CAMP TARAWA, 1943

Waimea community embodies proud history
Submitted by: MCB Hawaii
Story Identification Number: 200421317592
Story by Sarah Fry



WAIMEA, Hawaii(February 13, 2004) -- When Pearl Harbor was bombed in December of 1941, about 400 residents lived in the Big Island community of Waimea -- now known as "Kamuela" -- most of them employee families of the huge Parker Ranch, and a few related businesses. The community was diverse, including Hawaiians, Chinese, Filipinos and, by a significant majority, Japanese.

Waimea residents and cowboys -- known in Hawaii as "paniolos" -- quickly came together to organize 24-hour watches against further Japanese attack. The Hawaii National Guard, then the U.S. Army, set up an encampment at the edge of town on Parker Ranch.

Within months, thousands of American service men were fighting in the Pacific. After the bloody Battle of Tarawa in November 1943, remnants of the 2nd Marine Division arrived in Hawaii. Their wounded were unloaded at Pearl Harbor and taken to the Naval hospital at Aiea -- now the Marine Forces Pacific headquarters building at Camp H. M. Smith. The battle-scarred survivors who did not need hospitalization were taken to the Big Island of Hawaii to recover and rebuild the division.

Of the Marines shipped to Hilo, some were moved by truck, but most were loaded into open rail cars to travel the 65 miles to Waimea on a narrow-gauge line usually used to transport sugar cane. Fog and mist shrouded the passage and winds chilled the ragged division. A few division members were landed on the beach, 16 miles from Waimea by landing ship tanks, or LSTs.

The Marines' new camp was located in a saddle between Hawaii's two volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, which towered in the distance. Ever-breezy Waimea was not the "island paradise" many of the men had expected.

The Marines were battle-weary and cold, still wearing the uniforms in which they had fought and sailed back in across the Pacific. Many were sick with malaria. Though their morale sank as they surveyed their new "home," before they could rest they would need to resurrect what they would come to call "Camp Tarawa." The good news was that a detachment of Navy Seabees arrived to help.

Parker Ranch owner Richard Smart had leased 40,000 acres to the Marine Corps for $1 a year. When 2nd Marine Division arrived, he moved out of his home, Puu Opelo, so it could become division headquarters. The Waimea school and hotel were converted to hospitals. Parker Hall became the local United Service Organizations.

Women took in washing. Families invited Marines into their homes on weekends for home-cooked meals. When Marines received "free" time, they joined forces with townspeople to play against outsiders, held boxing matches and basketball games.

The Marines sorely needed blankets and warm clothing items. Most personal gear had been lost in the battle. Entrepreneurs showed up to sell everything from newspapers to hot dogs.

As 2nd Marine Division began to recover and to retrain in earnest, it made major changes in the community. The Marines dammed the Waimea River miles upstream and piped water down to the town. They ran electricity throughout the area, replacing kerosene as the fuel for lights. They also built an icehouse, where they made ice cream for the troops and local children.

The division practiced amphibious landings, air cover and amphibious tank operations in preparation for its next battle assignment, at Saipan, then Tinian and, for the 8th Marine Regiment, Okinawa. When 2nd Marine Division left Waimea for Saipan, artillery units of "V" Amphibious Corps continued to train on the mountain ranges.
A few weeks later, trucks rumbled into town bearing the newly formed 5th Marine Division, just arrived from Camp Pendleton, Calif. These Marines donned new gear and equipment and seemed younger and more willing to laugh than the battle-hardened troops now on their way to the Marshall Islands.

The 5th Marine Division trained, in part, by assaulting two volcanic formations on Parker Ranch. Lava ash slowed the Marines' progress as they fought their way up the steep slopes, but many knew that their hard work at Camp Tarawa was in preparation for the coming assault on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi in the Volcano Islands.

The Marines introduced rodeo to Hawaii, where cattle raising and horse breaking had a long history as a business, not a sport. Parker Ranch provided horses, steers and calves for the rodeo, and a huge barbecue for the participants and onlookers to enjoy.

On Christmas Day 1944, the division mounted out for landing rehearsals at Maalea Bay, then headed for Iwo Jima. Those not killed or seriously wounded returned to Camp Tarawa in April 1945, and began to rebuild for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

When the war ended, the 5th Marine Division was sent to Japan for occupation duty, and the Army took over Camp Tarawa, auctioning off equipment and structures.
In 1984, the Waimea Civic Club erected a monument outside Waimea, along Mamalahoa Highway, to remember the one-time home to two Marine Divisions.
-30-

Photos included with story:
The Camp Tarawa Memorial honors the heroic Marines and Sailors of the 5th Marine Division, who trained at Camp Tarawa in preparation for the Feb. 19, 1945, assault on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II. Photo by: Courtesy of the Pacific War Memorial Association
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/DD28BF19556CA2C685256E39007E4121?opendocument
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/DD28BF19556CA2C685256E39007E4121?opendocument


Text version of story is attached below:

WaimeaHistory.txt



~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

A MARINE'S JOURNAL, PART 3

A MARINE'S JOURNAL
The March to Baghdad
A MARINE'S JOURNAL. PART 3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back To PART 1, Here!

Part 3 of a frontline account of Iraq's liberation.
BY BRIAN TAYLOR
Monday, February 9, 2004 12:01 a.m.

(Editor's note: Mr. Taylor joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1996 and was called up for service in February 2002. His enlistment expired in November 2003. He kept this journal while deployed with Fox Company, Second Battalion, 23rd Marines in Kuwait and Iraq. Comments in italics were added after his return to clarify and expand his account and to define military terminology for the benefit of civilian readers. Four-digit numbers followed by "Z" are time codes in Greenwich Mean Time; codes of the format "38RQU 29141756" are 8-digit MGRS grid coordinates indicating his location at the time. This is the second of five parts; click to read Part 1 or Part 2.)

30 Mar 03, 0470Z, 38RNA 90442992

Yesterday afternoon the whole battalion moved into town. Echo Company secured the bridge so Fox could push through and secure a block of sixteen houses. There were four rows of homes and Second Platoon secured rows one and three. We kicked in doors and scared some people pretty badly. But local intelligence sources had indicated that this neighborhood housed most of this town's Baath officials. I found and escorted out a guy who turned out to be the third-highest-ranking party official found in southern Iraq. At least that's what they told me.

