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30
The Commandant and the Cat......who/that
By Frank D. Praytor
Combat Correspondent
1st Marine Division, 1951-52
(praypro@swcp.com)
Copyright 2009 by the author
The battalion I’d been living with
moved back in reserve following a
winter on line. Special Services
announced an incoming round of goodies
available for sale. Among them was a
Leica 3F 35mm camera going for $165
(retail: $375 and up). My Voitlander
Vitessa was shot. I wanted that Leica badly
enough to send an entire squad of buddies
to put their names into the drawing that
would determine who won the Leica.
My competition was the newly arrived
battalion commander. He sent his immediate
subordinates to sign up for the drawing.
He wanted that Leica, too.
My pal from Lubbock, Corporal Dewey
Davis, won the drawing and with the $165
furnished him, picked up “his” new Leica
and delivered it to me. In less than 30 minutes,
the battalion commander had Dewey
in his tent. He proposed that Dewey sell it
to him for a modest profit.
“I sold it to Sergeant Praytor, sir,”
an extremely nervous Dewey said.
He recalled that he could feel the
fury as the battalion commander dismissed
him. Then Sgt. Praytor was
ordered to report.
“What do you intend to do with
that camera?” he demanded in an icy
tone.
“I intend to use it in my job, sir,”
I answered in as much a confident
voice as I dared use. It was a gray
lie. I was a writer officially, but an
unofficial photographer.
“You’re not even a member of
this battalion!” the C.O. exclaimed.
“That camera was intended for this
battalion!” I expected the order to
surrender it.
“You’d better not sell it,” he
warned.
“I don’t intend to, sir,” I responded.
He dismissed me with a flicking
gesture of his hand. Outside, I
breathed again. The Leica was
mine!
Shortly afterward, I moved to the 5th
Marines and teamed up with an official
photographer, Master Sergeant Jim
Galloway, a WWII veteran with jaundiced
eye. He and I worked well together; I simply
kept silent whenever he went into his
grouch mode. Beneath his crusty veneer,
however, I could detect a sentimental old
retread.
In May, there was a daylight raid to be
made. (Why daylight? The logic of it was
beyond my purview). Jim and I went to the
forward aid position set up in a dry creek
bed. He took a few overview pictures with
his Speed-Graphic. I moved in with my
new Leica.
One scene particularly drew me in
close. A young Marine, on his back on a
stretcher, had multiple grenade fragment
wounds, none fatal, and was being treated
by Navy corpsmen. Around the lad’s neck
was a rosary An NCO with a .45 on his hip
was on the left and a priest’s prayer ribbon
was visible on the right. A kind of wardefining
contradiction, I thought, as I hurriedly
focused the camera on the subject.
Praytor uses canned milk and a medicine dropper to feed one
of two orphaned newborn kittens that Marines found on the
front line in eastern Korea, 1952, after their mother was killed.
Praytor credits the one surviving cat, named “Miss Hap,” for
influencing the decision not to court martial him after.
The lens view angled down about 50
degrees; the holstered .45 in the lower left
of my viewfinder; the padre’s purple and
white ribbon at the far right. Urgently
working hands pointed inwardly toward
the subject. He was a good-looking kid
with curly black hair. Perfect subject, perfect
composition.
Back at battalion several weeks later, I
opened the little package of developed
color transparencies from Kodak Hawaii
and held each one up to the light.
Galloway began looking and paused at the
first picture I’d taken.
“This here’s a winner,” he pronounced.
Minutes later, he handed me his latest copy
of Photography Magazine, until recently
titled Popular Photography. The issue
contained information about the magazine’s
1952 annual international photo
contest, along with a submission form.
“Why don’t you send this one to the
contest?” Galloway suggested.
A veteran official photographer must
have known about a WWII regulation prohibiting
the publication of freelance photos
taken in combat venues. It was
intended to prevent gory war pictures
from winding up in hometown
newspapers that might give Aunt
Fussie an attack of the vapors
(although this little confrontation in
faraway Korea wasn’t acknowledged
as a war, but in mediaspeak a
“police action”).
Galloway didn’t mention the prohibition.
I may have heard a reference
to it once, but forgot about it in
the excitement of the prospect of
winning big money. I mailed the
Kodachrome slide with the submission
form and quickly forgot about
it.
It was late August when, after
dark, I went along to cover the taking
of a low mound of rock and dirt
out in the middle of no-man’s-land
someone had named “Bunker Hill.”
I wearily made my way back to battalion
before daylight and fell into
my cot.
The Eighth Army press briefing
officer choppered up from Seoul and
rousted me out of a deep morning
May – June 2009
The Graybeards