Hail the Conquering Hero

Two boilermakers.

(SINGING) Far away though I may roam, dear

Fill her up? Yeah.

Why don't you grab yourself off a skirt and have yourself a time?

Why don't you... Your beer's running over.

Home to the arms I hold dear

Home to the arms

of Mother

Safe from this world's alarms

That's where I spend each night in my dreams

Why don't they sing something gay?

Why don't you acquire a gay viewpoint?

It's all mental, every bit of it.

Smile, and the world smiles with you. Frown, and you frown alone.

I'd just as soon be alone, if it's just the same to you.

Gratitude.

By that vine-colored door

As you stood in the gloaming

to welcome me home

Home to the arms

of Mother

Never again

to roam

If you could shoot craps like you can shoot your mouth off,

you'd be the biggest breeze shooter this side of Hong Kong.

He's the two biggest! I was fading the guy.

How am I supposed to know the guy's gonna pass eight times?

You was fading the guy with our money!

Well, it was my money, too. We're partners, ain't we?

Especially now. Partners in the soup.

Yeah, no dough. Nothing to do.

If you wasn't so big, I'd take a poke at that dumb kisser of yours.

Why don't you try it, Mac? Save it for the Japs.

You shouldn't have faded so many times.

You gonna start now?

Give me one last 10 spot. I'll go back...

You had it, fancy fingers! "Give me one last 10 spot"!

Who do you think you're talking to? Morgenthau?

Never again

to roam

To roam

Where you going?

I got 15 cents. I held out on you.

Will you close the door, please?

Yes, gentlemen?

One beer. One beer?

One beer and no cracks.

Yes, sir.

Gonna share it or swill it all down by yourself?

Give me your elk's tooth.

Wait a moment. My old man gave me... Come on!

Come here.

You the manager? Yes, sir.

We're just a little bit short of cash, see,

or I'd never make you this proposition.

I was gonna save it for the museum, see,

but when you're out on a limb, you gotta make sacrifices, that's all.

You follow me? I'm ahead of you.

I'm gonna let you in on the ground floor of something very, very rare.

You remember when General Yamatoho committed hari-kari?

Possibly. I happened to be very close by, see?

Big man, wasn't he? Immense.

This is one of the rarest mementos...

You wouldn't like to buy the flag they buried him in, would you?

I could let you have it very reasonable. I have it in several sizes.

MacArthur's suspenders!

The first bullet that landed in Pearl Harbor. You can take your pick.

A piece of a Japanese submarine.

If you look at it this way, it becomes a German submarine,

and this way it is a piece of a shell that just missed Montgomery.

Here we have the seat of Rommel's pants,

and last but not least we have a button from Hitler's coat,

although that one I don't personally believe.

Wise guy.

It's all paid for.

Oh, boy! You said it!

By you? Not by me, it wasn't.

You don't have to give me no credit.

The guy at the end of the bar.

Was this from you?

I just happened to hear the waiter say something about six Marines and one beer

and to serve it with six straws or something.

He did, did he? Where is he?

Anyway, that was a very nice gesture, civilian.

Don't mention it.

You want General Yamatoho's tooth?

No, thanks. You could send it to your mother,

if you got one. No, thanks.

I already sent her some souvenirs.

Well, then here's to you.

Semper fidelis. Semper fidelis.

You know our motto, eh? Yeah, I know the motto.

Was you in the Marine Corps, maybe?

That's too bad, Mac. That's all right. Set them up again.

Don't you want anything else beside beer?

Well, personally, I never touch anything stronger than rye whiskey.

Seven ryes. You can use the beer for chasers.

You sure you ain't spending too fast like fancy Felix, the Craps King here?

Besides, I can't think of any way I'd rather spend my money than for Marines.

Guadalcanal. It's a great place to be from.

Well, sukiyaki. How long you out?

From the Marines? Yeah.

I was only in a month. That's too bad.

You hardly had time to get corns on your feet.

Were you wounded? How could he get wounded in boot camp?

He could've fell off a roof.

What would he be doing on a roof?

