Gunny G's Marines History and Traditions: Articles By Tom McKenney, LtCol USMC (Ret.), 1997, etc.

Gunny G's Marines History and Traditions: Articles By Tom McKenney, LtCol USMC (Ret.), 1997, etc.

Spite House continues the story of Colonel Tom McKenney after he left Vietnam a physical and emotional wreck. After lengthy rehabilitation, he was still left with one gnawing regret: his failure to kill Robert Garwood. Only the march of time and the words of respected military friends began to change his mind and plant seeds of doubt that, perhaps, he had been wrong about Garwood after all. More and more individuals, whom McKenney placed in a special category reserved for proven heroes, began to tell him of events and intelligence indicating that God had prevented him from killing an innocent man and a courageous Marine. General Tighe, Colonel Millard Peck, Captain Sam Owens, General Van Phat, and numerous former POWs all added fuel to a growing horror in McKenney's mind.

It culminated in a period of uncontrollable rage lasting almost 24 hours when he smashed mirrors, burned his uniform, and destroyed furniture, fired by the knowledge his own government had used him as a murder weapon in a war never meant to be won. McKenney purged his guilt when he met Jensen-Stevenson in 1991 and confessed to her, "I directed an official mission to assassinate Garwood behind enemy lines, because I believed what they told me. Would you tell him that I would crawl on my hands and knees to beg his forgiveness?" It was 1994 before the retired colonel and the disgraced private met face to face -- an emotional meeting to be sure.


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