He got out after the war, did college on the GI bill and then was offered a commission and went back in.
I’ll tell you this about my old man. He was a captain at Quantico when my younger brother was born, we kids played with the kids of a black NCO, this was in the late 50’s. In those days, I don’t think that was common. That’s the kind of man my father was.
Of course he drove me *nuts* in HS after he retired. My bedroom had to pass inspection before I was allowed to take the car out. He may have retired an officer, but there was still a DI buried in there. We clashed a lot in those days, as one might expect. /grin
Great story! Most Marine officers are mustangers like your dad. I found them to be the best officers at the company/battalion level. Had an Anapolis graduate for a Company XO t one point. Although he was a recruiting poster looking Marine he was so lacking in common sense that the Company Commander, a mustang major, would lose his cool and chew him out like a recruit in front of the men. Warrant officers were (are) the best of the best! I’d follow any one of several I knew into the jaws of hell.
There is a story that the first black graduate of West Point, while riding a train to his western duty station, was refused mess with/by his fellow Army officers. Some Marine Officers, also traveling on the train, learning of this, invited the rejected officer to their mess, and installed him as it’s president. To Marines the attitude then, as it is now, “....we’re all green!”
Growing up with a retired Marine for a dad, on the surface, sounds like a raw deal fpr a kid, but I’ll bet in retrospec you have to admit you learned a lot about life from him, with a leg up on your peers.