From there he went to war college and that is where he got a hint of where his life would go now a year before the marine course comodont regular general charles heywood agreed with the navy that the marines job was going to change

Ellis was a very junior officer but he had some very big ideas and he would and other people were reading them like they thought they're good ideas and one of these ideas was

the role of the marines needs to change away from securing naval ports and shit and acting as naval infantry to being able to secure beaches for the idea was like the marines were going to invade a place secure the beach and open it up for the rest of the invasion force which by weight of numbers was going to be the army yeah so they're event they're inventing tactical scale is uh wet scale is

um after all that's all the marines are um and so Ellis's main like academic area was how exactly that should look um and so he wrote and researched extensively for the Marine Corps these ideas were still in their infancy and they would be expanded upon within a few years but he couldn't wait to get into the field and test these theories out instead he was sent to the Philippines to act as a personal assistant for a colonel.

Now he hated his fucking life. One time he wrote to his mother saying that this is the laziest life

a man could ever lead. There's nothing to do except, quote, lay around, sleep, and go to

bug house. And he said, I'm helping to bear the white man's burden. Now, for people who are

unaware like me, bug house met the psych ward. Okay. Like literally sit around and go insane.

And this is where Ellis started drinking. That is, that is never a good sentence to hear. He drank

out of boredom and it quickly became a daily habit. Though he was smart among us. Yeah, right.

Now he was smart and he kept a good relationship with this commander. And despite his total

complete misery with his position in life, he was very good at his job. So he was eventually

transferred away, bouncing around the Marine Corps, including a time he was at California,

at a mandatory dinner with the Marine Chaplin, got bored, pulled out a side arm and started

shooting shot glasses off of a table for fun. As you know, normal guy's stuff. After this, he

heard about the exciting new world of aviation. Because remember like the Wright brothers just

achieved flight a couple years before. You know, is he got those Wright boys? They're flying around.

No, we're going to fly the Atlantic. And as soon as the Wright brothers took off, like the

motor is like, we can put guns on that. So I mean, does the military think of any invention,

any of the way? Of course not. And he begged to be allowed to be the Marines first,

one of the Marines first pilots because they were trying to get a couple. Instead, his boss said,

no, you're too smart for that. You have to go to Naval War College because like you're,

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