These things aren't hard distinctions to make. You pick the guy who looks at you with hate not fear, and you have your man. Baath Party officials also live better, are better fed, better educated, better dressed. And it all shows. Still, it gave me no joy to see women and children pried out of their homes so we could conduct our search. One black-robed woman was so old that I wondered she could move down the alley at all. Another fellow stood about 6-foot-4, thin and bearded, in a white robe and a gray sport coat. He was a worn-out old fellow. He communicated by gesture and shout that he had no ties with Saddam, and said in English, "I love you, and you!" I was alone in the room with him. I had my rifle at the ready and told him "In baht ih!" (lie down), which he did. From the floor he pointed up at me and said, "You No. 1!" With my free hand I gestured back at him with my index finger, "I love you too. You're No. 1 in my book." I was smiling by then. He came back with another "You No. 1!" I said the same thing back to him, and it went back and forth for a moment.

We escorted all the women and children out of that house, then my new fan. We did some damage to door frames kicking in locked doors. Garrard shot a lock off. But when the searching was done, all but those few who were taken away were free to filter through us back to their homes. It was strange passing among them after such an invasion, but they seemed happy and grateful. A couple of men approached me and somehow indicated their gratitude, or pretended to. I believe by their gestures they were happy to be rid of Baath Party overlords and hopeful to be shut of Saddam.

We rolled through town and dug in on the other side.

1 Apr 03

We've moved back to the east side of town. We're approximately where we were on 28 Mar. The other day members of the Army's 65th Engineers came around with a backhoe and dug Garrard and me a deluxe position not 1,200 meters from here, so we knew a move was coming. We get whipsawed about every time we move. They put us down and tell us to "dig here." Then some busy beaver decides we should move again and start digging all over again 20 meters away. Stupid.

The usual rationale for this was that one of our officers liked the look of the ground better "over there." But it was all the same flat, muddy bog.

And Capt. Schoenfeld is making himself look positively ridiculous. He rages about garbage on the roadside (there is a lot of MRE trash strewn about, to be sure). He demands to know whose it is. Convoy vehicles come and go all day and throw their garbage out their windows. It could be anyone's. He has us form up on line and police call. Then he howls that we're all bunched up, "Spread out, you're still in combat, you know." I have to wonder which is the case, do we line up and pick up trash, or are we in combat?

The complaining tone of the April 1 entries reflects the frustration we felt at being stopped for days at a time in the same place. The concept of the invasion as explained to us was a "race to Baghdad," a race we felt we could lose only by standing still. Also, as we had outrun our supply lines, we were living on one meal a day and feeling the effects. I reserved these complaints for my journal.

We were to secure this road junction for a month. The Army requested a 30-day "operational pause" so it could catch up its lagging "log trains." But the Marine Corps balked at the idea of giving away the initiative by standing still for a month, and told the Army that there will be no monthlong pauses. Five to seven days until the log trains are caught up, then the RCTs (Regimental Combat Teams) will be maneuvering toward Baghdad and wherever else the Republican Guard is to be found.

2 April 03

Today we had a memorial service for Staff Sgt. Cawley. A flag was erected on the roadside near where he died and a rifle upended on the point of its bayonet in the ground with his helmet on its butt. Cpls. Giles, Christensen, Carpenter and Lee sang "Abide With Me Tis Eventide." The chaplain spoke. We sang "Rock of Ages." Staff Sgt. Ivers said a few words about his best friend. There was a 21-gun salute. Taps.

Two days ago the Mormon contingent gathered for a worship service. We sang the songs of the faith:

Why should we mourn, or think our lot is hard?
Tis not so, all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward,
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins, fresh courage take,
Our God will never us forsake.
And soon we'll have this tale to tell,
All is well, all is well.

I said to Garrard last night, "Garrard, I am a happy person, even here." And we agreed that cold nights, long watches, occasional combat operations don't make fundamentally happy people unhappy. In fact, adversity underscores true happiness.

About James E. Cawley's memorial service: It was a brief, dusty, manly affair, a ceremony for a fallen warrior. It was the kind of service that men who die of old age or sickness wish they could have.

We're still defending the same junction on Route 7. We move our position once or twice a day to keep the enemy from getting us zeroed in with artillery. I don't believe they have that capability here or are that organized. But we move and dig, move and dig.

5 Apr 03, 38SNB 44260785

We are a couple miles east of An Numiniyah. Two days ago we left our position on Route 7 and sped most of the way to Al Kut. Reportedly, this was a ruse de guerre designed to draw a Republican Guard division out of Kut to engage our "soft" unarmored battalion. And reportedly it worked. When we closed within 10 kilometers of Al Kut our convoy turned around and sped back the way it came. Any Iraqi forces that moved out of Kut to engage us were destroyed from the air. Maneuver warfare.

We cut over to Highway 8 and surged up to Numiniyah to seize a bridge there. When we arrived the bridge had already been taken and secured. A few smoldering T-62s, trucks, and antiair pieces were all that remained of the "light resistance" we had been promised.

We moved into a schoolyard in the city and occupied the abandoned schoolhouse for the night. But before an hour passed someone realized we might be vulnerable to attack there, so we left.

Now we are blocking the road between Kut and Baghdad to prevent Iraqi reinforcements from getting to the capital. Last night my team manned the wire-and-sandbag gate on the road. We stopped and searched every person who came through. One lone Iraqi man, short and plump, tried to drive around our Arabic stop sign and our sandbags. We yelled "Qif! Qif!" (Stop! Stop!) and waved our arms, but he kept coming. Three Marines were killed yesterday at a similar gate (not Marines in our group, but elsewhere). I ordered Garrard to fire. He let four rounds burp out of his SAW (squad automatic weapon). All the rusty radiator fluid immediately fell out of the man's truck and a very startled Iraqi popped out. I surged forward over the barricade with my rifle ready. I seized the man by the shirt and yelled at him, "Do you have any [expletive deleted] idea how close you came to getting yourself killed?" I said other things too, but the immediate attitude was one of intense relief that we had not killed another motorist. The company staff seemed delighted too, but all the thanks go to Garrard who knew he could disable a truck with one burst.

When I gave the order for John to shoot, I intended that he kill that man before he could get any closer. The reasoning was that anyone who ignored our signs, our roadblock and our verbal warnings was probably an attacker. We could not afford to let people just drive up on us. But John said, "I'm going for the tires." He instantly changed his mind about the tires and put four rounds into the radiator in a group the size of an orange. Our training urges us to shoot to kill, but John used some judgment instead and saved a man's life.

This man's only crime, it turned out, was stupidity, which shouldn't be a capital offense. The commanding officer came running up, listened to the story, and was pleased that we had stopped the vehicle without killing an innocent. No one was happier about it than I was, though. We searched the truck and found nothing but empty chicken crates. In spite of his protests about the engine, we convinced the man to drive his truck out of the way. He made it 200 meters beyond our area and then the engine seized. I watched him walk away.

