I think, in the Op story "Corkscrew," the Op tries out some
French he
said he learned in France with the AEF.
> Marlowe, still in his early 30s when the 1939 *Big
Sleep* was
published, would probably have been to young to be a WW I
vet, though he
could have served between the wars. As a young, able-bodied
male during
WW II, it's very possible he could have served then.
Actually, it's
more than likely.>
Unlikely, I think. The U. S. Army between the World Wars was
a pretty
sorry place, peopled by a small West Point-trained officer
corps,
veteran non-coms from WWI, and refugees from the Great
Depression who
couldn't make any kind of living on the outside. We know
from
Chandler's letters that Marlowe went to college for at least
a few
years, and that he worked as a D.A.'s investigator before
turning to
private eye work. A man who could go to college, even if he
was working
his way through, would be unlikely to join the peacetime
army, and I
think, given what we know of him, that Marlowe wouldn't have
had enough
years to do it. As for service in World War II, we know from,
I think,
The Long Goodbye, that Marlowe received a kick in the face
playing
football, and had a deviated septum (or something similar).
An injury
of that sort, with the kind of imperfect medical treatment
available for
it, would probably have made Marlowe 4-F. We know he isn't in
the army
because there are oblique references to how the war has
affected life in
LADY IN THE LAKE.
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