I'm not sure if this qualifies as opposed a legal issue, but since (a) the story involved a lawyer and since (b) this is my blog, I'm going to tell you this tale in any event.

Our vignette takes place back in the 1950s. My friend "William" was a young Navy man, an Ensign, stationed stateside during the Korean War. Being a young man about town, he had arranged a date with an Admiral's daughter to go to some fancy cotillion ball. Of course, the young lady was justifiably excited, got a new dress, etc. Unfortunately, our hero took drunk that night and fail to show up.

Well, the daughter cried all night to her mother, and the mother got on her husband's case the better part of the next day. Having no one in the family he could vent upon, the Admiral had to look elsewhere. The upshot was our young Ensign got new marching orders. He was told that he was being transferred to an active duty post over in Korea. He was going to be in an area that was receiving the most military action and on a ship of that had reported the highest amount of casualties.

Being the dutiful son, Bill called his mom and told her about his transfer and how he wouldn't be able to come home to visit for a while. His momma, justifiably upset, pondered what to do. Somehow, this widow living in a small backwoods town in Mississippi managed to work the phone system to such an extent that she was eventually directly connected to Senator James Eastland, senior senator from Mississippi. At this time, Senator Eastland was at the height of his power in the Senate. He commanded the Senate Judiciary committee, and his compadre, Senator Stennis, the Armed Services Committee. Senator Eastland had a great deal of power in Washington, and was not afraid to use it.

As related to me, and since Mama said "Senator, little Billie is being sent to Korea. They're shooting people over there." To which the Senator replied, "Don't you worry about a thing, ma'am. We'll take care of it."

Lo and behold as our young incident was crossing the tarmac to board his plane to Korea, he was accosted by another naval man. After confirming that he was indeed our ensign, this officer handed William a new set of orders. Instead of reporting to Korea, he was in fact to report to Washington, DC for his duty. While billeted in our nation's capital, his sole duty consisted of reporting once a week the Senator's office and letting them know that he was okay. After this visit, someone from the Senator's office would then call his widowed Mama and report that they had in fact seen her little Billie that day and he was doing just fine. Thus our hero waited out the Korean War.

Although William and Senator Eastland's political views clashed dramatically, Sebastian dutifully voted each and every opportunity he could for Senator Eastland. As I have said on many occasions, you have to admire a man who once bought, stays bought. I say this non-judgementally, as I'm sure that in the same position I would've voted for the Senator each and every time also.