RCT 1 is scheduled to move through here today en route to Baghdad. When they pass, we expect to follow to Baghdad.

6 Apr 03 0234Z 38SNB 89344663

We bivouacked by the road last night in some town 60 kilometers from Baghdad. There were several spectacular explosions five or six kilometers north of here during the night, slow billowing fiery explosions that spewed fire and sparks into the dark. And, of course, we heard the sound of artillery bombardment.

U.S. Forces can be detected by GPS satellite tracking rolling around freely in Baghdad. Although we have no reports of hard fighting in the city, Saddam has promised to make Baghdad our graveyard. The main effect of that rhetoric is to impel a stream of refugees out of the city along this road.

At our check post near Numiniyah yesterday, hundreds of people streamed through, many of them young men no doubt fleeing their posts. I captured an Iraqi general on his way north when he tried to pass through our checkpoint in civilian clothes. I found an FN Hi-Power 9mm pistol under his seat bearing the stamp of the Iraqi Army. It was inscribed with the words, "A gift of our grateful leader, Saddam" in Arabic of course. A translator from the HET team (Human Exploitation Team) gave us the translation.

When I first spotted the pistol under the driver's seat I called out, "I've got a gun!" Lance Cpl. Jeremy Walker, Second Platoon's resident martial-arts pro, put the general on the deck with an expertly applied arm-bar takedown. Walker then proceeded to immobilize him by manipulating his arms and wrists into uncomfortable knots behind his back. The man cried out loud as Walker escorted him with a standing wrist manipulation all the way back to the command post. The S2 found papers on him compelling Baath forces in the north to continue the fight.

The general told Capt. Robertson, the S2 or battalion intelligence chief, that he was not in the military, that he was, in fact, a farmer. Capt. Roberston, a reservist, is himself a farmer. He has coarse, powerful farmer's hands. He seized the already shaken Iraqi by the wrist and raised the man's hand to his face yelling, "These are not farmer's hands!" And then showing his own bear paws, "These are farmer's hands!" Capt. Robertson reported to me that the man broke down and wept again.

Garrard pushed his white Nissan truck off the road into the mud. He had aimed for the small pond beyond the mud flat beside the road, but it bogged down. Later in the afternoon, feeling large, I gave the truck to a couple of southbound teenage pedestrians, the key still being in the switch. But they couldn't get it out of the mud without the aid of 10 other passersby. Twelve young Iraqis pushed it out of the mud. They all cheered and piled in the back as it sped off, each one suddenly feeling he had a 1/12th interest in the general's truck.

I gave the truck away because it was a nuisance and potential hazard. Every pedestrian who walked by stopped and petitioned for it. I said no to the first few hundred, but I eventually wanted it gone.

At the gate on the north side of our position Broberg seized an Iraqi major. The man had his uniform with him and was foolish enough to attempt to conceal an AK-47 as well.

We only spent two days screening refugees and searching vehicles at that position. It was a busy time. It was the time when we had the most direct contact with Iraqis. For the most part they were cooperative and friendly. We had fun talking to people and practicing our meager Arabic. Fox Company generated some important intelligence from the seizures we made. We were relieved there by a company from a recon battalion. It was galling to them to be relieving a company of infantry reservists at an ECP operation (entry control point; the roadblock/checkpoint operations we regularly conducted during the invasion). They said, "We're Recon. This is not what we do." First Sgt. Lopez pointed out that we had had some intelligence successes, and that intelligence was the point of recon. For some reason this didn't soothe their feelings.

0902Z 38SMBB 62597705

We are stopped 21 kilometers south of Baghdad. We are shuffling the convoy and linking up with Fifth Marines for the move north.

Col. Dowdy, the regimental commander of RCT 1, was reportedly relieved yesterday. This journal recalls my frustration with our pace through southern Iraq. Evidently I wasn't alone. He was relieved for going too slow.

Yesterday the temperature was 102 degrees, way too hot to be wearing a MOPP suit. It's equally hot today, so on my own authority I shed my coat. I dug my hygiene kit out of my pack and had a roadside shave. I bathed my head with a sponge to dissolve the film of dirt I earn by riding the tailgate everyday. Marines can wash or not wash, but I see it as an excuse to rub water on my head and cool off.

MOPP stands for Mission Oriented Protective Posture, a particularly tortured-sounding military acronym describing the nuclear, biological and chemical threat level. MOPP suits are charcoal-lined chemical-protective overgarments. They are about as comfortable as a layer of thick denim. The upshot is that a MOPP suit can save your life if you are exposed to chemical or biological weapons in gas, powder or liquid form. They can even protect a body from some nuclear contaminants.

RCT 1 is assigned to secure Saddam City, a sector of Baghdad on the north side of town. It is said to be a slum. Let us get there and do it before we dehydrate.

7 Apr 03 0433Z 38SMB 65638514

We occupied some rich Iraqi's house last night. We're guarding a massive enemy ammo dump, and the house offers the best observation on several avenues of approach. The owner complained and left asking that we not pillage the place, a reasonable request. But while clearing the house, Cpl. Hall (First Platoon) was menaced by one of the canine inhabitants. Hall shot the dog at a two-meter range and sprayed blood all over. Hall was pretty upset by this. When the owner heard about it an hour later he was upset too.

Second Platoon dug in around the structure while machine guns set up on top.

When we woke this morning the word was passed to go to MOPP level zero--take off the stifling chemical suit and don cammies again. We feel great. I shifted to clean underwear as well and burned the old. I washed my body as well as I could with wet-wipes and a degree of civilization was restored.

Marines are gossiping about what the change to MOPP zero could mean. Has there been a surrender? Or is a cease-fire imminent? Have all commanders with authority to release chemical weapons been neutralized? To be sure, the U.S. has not ceased firing on Baghdad. The thunder of bombardment continues. Artillery units must be the busiest killers on the ground. All day and night the bang of the cannons and the clapping boom of their distant impacts can be heard.

This ammo dump we guard is reportedly filled with 10,000 armor-piercing artillery shells sold to Iraq by France. The damnable French and their haughty Old World contempt for American leadership in this war. Their objection was not one of conscience, but of complicity.

I don't know how anyone really knew those munitions were French. Maybe they had French markings, but I didn't see them myself. It was just rumor.

EOD (Explosives Ordnance Disposal) is supposed to blow this whole place to hell later today. Many more dogs will die.

