more early "nine yards"

[Mullins, Bill]

When hunting for "whole nine yards", the search engine for the archives of "Leatherneck" returns:

"Okinawa" Tom Bartlett; Leatherneck (pre-1998); Apr 1974; Vol. 57, Iss. 4; pg. 16, 6

see:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/mca-marines/?cmid=archiverunbound.html

I'm too cheap to buy the article ($4) and get the full citation, but it is early in the popularization of the phrase, and it (again) is in a military source.