Pride of the Marines

A semi-fictionalized account of Al Schmid in relation to WWII is told. The year is 1941, and he, a foundry worker, is happily living in a rented room in the home of his friend and coworker Jim Merchant, Jim's wife Ella Mae Merchant, and their young teen daughter Loretta Merchant. For various reasons, Al is a confirmed bachelor, much to Loretta's dismay, he who is her first adult crush, and despite Ella Mae's continued attempts to set him up. The "date" Ella Mae sets up between Al and her friend and former coworker Ruth Hartley ends worse than most of those set-ups, but it is exactly their reaction to the date that leads to them instead falling in love. Their relationship hits a slight roadblock on December 7th with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into the war. Al makes the quick decision to join the US Marines, and while Al and Ruth make no initial commitments to the other before his departure on New Year's morning, they change their minds at the last minute to commit to each other to be husband and wife upon his return. Al's experience in the war, where he fights in the Battle of Guadalcanal for which is would be recognized as a war hero, changes in relation to Ruth. Blinded by a grenade in that battle, Al, at a military hospital in San Diego, is initially confident that surgery will be able to restore his sight, but goes first into denial when it looks he will be blind permanently and second into feeling sorry for himself in his new situation. As such, he plans not to tell Ruth about the loss of his sight in breaking up with her and not ever seeing her again in not wanting either her to marry him out of pity or him to be a burden on her. At the military hospital, Red Cross worker Virginia Pfeiffer, who assists the recuperating men in whatever is required, is also their unofficial voice of reason as she tries to convince him not only that his life is worth living to the fullest as a blind man, but that he owes it to Ruth to give her the opportunity to decide for herself what she is to do with her life in relation to him.