Major Louis Cukela
Leatherneck
Maj Allan C. Bevilacqua
October 25, 2006

Do you have a dictionary handy? You do? Good. Pull it down from the
shelf and look up the word eccentric. Don’t be surprised if you find a
photograph of Louis Cukela right alongside.

Cukela [pronounced coo-KAY-la] was the living embodiment of the
word, the prime meridian from which any and all things eccentric are measured, a
man who could leave observers shaking their heads in bewilderment at the same
time they were doubled over in laughter. If there ever was a man who did things
his way, even if that way might have seemed odd, a man blunt as a bullet and
direct as an avalanche, that man was Louis Cukela. And he always ... always ...
had the last word.