cool beans!

I sent off to NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) for my dad's military records. Actually, I had to make two requests: the first time they just sent me his severance page, which told me nothing I didn't already know. So I made another request, saying that I specifically want to know what battalion/regiment/company he served with. And today I got a great juicy package of materials! Thank you, NARA! A lot of it is in military shorthand and I'm going to have to get my brother who was in the Army to help me decode it, as far as he can since he was Army 80s and 90s, and this is Marines WWII, and I'm sure stuff is different. Also some of it was originally written in pencil and didn't photocopy at all well. But I'm thrilled with what came; it has tons of information. I'm going to have to make myself a timeline to get a grip on what happened when, and then get a good book about Guadalcanal.

I have the next three days off. The weather has been beautiful, but naturally tomorrow there's a 60% chance of rain and then it's supposed to get hot. Well, fine, I'll just turn on the AC, pop in a movie and knit. (Though I wish Timber hadn't chewed up my Miami Vice DVDs. *sigh*)