0809Z--ECP ops today. We are denying access to the city to all traffic: vehicles and pedestrians. The refugees approach us and we search them and send them south, east or west. These people are poor and thin. They almost uniformly carry a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and a wad of cash--probably their net worth. Sometimes when searching vehicles we'll find bags of cash best measured by the gallon, as in, "I found a four-gallon bag of cash on this one!" Response: "No weapons? Then let him go." We guess their currency is of little value. Most of the Iraqis I search are surprised when I inspect their money and then return it all. I believe they are used to being shaken down.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/btaylor/?id=110004644

(Friday: Part 4--Liberation Day.)
To PART 4, HERE!!!!!

Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

"...TWO-FISTED, TELL-IT-LIKE-IT-IS MARINE..."

Jacksonville Daily News
http://www.jdnews.com
Print



Granite-jawed Marine stood his ground on WMD
February 12, 2004
DAVID H. HACKWORTH
KING FEATURES

Like it or not, Maj. Scott Ritter had it right all along.

Most of the rest of us, from the president to his key advisers, such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz and Tenet, to the majority of Congress and to most of the talking heads - including the pre-Iraq War NBC analyst David Kay, who reported WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) behind every Iraqi sand dune - blew it big-time when it came down to the awesome arsenal that Saddam had supposedly squirreled away.

Ritter, the United Nations' chief weapons inspector in Iraq until 1998, took us all on - virtually alone, against incredible odds - stating, "Iraq is not a threat to the U.S." and begging the American people to take charge and not "sit back and allow your government to go to war against Iraq ... [without all] the facts on the table to back this war up."

As per his reputation on training fields and battlefields, this granite-jawed former Marine stood his ground and never flinched. He reminds me of another two-fisted, tell-it-like-it-is Marine, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, the recipient of two Medals of Honor, who was almost drummed out of the Marine Corps twice: Once in the 1930s for calling Benito Mussolini a "fascist," and once again a few years later when he rattled the military-industrial complex by daring to declare that "War is a racket."

Ritter, too, took serious punishment from his critics - and instead of doing proper due diligence or asking hard questions, the media quickly piled on. It was not Fox's finest hour when that network gleefully painted him as a 21st-century Benedict Arnold - not that he had many primetime advocates anywhere else. Even CNN's usually evenhanded Paula Zahn said to Ritter six months before America unleashed its miscalculated military solution on Iraq, "People out there are accusing you of drinking Saddam Hussein's Kool-Aid."

Eighteen months later, Ritter has not only survived the relentless ridicule and all the scurrilous attempts at character assassination, he's clearly been vindicated. And by one David Kay, who dismissed Ritter's prewar analysis with: "Either he lied to you then or he's lying to you now. ... He's gone completely the other way. I cannot explain it on the basis of known facts."

Ritter doesn't come close to buying Kay's present-day convenient conclusion - now spun into a pre 2004-election pass-the-buck revisionist chant - that our $30 billion-a-year spook op goofed. Ritter says, "It's the old story of people going-along-to-get-along who put their careers ahead of their country."

Ritter doesn't let President Bush off the hook, either: "He should rightly be held accountable for what increasingly appears to be deliberately misleading statements made by him and members of his administration regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD." I asked Ritter if he felt totally exonerated. "I would feel a lot better if there were a way to reverse the hands of time," he told me, "so that people would have paid more attention to what I said in the past, and we didn't find ourselves caught up in this ongoing tragedy."

What a shame that the president and his platoon of let's-get-Saddam neocons, Congress and the CIA's Tenet didn't listen to the man-in-the-know when he cautioned: "U.S. and Iraqi casualties will be significant. ... We can't go to war based on ignorance."

But go to war we did. And now we've filled more than 530 body bags, medevaced thousands of soldiers, caused thousands more to be psychologically scarred, created tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties and stuck ourselves dead center in an ever-deepening tar pit.

For sure, people in high places need truth-tellers like Ritter to keep them straight. Had Bush talked to Ritter before opting for pre-emptive war, Bush might have been convinced to rearrange his options, and we might not be in this mess.

Evaluating intelligence calls for an open mind and sound judgment. Both were AWOL in our political leadership because of a preconceived agenda or an attack of yellow belly-itis that interfered with standing tall.

In either case, it's time for a reckoning.

My recommendation: Put Ritter on the WMD intelligence probe. We can count on him to tell us the straight skinny, just as he tried to during the fevered, frenzied days of the dance to war.
Source...

David Hackworth is a syndicated columnist and former Army colonel who offers advice, analysis and opinion on national issues and political affairs.
Source...
© 2004 by Freedom ENC Communications. All rights reserved. Content may not be reproduced without written permission from FENC Communications. For questions or comments about this site please email webmaster@enctoday.com.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

THE HOLY GRAIL OF THE MARINE

The young Marine was weary
And he sought a little rest.
With his helmet for a pillow
And his rifle on his chest.
He had seen the gunships fire.
He had heard the cannons roar.
He had seen the Navy's power
As he made his way ashore.
Then he thought about his rifle
And he found it rather small.
With the gunships and the cannons,
It was nothing much at all.
The efforts of a rifleman
Meant little, it would seem.
Then, as he slipped to slumber,
He dreamed himself a dream.

The man who stood beside him
Held a musket in his hand,
And close around his neck he wore
A heavy leather band.
"When I was an Old Ironsides"
The apparition said,
"There were cannonballs and cutlasses
Wherever danger led.
There were pistols too, and daggers
At every fighter's side,
When the ships would come together
On the rolling, heaving tide.
But when it came to boarding,
With the battle fury hot,
It was rifles, always rifles
That made the telling shot."

When we were in the trenches
The apparition faded
And standing in its place
Beneath a shallow helmet
He saw another face.
"When we were in the trenches
In the Wood they call Marine,
There were mortars, tanks, and cannons,
More than I had ever seen.
But when the final charge was made
To push the Germans back
It was rifles, always rifles
At the point of the attack."

Who fought and fell at Wake
The face changed only slightly.
And the helmet stayed the same,
But the island that he spoke of
Had a more familiar name.
"They hit us very early
On the day the war begun.
On the wings of all their bombers
We could see the Rising Sun.
Our pilots and our gunners
Who fought and fell at Wake
Wrote a story full of glory
That time can never shake.
But when the enemy drew near,
To make his final reach,
It was rifles, always rifles
That met him on the beach."

In 'Fifty at the Chosin,
There next appeared a shadow
In a swirl of stinging snow,
And it breathed a fierce defiance,
And its eyes were all aglow.
In 'Fifty at the Chosin,
When the big guns couldn't talk,
And the First Marine Divison
Took a fighting, freezing walk,
When all the world, except the Corps
Had counted us as gone,
It was rifles, always rifles,
That let us carry on."

