the radio useless, a signalman employed semaphore flags to communicate with Puller, who was offshore in navy ship called The Ballard. Puller immediately signaled the marines to fight their way back to the beach, and he had The Ballard use its big guns to clear the enemy from the path of retreat.

Chaos prevailed: noise and smoke from the exploding shells, the marines plunging headlong down the hill, the Japanese pursuing, other Japanese who had survived the bombardment jumping out of the jungle to ambush the marines. One Japanese officer leaped from the brush and beheaded a marine with his sword. Finally the marines reached a clearing near the beach, but with the enemy closing in, Andy took a Browning Automatic Rifle from a wounded marine and set it up behind a fallen log. “You take Doc Schuster and the other wounded on down,” he said to Captain Regan Fuller, “and I’ll handle the rear. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.’’

Fuller says that when he and the others reached the beach, he heard a rapid burst of gunfire, and then silence.

In a letter, Donald Dillard of Fenton, Michigan said “I was the last marine to see your uncle at Point Cruz. He was slumped across a log. I rolled him over, took what was left of his ammo, and ran for it.’’

After more desperate combat on the beach, the marines were evacuated.  Andy was one of 24 members of his unit who were killed that day; another 23 were wounded. With terrible fighting on both the island and the sea surrounding it, the battle for Guadalcanal lasted until February 1943, when the Japanese finally evacuated their forces. According to one source, 1500 Americans and 25,000 Japanese died on the island, and many more died at sea.

In Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller, Burke Davis writes the Puller recommended that Andy be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor, and says that Andy received it. In A Special Valor, Richard Wheeler reports the same information. It is not clear what their source was.  In the event, Andy was awarded The Navy Cross, the navy’s highest decoration.  The citation accompanying the award, sent in a letter on December 8, 1942 by Admiral William F. Halsey, reads “For exceptional heroism in action against the enemy on September 27, 1942, near Point Cruz Guadalcanal. Sergeant Malanowski, with an automatic rifle, covered the withdrawal of his company until overrun and killed by the enemy. By his exhibition of the highest bravery, unselfish courage, and utter disregard for his own personal safety, he inflicted great loss on the enemy, greatly assisted in the withdrawal of his company, and gave his own life in the action.’’

“I was a young marine of 17 when your uncle led us,’’ wrote Louis Clabeaux of Redington Shores, Florida. “Your uncle saved the lives of our platoon.’’

Combat conditions prevented the immediate recovery of Andy’s body, and subsequent attempts to locate the body by the Graves Registration Company, including one as late as 1947, were unavailing. Donald Dillard rather trenchantly reminded me that the Japanese were known to mutilate the bodies of the enemy.

My father once told me that the military offered to put a marker in honor of Andy in Arlington National Cemetery, but that my grandmother declined, satisfied with the plaque that hangs in the vestibule of Holy Rosary Church that lists Andy’s name among the parishioners who had been killed in action. No matter; Andy’s real monument is the admiration of the men who knew him.

(Pictures: Marine Corps Identification Photo; three pages from Andy’s service record, showing all his deployments and ratings; note the final entry: “27 Sept 1942: Killed in action by enemy fire, details not known. . . .If discharged, character would have been `Excellent.”’; Chesty Puller; Marines on Guadalcanal; Map prepared by Graves Registration Company, showing the 1/7’s line of advance, line of retreat, and approximate location of Andy’s stand; the Browning Automatic Rifle; The Navy Cross; Copies of newspaper clippings from the collection of Joseph Seborowski.)

If anyone has recollections of Andy or knows stories about him, please leave them in the Comments section.

Cara and I spent Thursday and Friday visiting two colleges that she’s interested in, Morrisville State College, one of the very few SUNY schools that offers equine studies, and Cazenovia College. Cara and her mother had visited Cazenovia last summer, and when we pulled out of the driveway, it was the school that definitely headed her list (based mostly on the palatial barns in which their 70-odd horses reside.) Now I think Morrisville has moved into the top spot, based on the amount of hands-on work (that’s hands on a horse, in case you were wondering) they require. For example, they offer a course in breaking a horse in which the student spends four hours a day with horse every day. Sounds excruciating to me, but Cara’s sees the muddy barns and smells to manure and her heart races. She also liked the dorms and there’s a nearly even male-female ratio which appeals to her as well.  Cazenovia is much prettier and seemingly preppier and offers a strong business program which I, with my advanced wisdom, believe will serve her well as she makes her way through life’s torrents and eddys.  She’s not hearing any of it, at least not now; at Morrisville, we met a poised and articulate girl who had mud on her boots and straw in her hair, and Cara believes she glimpsed her future. Morrisville costs half of Cazenovia, so who am I to argue?

