Exalted rank?? Hardly ...
Anyway, seems like you found your place
In the Marine Corps (at least when I was in), you had two shots at successfully achieving an MOS. If you failed your second try, you were processed out. I actually had to do that to a Marine at PAO school. He had been an aviator, got his wings and then managed to get himself thrown out of the F-18 community. So they sent him to PAO school and I was his Journalism instructor. He did not take his schooling seriously and fabricated assignments. The last one, and the one I failed him for, was a feature story he turned in about the Speedway. His problem was that his story contained quotes from a Speedway employee who gave exact figures for how many seats were in the grandstands at the Brickyard ... right! As anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes in Indianapolis knows, the number of seats at the Brickyard is about the most closely guarded secret in all professional sports -- the Hulman family would routinely fire employees on the spot for even speculating in public about it. So no, we did not want him as a Marine Corps Spokesman. We made him a civilian.
I don't know what was at Ft Ben back in the '60's, but when I was there in the early '90's it was home to the Finance Center, Finance Clerk School, the Public Affairs School House, the Mess Management Supervisor's School, the Postal School ... and those were just the joint schools I remember because we had Marines there attending them. We usually had approximately 150 Marines at Ft Harrison at any one time -- about 45 permanently assigned and rest were transients attending the various schools. There might have been more Army only schools there, too. LOTS of Admin types of course for all those school houses. Ft Ben was a great Post -- it was originally a cavalry post and the field grade officer housing around the parade field was really stately and nice. The old horse stables were still there, too but they were all repurposed into warehouses
Even though I was merely a Company Grade (slime) officer, I was still just one of only three Marine officers assigned there (PCS -- two of us were assigned to the Public Affairs school house and the third was the Government contract officer out at Allison Gas Turbine -- now Rolls Royce -- where they make the MV-22 engines) and we were offered one of those cool Parade Deck Field Grade quarters. They were three story duplexes so we decided to pass and found a house out in town. Peggy and I sort of regret that -- it would have been really cool to live in one of those old stately turn of the century houses. We probably would have turned the dining room into our bedroom. The Post housing office was ready to build a ramp for Peggy, too. The Army was very accommodating.
We very much enjoyed that tour. Teaching in the school house and commanding the Marine Detachment at Ft Harrison was my most professionally rewarding tour in the Corps. There were few higher honors I received in the Corps than a thankyou note I received from a former student after he had been named the Navy's Journalist of the Year.
The sad part was being a part of the crew that closed the doors, ran down the flag for the last time, turned off the lights and formerly closed Ft. Benjamin Harrison. It was hard to leave. But ... we were headed to Hawai'i for three years so it wasn't THAT hard ...