At Khe Sahn when they shelled us,
The scene was changed to summer.
And the face was hard and lean,
And the tired eyes were fired
With the light that says "Marine".
"At Khe Sahn when they shelled us,
We were wrapped in rolling smoke,
And the thought of our survival
Was a grim and ghastly joke.
But when the waves came swarming in
To finish the assault,
It was rifles, always rifles
That called the final halt."

There next appeared a general
As solid as a tank,
With three stars on his collar
To signify his rank.
His stature and demeanor
Were the military type,
And in his hand he carried
A stubby little pipe.
His jaw was squarely chiseled;
His eyes were clear and keen,
And his bearing left no question..
He was all Marine's Marine.
"The message they're conveying,"
The burly General said,
"Is that through our troubled history,
The rifles always led.
We've had cannons, tanks, and mortars;
We've had weapons by the score;
We've had battleships and fighter planes
To complement the Corps."

"We've a most impressive arsenal--
That's obviously true--
But the final thrust for victory
Has always been with you.
It was rifles, always rifles,
When the Corps was sorely pressed,
And the rifle that you carry
Must meet the final test.
So sling that rifle proudly,
For everything we do
With mortars, tanks, and cannons
Is just an aid to you."

The young Marine awakened
And put the dream aside,
Though now he clutched his rifle
With a certain touch of pride.
And then he chanced to notice
That lying near his hand
Was a stubby little pipe
And a heavy leather band.

-Author Unknown
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

"A NEW CORPS WITHOUT GUNNERY SERGEANTS" ... by R.W. Gaines, GySgt USMC (Ret.)

I have long known that the Marine dress blues were redesigned in 1947, but I was not aware of the reasons behind this. But alas, there is a story here too. Myself, I have always thought that the old blues blouse w/o the pockets looked better than the new version. I have mentioned this before on my sites and forums, and I have received a few responses back from old salts stating that they had been issued old style blues after 1947, and most disagreed with my opinion, preferring the appearance of the new blouse w/pockets over the previous blouse.

Once again, a few facts related to the above have come to my attention from the writings of Colonel Robert Debs Heinl USMC (Ret.), deceased.

Col Heinl writes in his book, Soldiers Of The Sea, that in the years immediately following World War II, and this was during that period of the unification battle where the Marine Corps was threatened with being legislated out of existence and/or being absorbed into the Army, the War Department had convened a board to survey the post-war lot of the enlisted man. The recommendations of this board, which Col Heinl describes as "mischievous insofar as the regular forces were concerned." It called for an almost complete leveling between officers and enlisted men, with a concomitant abandonment of disciplinary traditions proven in peace and war. Saluting was to be deemphasized; officer and enlisted uniforms were to be made alike; badges of enlisted rank made small and inconspicuous; and, officer and NCO priviliges slashed. "From the "egaltarian tenor of the Doolittle report, one had the impressions of the peasants and workers remolding the Tsarist armies of the 1917. Everything was there but political commissars and comrades."

Col Heinl goes on to say that Marine uniforms were then made to make it difficult to tell officers from enlisted men; officer-style pockets were put on redesigned enlisted blues; enlisted chevrons were kept small, and; the salty and distinctive barracks cap was abolished in favor of a more conservative one like the officers.

The Corps was (almost forced) to accept the Army ranks of master sergeant, technical sergeant, and staff sergeant, but accept them it did. It had been recommended that the rank titles of chief sergeant, sergeant 1st, 2d, and 3d class be adopted, and this nearly came to be. No wonder the CMC accepted the Army rank titles as a compromise.

"That this stroke created a new Corps without gunnery sergeants and abolished rank titles in some cases going back to 1798 (such as quartermaster sergeant) was seemingly overlooked."

As a matter of fact, "Doomed by the war, but not killed until a year afterward was the prolifery of enlisted ranks which had gradually flowered since 1922." When the rank titles of master sergeant, technical sergeant, staff sergeant, sergeant, and corporal were adopted for Marine NCOs, so too were gone the enlisted rank titles, in addition to the quartermaster sergeant already mentioned above, of sergeant major, first sergeant, master gunnery sergeant, master technical sergeant, paymaster sergeant, gunnery sergeant, supply sergeant, drum major, platoon sergeant, chief cook, field music sergeant, field cook, field music corporal, assistant cook, field music first class, and field music.

I take note here that the Marine Corps had indeed previously already used the rank titles of M/Sgt, T/Sgt, and S/Sgt (in addition to many other rank titles) for some years, but these were known to have been originally Army ranks. What was being imposed upon the Marine Corps here was the then current rank titles in use by the U.S. Army.

Interestingly, the Marine Corps had combined two of these previous Army ranks to create their Master Technical Sergeant rank. And, of course the Master Gunnery Sergeant was a variation of both the unique Marine gunnery sergeant rank which dates to 1898, and the (Army) master sergeant rank.
-RWG

Surprising it is that these cases of politics as usual, political correctness, or just plain bullshit, depending upon your personal perception and choice of terms, seems to appear not only without ending through the years, but also seemingly almost without beginning--unless, of course, in general, you would go all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

Some things never change.

Semper Fidelis
R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

ADMIRAL MOORER'S LAST WARNING

Adm. Moorer's Last Warning

By Christopher Ruddy

It is a sad day for America when a national giant passes.

Adm. Thomas Moorer, of Eufaula, Ala., was such a giant.

His passing this week is especially sad for me. Adm. Moorer was a friend, adviser and member of the board of directors of NewsMax.com's parent company, NewsMax Media, Inc.

Adm. Moorer was a man "in the arena," as Theodore Roosevelt would have described him. Even at the age of 91, the admiral had kept quite active in public affairs.

This dynamo of a man made his first landing on an aircraft carrier in 1935. I don't think I need to detail the dangers of such landings without the instrumentation of today's planes.

It was one of his hallmarks that he did not know fear. Thankfully, America produces such people.

During his life, Moorer had numerous brushes with death. He was there on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

As a combat pilot during the war, his plane was shot down over the South Pacific. Fortunately, he was rescued by a cargo supply ship.

This episode would have been a great story in itself. But it gets more interesting. The supply ship that rescued him was carrying ordnance and explosives. When Japanese planes began bombing the supply ship, Moorer and a handful of others realized it would be better to abandon the ship early.

Most of the crew didn't see it the same way as Moorer and stayed. Moorer entered the lifeboat while most stayed aboard. The ship exploded and almost the entire crew was lost.