Happy Birthday to Cara. At top left, two days old, coming home for the first time after another big snow in the stormy winter of 1993; at bottom left, deigning to have her picture taken, but just once, and only for the requirements of posterity.

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Snow is not exactly a stranger in these parts, and even some eventful ten and twelve inch dumps that may have inspired shock and awe in other places get shrugged off like the play of a high school guard who averages a tidy sixteen points per game: nice, but we’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again. But the storm that came up the coast on Thursday was memorable indeed. It began in early afternoon, and twenty four hours later was still delivering flakes in a steady but dilatory fashion, like high school seniors wandering late into a assembly they didn’t much want to attend. In the meantime, a foot of snow had arrived, heavy stuff that got into the tall branches of the big oaks and maples and larches that are all over the county. The added weight flattened the short evergreens and naked azaleas, but worse, snapped the old branches and sent them crashing all over, blocking roads and tearing down power and cable and phone lines everywhere. We were reasonably lucky—last night (Sunday) we drove over the hills to Ossining, and there were still large swathes of dark in places where we knew to be homes, dark acres broken only by the flashing amber lights atop Con Ed trucks.

All we lost was the outside world—cable, internet and phone. It was an interesting experience: the TV I didn’t miss much, and the phone not at all, except for the nagging suspicion that somebody might be looking for us (so seldom the case that it shouldn’t have been worth the bother.) But I soon began to get itchy without the internet, and by Sunday, I was in the clutches of full withdrawal: cranky, irritable, depressed. I’m lucky I didn’t have cold sweats and hallucinations. I finally got some relief with a session on Molly’s laptop at Starbucks. Whew!

The most refreshing experience was to read the newspaper in what was otherwise a news blackout. Big headlines in the Times: Gov. Paterson Drops Bid for Reelection! An 8.2 Earthquake in Chile! What a shock! A sudden trip back to 1978: a couple of items and some scores from Chip Cippola or Donna Fiducia on WNEW-FM, and then the real news at the subway station or the deli from the barking headlines of the papers.

Drove up to my house last Friday afternoon, found a guy in a car with Virginia plates in my driveway. This isn’t exactly a vision we’ve never experienced before. We’re the first driveway off the first street off an exit of a reasonably busy road that forbods people from making a left hand turn and going on their merry way. Hence: a right turn, a left onto the first street, a left into the first driveway; reverse course, and off they go. But this guy was different; he wasn’t turning, he was sitting–gabbing on his cell phone. I hovered nearly and honked–once, twice–but got nada: no wafted fingers promising an imminent response. So I elaboately turned around (in my neighbor’s driveway), parked on the street, grabbed the two big shopping bags I had with me, and went over and rapped on his window. So absorbed in his conversation was he that he leaped in his seat, and then turned to me. “I’m just turning around!” he blurted. The blatant lie of an excuse angered me. “Bullshit!” I said. “You’re talking on my phone. Now get the fuck out of my driveway.” And he immediately did so, and drove away. So: nastier phrasing than that used by Clint Eastwood’s cranky old man in Gran Torino (“Get off my lawn!”) and probably less provocation. But then I wasn’t brandishing a gun.

My friend Steve Lovelady died on January 15. He and I worked together at Time in 1997 and 1998, and although I didn’t have a lot of interaction with him, I found him to smart, decent, tough but low-key, enormously effective, a top-notch editor. And in fact, he was the one who sent me along to Ann Kolson, an editor at the Times who just so happened to be his wife, for whom I wrote about 40 stories. The Philadelphia Inquirer, where Steve worked for 23 years and where he edited stories that won six Pulitzer Prizes (and among the articles he midwifed at Time, two won National magazine Awards), offered him an excellent obituary, which included a sort of toast, if you will. Headlining this “The Lovelady Style”, it quoted the lead that Steve wrote for an installment of the Pulitzer Prize-winning series “The Great Tax Giveaway” by then-Inquirer staff writers Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele.

Imagine, if you will, that you are a tall, bald father of three living in a Northeast Philadelphia rowhouse and selling aluminum siding door-to-door for a living.
Imagine that you go to your congressman and ask him to insert a provision in the federal tax code that exempts tall, bald fathers of three living in Northeast Philadelphia and selling aluminum siding for a living from paying taxes on income from door-to-door sales.
Imagine further that your congressman cooperates, writes that exemption and inserts it into pending legislation. And that Congress then actually passes it into law.
Lots of luck.
The more than 80 million low- and middle-income individuals and families who pay federal taxes just don’t get that kind of personal break. Nor for that matter do most upper-middle-class and affluent Americans.
But some people do.

