Chapter 1

“Do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“Have a seat and state your name.”

“My name is Jethro Pugh.”

“You understand that you are charged with 1 count of 2^nd degree murder and you are taking the stand against your attorney’s advice.”

“I know you told me not to, but I want the people to hear what happened and why I shot that man.”

“Your Honor, he just admitted to shooting...”

“Sit down. I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Mr. Pugh...”

“Call me Jethro, everybody calls me Jethro, Mr. Pugh was my daddy, God rest his soul. You know that man worked his entire life at that furniture plant. Salt of the earth he was, salt of the earth. One time when I was 10 years old he...”

“Jethro, let’s try to get back to what caused you to be on trial today.” “Sorry, everybody says I have the gift of gab, you know I talk a lot.”

“Why don’t you start with how you met your wife, Suzy.”

“Okay, I had been out of the Marine Corps about a year. I was having a hard time adjusting and could not find a job. My uncle owned a little ‘buy here pay here’ car lot and gave me a job working around the lot. Selling cars, washing them doing a little mechanicing(sic) things like that, just helping out doing whatever he needed done. He said I was a natural salesman, you know, cause I talk a lot. People like listening and I like talking. That’s for sure. People would come on that lot ‘just looking’ and after talking to me for 3 or 4 hours would be driving off in their newly purchased car. There was this one fellow and his wife...”

“Stop a minute. You said you were in the Marine Corps. Aren’t you a little short for a Marine?”

“I made it by 2 inches. A Marine has to be 58 inches tall and I am exactly 60 inches or 5 feet. At Boot camp the other ‘boots’, that’s what Marine recruits are called, gave me the nickname ‘Little Man’. Even the D.I., that’s short for Drill Instructor in the Marine Corps, called me that. He would holler, “Little Man, front and center.” I knew he was talking to me. There was one time when I was...”

“Jethro, What job were you given after boot camp?”

“I was sent to I.T.R., that’s Infantry Training Regiment. They say every Marine is a rifleman, but the truth is some go to schools after Boot Camp to study some specialized skill. We call them ‘Pogs’. (Definition-Person Other than Grunt) I was a real Marine, a door kicking badass, 0311, infantry, grunt, OORAH!”

The judge banged his gavel and said, “I understand your enthusiasm, but try to lower your voice.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Were you ever deployed to a combat zone?”

“I went to Iraq once and Afghanistan one time.”

“Were you ever wounded?”

“No sir. I was lucky, I guess. Some of my friends were, some were killed. There was this one time when an I.E.D. exploded and killed the guys in the vehicle in front of the one I was riding in. What a mess! There were body parts everywhere, some were on fire. I helped drag them out and put them in bags. The pieces we could find anyway. You know its hard to find the right parts to put in the bag. I saw one bag had three legs in it. That ain’t right...”

“Jethro, do you suffer from PTSD?”

“Nah. I never let that shit get to me. The docs cleared me when I got out. They said I was fit as a fiddle. This one Navy doctor, a cute blonde with a chest full of ribbons ... that reminds me, I asked her if she was ever in combat and she said no. Then I asked how the hell did she get all those ribbons. She avoided the question and wanted to know...”

“Jethro, I speak for everyone in this courtroom when I say, ‘Thank you for your service’ but let’s get back to how you met your wife.”

“Like I was saying, I was working at my Uncle Sam’s car lot. One day I was under a car he had bought at an auction. It was leaking oil and I discovered it was from a hole in the oil pan. While I was under the car I dropped a wrench. It hit me in the mouth and broke a tooth. This one right here.” (Let the record show he pointed to one of his front teeth.)

“I could not talk to people with that broke tooth, they would wonder what type of operation we were running. It looked terrible so I went to a dentist office to get it fixed. Did you know the V.A. was no help at all. They wanted to pull that tooth. That’s why I called a private dentist.

I was sitting in the waiting room waiting for my turn when in walks this beautiful blond. She had an appointment to get her teeth cleaned. You know that’s very important for good dental hygiene. We always got regular cleanings. But we did change dentist after we married. The dentist office where we met was closed down when the police discovered that the dentist was some sort of pervert. You know they say he...”

“Jethro, your wife?”

“Sorry, we talked and I asked her out. She accepted and that started a courtship that lasted 7 months and ended with us getting married in the living room of the Justice of the Peace’s house one night. It was beautiful really. His wife...”

“I’m sure it was. Move along please!”

“Suzy is four years older than me and had a kid, who was 5 years old when we married. A little girl that loved me from the very first time we met. That baby did not have a man in her life and I became her ‘daddy’. You know I adopted that baby as my own. Suzy had been operated on when her baby was born so we were never going to have kids, and that was alright with me. The world is full of kids that have no parents and need someone to care for them. I think...”

“That’s nice, that you legally adopted her, but let’s move along.”