Once again, for the second time in a matter of days, Moorer was adrift in the great Pacific in a tiny lifeboat. Miraculously, he and the survivors made it to a deserted island where he was discovered by an Australian airplane. For his heroism, Moorer was awarded both the Silver Star and the Purple Heart.

I tell this story about Moorer in the South Pacific and his decision to evacuate the supply ship when most others would not because it illustrates a great deal about the man.

Moorer had a certain clarity of thinking, a thinking that saw things as they are and how they might be. He could see things over the horizon. He also had the courage to go against perceived wisdom, make decisions and act on them.

That was what struck me about Adm. Moorer: Even at the advanced age of 91, he still possessed this certain clarity of vision.

His Plan Ended Vietnam

I remember speaking to him in the hours after the events of Sept. 11. He told me that the American people would soon forget about the tragedy and would not learn from it. He said he had seen this time and again. We don't learn from these things, he told me. I was flabbergasted, but he was right: The complacency is here today.

Adm. Moorer was full of anecdotes about his years in military service, his dealings with presidents, and his service as the nation's highest-ranking military official, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Adm. Moorer was chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the divisive days of the Vietnam War. The war was vexing for him, as it was for many Americans. He was even more anxious because he believed the conflict could have been ended quickly, with fewer casualties and more favorably to U.S. interests.

But the politicians were not letting the military do their job. The days of FDR deferring to Gen. Marshall and the military were over.

Adm. Moorer's advice to President Richard Nixon was simple: Bomb North Vietnam's infrastructure in and around Hanoi and mine North Vietnam's key ports. This would effectively cut them off and force them to end the war.

Despite all of Lyndon Johnson's carpet-bombing, the Pentagon had always been limited to secondary targets that had little effect in undermining North Vietnam's war effort.

Nixon told Adm. Moorer that he would not agree. Nixon was worried that if the U.S. were too bold, the Chinese would join the war and perhaps ignite a global conflagration.

Also, Nixon was concerned about the American POWs held by the North. The State Department warned that if the U.S. stepped up the war, the POWs would suffer more.

Adm. Moorer told Nixon that China would not enter the war and that once the North Vietnamese understood our new resolve, the treatment of the POWs would actually improve.

By 1972, however, the war had been in progress for seven years and American policies had failed. Hanoi had agreed to peace talks in Paris, but the communists were intransigent.

As Adm. Moorer recounted to me, a frustrated Nixon suddenly summoned Moorer. At the time, the admiral was on a military jet heading to Europe for a NATO meeting. The plane made an immediate U-turn over the Atlantic and returned to Washington.

Moorer told me that Nixon was at Camp David, in one of the retreat's rooms, with a longtime friend. Nixon asked what Moorer thought they should do.

He told them bluntly: Bomb North Vietnam as they had never done before.

Nixon, nervously, gave Moorer the OK.

Beginning on Dec. 18, 1972, the U.S. unleashed the largest, most concentrated bombing campaign in its history -- the campaign was dubbed "the Christmas bombings." For nearly two weeks U.S. pilots flew almost 4,000 sorties. B-52s were brought in and flew more than 700 bombing runs over key North Vietnam targets.

Within days the Vietnamese were suing for peace. And as Moorer recalled, the POWs later reported that their Vietnam captors, frightened by American power, began treating them more benignly.

Adm. Moorer's plan, heeded belatedly, brought an end to the nightmare of Vietnam.

Last Warning: China

When I saw Adm. Moorer in Washington at a luncheon just a few months ago, I introduced him by saying, "Admiral Moorer may have retired from the military, but he never retired from America."

After leaving the Joint Chiefs, Moorer began an active business and political life.

During the late '70s, he was the one of President Carter's strongest critics for having forsaken the shah of Iran and allowing the Soviet Union to go unchallenged after invading Afghanistan.

Notably, Adm. Moorer was also a sharp critic of Carter's treaty to transfer the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government.

In recent years, the admiral recalled to me his testimony to the U.S. Senate opposing the Panama giveaway. He told the Senate that if the U.S. left Panama, the Soviet Union or another communist power would fill the vacuum created by America's departure.

As a military and navy man, Adm. Moorer understood the strategic importance of shipping. As one who understood the Pacific theater, he knew a war in Korea or elsewhere in Asia required the U.S. to have unimpeded access through the canal. In a serious conflict, days could be crucial. Only an American military presence near the canal could guarantee such access.

The U.S. Senate did not agree and gave President Carter the OK to sign the Panama Canal Treaty.

But the clear-thinking Moorer turned out to be right. A communist power filled the gap when the Panamanians gave Hutchison Whampoa, a Chinese company, operational control over the canal.

Adm. Moorer said that when he warned the Senate that some communist power would fill the vacuum in Panama he never, in his wildest dreams, thought that country would be China.

In his closing years, Moorer's singular worry was China. He believed that Red China was using front companies like Hutchison to set up strategic bases near key "choke points" for control over shipping lanes. He was also quite disturbed that China's Hutchison had taken control of the port in Freeport, the Bahamas – just 60 miles from Florida.

Moorer saw China's demand for Taiwan as just one reason the Chinese may go to war sometime in the future with the U.S. There was also a struggle for hegemony over Asia. And he never bought the notion that Beijing's ideological Maoists had any intention of remaking China into a democracy.

Inevitably, he argued, China would be in a conflict with the United States.

China's enormous population made this likely and worrisome. Adm. Moorer's concern was that Chinese leaders might some day believe they could absorb a nuclear attack, lose 200 million people and still have 800 million left. The U.S. could not withstand such a loss. China's population made naught the concept of mutually assured destruction – which had helped maintain lukewarm peace with Russia for decades.

So, when we honor and remember this great warrior, we should remember his last warning: Beware of China. To the very end, this heroic American was looking out for his country with his certain clarity of thinking.

Ref
NewsMax.Com
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

KAROLINE MILLER: LADY WITH A SEMPER FI HEART!

KAROLINE MILLER, MARINE MOM, DAUGHTER, and SISTER
I have been on the I'Net since about 1997, and I met Karoline Miller sometime close to that beginning. I think, at that time, she was reseraching information on her Marine Dad. I e-mailed her the info I had on how she could obtain his military records, possibly locate his friends, etc. She learned fast, and in little time she was also posting to my various forums advising others searching for information as to how to go about it.

She was, I learned bit by bit, an employee in the prison system in Minnesota; and she also worked for a time at the VFW post nearby her home, or maybe it was the American Legion. Through those years, I was surprised at her loyalty, truthfulness, and dependability to her family and friends. On more than one occasion, I found myself verbally assaulted on various forums and bulletin boards around the 'Net because of various stands or remarks I had made, only to return the next day to find that Karoline had been there in the meantime and lambasted those badmouthing me--you just didn't want to make an enemy of this lady.