A terrific intro, colloquial and light, the perfect way to ease a reader into a complicated and important subject, an excellent example of the editor’s art. Here’s to you, Big Fella.

I’m doing some work for Nielsen IAG this week at an office located on Park Avenue South at 26th Street. We’re on the western half of the block; on the east, as I discovered today, is the 69th Regiment Armory, home of New York’s Fighting 69th, and these days, the 165th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard. The Armory, which was built in 1904, housed the Armory Show in 1913, a watershed event where America was introduced to Modern Art; at least 17 Roller Derby matches; several Knick games between 1946 and the 2003 and 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. The 69th first earned distinction during the Civil War, when it was famously known as the Irish Brigade under the leadership of the gallant Brigadier General Thomas Meagher. During the First World War, the 69th was part of the Rainbow Division. Among its veterans are William Joseph Donovan, who won a Medal of Honor and later founded the OSS, the author Richard O’Neill, also a Medal of Honor recipient, and Fighting Father Duffy.

Cleaning the attic this week, I came upon this trove of photographs of the original cast of Loose Lips, taken during rehearsal, probably in June or July of 1994. The pictures were almost certainly taken by my co-writer Lisa Birnbach. Above, Jimmy Biberi, Sarah Pratter, Ingrid Rockefeller, Keith Primi, Luke Toma and Scott Bryant. Below, Biberi and Toma, probably rehearsing the mob sketch; Ingrid, Keith, Luke and Scott; narrator Mark Smaltz; Smaltz, with Sarah and Keith behind, perhaps setting up the Camilla and Chuck bit; Scott and Sarah, and Scott and Mark. At bottom, the Loose Lips Action Figures that Daniel Carter worked up. I wish we had thought to photograph the packaging.

A wholly personal and entirely idiosyncratic ranking of the what were the very best elements of what, apart from these and a few other gems, was a beast of year:

1.) London. A full week living the life of a roving journalist, enjoying posh circumsances, a limitless credit line, and the company of smart, thoughtful people.
2.) In the Loop, Armando Iannucci’s scathing political satire
3.) Wolf Hall, Hillary Mantei’s impressively realized reimagining of Henry VIII’s divorce crisis, and the role of the worldy, modern Thomas Cromwell
4.) Johnny Damon’s ninth inning of Game Four of the World Series, in which he singled after a nine-pitch at bat, stole two bases on one play, scored the go-ahead run, and effectively expunged hope from Phillie hearts
5.) An Education, Lone Schefrig’s tart, gimlet-eyed coming-of-age story set in London just before the sixties began swinging, with an excellent cast featuring Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Emma Thompson, and, in a career-establishing performance, Carey Mulligan
6.) Jon Stewart’s astonishing smackdown of Jim Cramer and CNBC’s slobbering market boosterism
7.) Liaquat Ahamed’s majesterial Lords of Finance
8.) The audacity of hope: the Inauguration of Barack Obama
9.) James Harrison’s amazing, huffing puffing 100 yard interception return as time expired before halftime in the Super Bowl, nearly thwarted by Larry Fitzgerald’s tackle after a desperate field-long pursuit
10.) Chesley Sullenberger lands his plane in the Hudson, a feat brilliantly captioned by a New York cop: “What’s there to say? A bird–a plane–super man.”

Honorable mention, in no particular order: Too Big to Fail, by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Go Like Hell, by A.J. Baime; Rachel Getting Married, Jonathan Demme’s poignant, gallant family drama, with really wonderful work by Anne Hathaway, Rosemary DeWitt and Debra Winger; Quentin Tarantino’s rollicking, unhistorical Inglorious Basterds, with a whole raft of thrilling, scenery-chewing performances; Joseph “You Lie!” Wilson; Glover’s Mistake, by Nick Laird; Battlestar Galactica; Mad Men; Closing Time, by Joe Queenan; teaching Cara to drive; “You and I and Love”, by the Avnet Brothers; and “Sometime Around Midnight,” by The Airborne Toxic Event

Yesterday my sister Rose Marie drove up from Maryland for a post-Christmas visit. We had a very fine time, playing Guitar Hero, looking at some of dad’s old slides, continuing our holiday of overeating at Mughal Palace in Hawthorne, and going to the late show of Avatar in 3D at the City Center Imax in White Plains. I don’t know what this visually and aurally stunning film would be like on an ordinary big screen or in two mere Ds, but I’m awfully glad to have seen it with all bells and whistles attached and deployed.