It was hay fever, chronic hay fever.

Gee, that's the worst kind, too.

It's terrible. I had a girl once who had it.

Every time you'd get close to her,

she'd sneeze right in your kisser.

It was the excitement. Well, better luck next time.

Did you try any of the other branches of the Service, like the Army or the Navy?

They'll take anything. They wouldn't take me.

I went into a shipyard. My grandmother is a WAC.

What good is that gonna do him?

I don't know why hay fever is so terrible.

It's because you never know when it's gonna hit you.

I remember one night, this dame had a bowl of noodle soup in front of her,

and all of a sudden...

Anyway, I was kind of born to be a Marine.

My father was killed in Belleau Wood the day I was born.

Belleau Wood? Almost the same hour.

All I ever thought about was being a Marine.

I took exercises. I never drank or smoked. I studied all about them.

I can tell you every battle the Marines were in from 1775 down to now.

New Providence, Fort Nassau, the second Battle of Trenton,

the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis...

"I have not yet begun to fight."

Tripoli in 1805, Nuku Hiva in 1812,

the Battle of Hatchee-Lustee River in 1837,

Veracruz in '46, Chapultepec, the halls of Montezuma,

Panama in '85, Guantanamo Bay in '98,

then the Philippines, the Boxer Rebellion in China,

Nicaragua, Coyotepe Hill, Fort Riviere and Haiti.

Then Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, the charge at Soissons, Saint-Mihiel,

and now Wake Island, Guam, Bataan,

Corregidor, Guadalcanal.

They bled and died.

They gave me a big send-off when I left home.

Band was playing, everybody hollering, the dogs barking, my mother crying.

Everybody wondering if I'd come home a general or just a sergeant like my father.

Well, it's one thing to come home with things like that on your chest,

and another thing to go home with hay fever and a medical discharge.

You mean you ain't been home yet?

I wrote I was leaving for overseas.

You shouldn't do that to your mother.

I wrote a couple of letters to say I was all right,

and I asked a kid to mail them from overseas for me.

Suppose that he didn't get a chance to mail them?

Well... That's a terrible thing to do to your mother.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

You say your father was a sergeant at Belleau Wood?

That's right.

What was his name? I was at Belleau Wood.

Truesmith.

Truesmith?

You mean Hinky Dinky Truesmith?

That's right.

Why, he was my sergeant. I saw him fall!

Right then I was being born, in Oak Ridge, California.

Did you know your father got the Congressional Medal of Honor?

I grew up with it. They hung it on me.

Is that where she lives, Oak Ridge?

Who? Your mother.

Sure. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

It's an honor to meet you, kid. What's your name?

Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith.

Go ahead and laugh.

That ain't anything to laugh at to anyone who knows anything.

Boys, I want you to shake hands with Hinky Dinky Truesmith's boy, Woodrow.

Corporal Candida. How do you do?

Privates First Class Swenson...

Swenson, glad to know you.

Jones... Jones.

My name is Heppelfinger. Julius. And you can just call me Sarge.

Set them up. Excuse me. Certainly, Sarge.

I guess you never got to know your father very well, huh?

Well, not exactly, as he fell the day I was born.

That's right.

It's hard to realize. He was a fine-looking fellow.

He didn't look anything like you at all.

I know. We've got a picture of him at home and...

This is Bugsy Walewski. Pleased to meet you.

Listen, after a guy's bought you... Sure, go ahead.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

He ought to be ashamed of himself for treating his mother that way.

He never had any mother. He's from a home.

He's all right. He just got a little shot up, that's all. Nothing serious.

So, you're Hinky Dinky's boy.

I travel 100,000 miles and run into Hinky Dinky's boy.

He was a brave kid.

Not quite as old as you are. I know. I...

There was 16 of us, see, in this wood.

There'd be a German right there, and you'd be right here,

and he couldn't see you, and you couldn't see him.

Then, all of a sudden, almost right under your feet, you'd hear the...

Oak Ridge.

but isn't it kind of late to be calling somebody up in the middle of the night?