She had also made friends with my old buddy of some 40 years, Mike Adelt (Gunny Mike) now deceased.

And, there was a period when I didn't hear from her for a while, and she later explained to me that she had had a series of "small strokes," but that she was recovering nicely and learning to re-learn how to use her PC again. And, indeed, she did learn again--fast.

Then, when her son, John, was nearing enlistment age and wanted to be a Marine...she was deeply concerned. She understood why he would want to be a Marine, still she was a Mom, and worried about her boy. We spoke at length--e-mail--on this topic, during that period.

Then, a few years ago, I had put out a webpage on Ray Jacobs, whom many of us believe to be the radioman in Lou Lowery's photos of the first flag raising on Iwo Jima. Up till then, Chuck Lindberg was thought to be the only living survivor of the first flag raising (40-man) combat patrol up Suribachi to raise the flag.

Karoline encouraged me to go to Minnesota to interview Lindberg on this subject. Lindberg, although receptive to public interaction, was not into the Internet and so we could not interact in that way. Anyway, I didn't go; and so Karoline decided to do it the old-fashioned way--herself. By then, John was a Marine, a corporal in the Corps. They went to Lindberg together--that's John's photo w/Lindberg on Karoline's website...


http://www.homestead.com/johnmancuso

Later, John was seriously injured while stationed at Camp Pendleton and not expected to survive. That's another story--see the website. John, did survive, however, with Karoline at his side in California. He eventually was medically retired and returned to Minnesota.

Karoline, the lady with the Semper Fi Heart, was many things to many of us.

She was active on a Marines Moms bulletin board, Scuttlebutt & Small Chow, and many more. Of course, I have posted and e-mailed much of her material out to the four winds, as she has done so with my e-mail and posts. No telling how many Marines, and others, whose lives she has touched out there.

So...who was this lady I have done my best to describe to you here? She was one of us. Marine was a special word to her, she knew what it meant to all of us.

A few hours ago, I received an e-mail from her daughter, Faith, advising me that Karoline had passed last Thursday.
I know that this lady whom I have never personally met, is in the very best of hands now. Wherever Marines are guarding those streets of Heaven, Karoline is nearby.

For those of us who knew her, we have our reward--to you others, you missed this fine example of good people.

Please forward this around--as I mentioned, many folks knew Karoline, or knew of her, and they would like to be advised. Thank you.

Gonna miss ya, K.

Semper Fidelis
Dick Gaines
Marine Barracks, APFLA


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

CAPTAIN JIMMY BONES and HIS DEVIL DOG MARINES

Captain Jimmy Bones And His Devil-Dog Marines

'Twas winter time in Quantico in nineteen-twenty-two,
The slum was pretty rough that night, and all the men felt blue;
The hail and sleet, with ghostly feet beat on the bunkhouse dome,
Some men doped out their time to do, while others thought of home.

Then from the starless night, there slipped in through the bunkhouse door,
An old top sergeant that no man had ever seen before;
The hoar frost glistened in his hair, his eyes like star shells shone,
A gnarled mustache hid half his face, and he was skin and bone.

He sat down near the glowing stove and warmed his fleshless hands,
The chill of death was in his breath, like thunder his commands;
His voice was hollow, like the tone of one who’d long been dead,
And when he spoke, the silence broke, and this is what he said:

“Pipe down, all you devil-whelps, and snap out of your dreams,
And a tale I’ll tell of heaven and hell, and the Devil-Dog Marines;
Just Captain Jimmy Bones, M.C., their skipper wrote his name,
He was a fiend for fighting, he had no care for fame.”

“Have never seen so fierce a man on land, nor sky , nor sea,
He had a scar for every war, and fought in ninety-three;
When he was riled, he had an eye that drilled a hole through men,
He spoke but once, and no man asked him how, nor why, nor when.”

“Now Jimmy was the headpiece of a hundred brave Gyrenes,
He used to have a whole lot more who died from eating beans;
But them what ate the chow and lived, they sure were hard-boiled guys,
They flicked the bullets off their coats just like so many flies.”

The old top sergeant’s voice grew low, and at its ghostly gloom,
Men shivered, and the vermin crawled upon the bunkhouse broom;
He stuffed a live coal in his pipe, and deeply did inhale,
He blew the smoke clean through the roof, and then resumed his tale.

“They say the devil made him mean when he was in the skies,
And filled them all so full of hell it shone out through their eyes;
Then old St. Peter found the bunch, and gave them souls of white,
But hell still boiled up in them, and they couldn’t else but fight.”

“So Peter had to can old Nick, and when to earth he fell,
He got himself a steady job recruiting souls for hell;
Well, Peter stamped Marines ‘OK,’ and marked them all first class,
‘Cause all that ever scared ‘em was to see a looking-glass.”

“Now some they come from Texas sand, so they was full of grit,
And some was from Montana plains where they’d been roughing it;
Some more they come from old New York, and wore a Bowery frown,
Then some which was the toughest came from good old Frisco town.”

"Old Jimmy Bones shoved off for France in nineteen-seventeen,
And shipped across the toughest crew the world had ever seen;
Each man had ‘First to Fight,’ tattooed across his chest, in black,
And right betwixt his shoulder blades, ‘Watch out, we’re coming back!’”

“Them hundred Devil Dogs sure was a bold and daring crew,
They bit the soles right off their shoes whenever they’d want a chew;
There wasn’t one among that bunch of those U.S. Marines
Who couldn’t spit three fathoms deep, and sink three submarines.”

“And when it came to shooting guns, why, say, them men were there,
They’d shave a man a mile away, and never miss a hair;
They’d trim the eyebrows off a lark, a- soarin’ in the sky,
Or shoot the points off shooting stars, as long as they had an eye.”

“They cruised on all the seven seas and rationed on hard tack,
They fought their way around the world and half to hell and back;
They fought in every war there was, clean up to Vera Cruz,
The only things they hadn’t fought was huns, and too much booze.”

“Now Jimmie Bones reached France OK with that all-furious crew,
And everyone turned round to say, ‘No savvy parley-vous;’
The French girls grabbed them by their hands, and washed their necks with tears,
The French men slapped them on their backs, and yelled them deaf with cheers.”

"Then Jimmy made a speech, and said, ‘I hear you got a war,
Around here somewheres hereabout, and that’s what we’re here for;
But all I got to say is this. Enjoy it while you can,
I’m going to clean up Germany If I lose every man."

“The Germans learned that Jimmie Bones had crossed the sea to fight,
And when they got that awful news, their feet turned cold with fright;
And when they lamped that roughneck crew from off an aeroplane,
It nearly knocked ‘em for a goal, and some went plumb insane.”

“Said they, ‘What is this thing, Marines? If they had said before,
They had such Devil Dogs as these, there wouldn’t be no war;’
So that is how they got their name of ‘Devil Dog’ Marines,
And ever since, they’ve chased the Dutch dachshund clean off the scenes.”

The old top sergeant rolled his eyes, as if to recollect,
And where he let his fierce glance fall, it scorched six feet of deck;
Said he, “No man has ever lived that crossed old Jimmy Bones,
He had the power that lifted men, Or dragged kings down from thrones.”

"A general of the allies looked out through his periscope,
And seen ten million German huns a-coming on the lope;
He bit his short mustache and said, ‘We’re in an awful stew,
We’ve only got a million men. It looks like they’ll break through.’”

“Then, Jimmy Bones piped up and said, ‘You didn’t count Marines,
I’ve got some hell-dogs that’ll chew the spikes right off their beans;
‘Cause numbers don’t mean nothing to my well-behaving crew,
Why, they ain’t been to school enough to count the men they slew.’”

“The general said, ‘You win, my man. Go take your wild Marines,
And form a scouting party just to double up the scenes;’
Then Jimmy Bones saluted stiff, and to the general said,
‘We’ll break through to Berlin, sir, If we don’t, we’ll come back dead.’”

“With that, he yelled, ‘Outside, Marines, and snap out of your hop,
We’re going out to gather up that German lemon crop;
And if I see one of you men so much as leave a rind,
You’ll rate the brig ‘till kingdom come, and sixty dollars fine.’”

“The hundred Devil Dogs fell out, and then they all fell in,
And each one closed a gap in ranks by shaving up his chin;
The chief cook turned up missing when the time for counting come,
But he was cooking shrapnel up to make the crew some slum.”
“Then Jimmy Bones, he gave a talk, to all his men, he said,
‘We’re shipping out on heavy seas with reefs and shoals ahead;
But all I got to say is this, remember you’re Marines,
Cause water settles everything, and that’s what our name means.”

"He marched ‘em up on company front, in quick and double-time,
He marched ‘em in a riot squad and in a skirmish line;
He ran ‘em in a platoon rush, and then by single squad;
And each advance ten thousand huns stretched out and hit the sod.”

"He mowed ‘em down with Browning guns, and with their Springfield gats,
And them they couldn’t get that way they stuck with bayonets;
And when it came to trenches they just shoved the banks all in,
And tons of huns were swallowed up, and never lived again.”

“The Germans shot a bunch of bombs of dead limburger cheese,
But all it did to Jimmy’s men was make them cough and sneeze;
Then Jimmy lit a strong cigar from off a passing shell,
Three million huns got one good whiff, and died of that vile smell.”

“The hundred Devil Dogs shoved on, their eyes flashed liquid fire,
Which melted guns and cannons up just like they were lead wire;
They kicked about a million huns into the River Marne,
And if they drowned, or sunk, or swam, they didn’t give a darn.”

“The Germans thought that judgment day had come to take its tolls,
They got the jula in their knees, and trembled in their souls;
And when they saw those Devil Dogs, and heard their awful yell,
They knew their judgment day had come, and they were picked for hell.”

“So, what was left threw up their mitts, and hollered ‘kamerad,’
But Jimmy’s men thought that was Dutch for talk profaning God;
So they stuck their bayonets right through them anyhow,
And buzzards came down from the sky and ate ‘em up for chow.”

“Now Kaiser bill and Hindenburg was in a game of craps,
He staked his royal crown against a box of ginger snaps;
Old Hindy won the crown and said, ‘This ain’t no good to me,
I’d sooner have a bite to eat than all of Germany’”

“Said Kaiser Bill, ‘I’ll tell you what. You lend ten marks to me,
I’ll pay you back in a month or two with French indemnity.’
Said Hindy, ‘Where’d you get that stuff. Do you see any green on me?
I bought myself some Liberty Bonds from Mrs. Liberty.’”

“Just then the crown prince busted in and said, ‘Oh papa dear;
I see some wild men coming who will wreck this joint, I fear;
I’ll shoot a long-range shot at them, and if they still persist,
Then I’ll take about a million men and slap them on the wrist.’”

“The Kaiser took a peek out from a half-raised window blind,
And seen a hundred Devil Dogs a-swimming across the Rhine;
The river was a-running blood, From all the men they slew,
And every time they’d duck their heads, they’d drink a quart or two.”

“The Kaiser’s hair stood up on end and turned from black to white,
And when he spied old Jimmy Bones, his blood ran cold with fright;
He grabbed the prince’s hand and said, ‘Don’t fool with that wild Yank,
He’ll fill you full of bullet holes where Papa used to spank.’”

“ ‘What ho the guard!’ Cried Kaiser Bill. ‘There ain't no guard no more,’
Said Hindenburg, ‘The guard was shot out there by the palace door;’
‘Where is my ally Gott?’ yelled Bill. 'Von Gott, he ain’t at home,’
Said Hindenburg, ‘The Gott you had was in your crazy dome.’”

“The Kaiser’s eyes stuck out a mile. ‘What shall I do?’ said he,
‘I’ll save myself and my six brave sons. To hell with Germany;’
Said Hindenburg, ‘It went to hell long time before this thing,
Ten million huns that you sent there are waiting for their king.’”

“The outside palace door crashed in. There was a mighty roar,
‘Thank gott,” said Hindenburg, ‘I’ll see that mush of yours no more;’
With that he grabbed his gat and blew the brains out of his head,
And Kaiser Bill knowed then and there he meant just what he said.”

“The Kaiser beat it for the door and flung it open wide,
And there he met Jimmy Bones a’coming just outside;
Behind him were his Devil Dogs with gleaming bayonets,
And Kaiser Bill knowed they had come to get a whole world’s bets.”

“Then Jimmy gave him just one look that turned his gizzard pale,
And made him wish that he had spent his life in some nice jail;
Said Jimmie Bones, ‘So you’re the cur that kicked up all this row,
You’ve got about an hour to live, so don’t give us no gow!’”

“The Kaiser’s nerve went over the hill. His brow dripped bloody sweat,
He got down on his knees and cried and got the carpet wet;
His teeth, they rattled, just like dice do in a game of craps,
And every word that Jimmy spoke was like a note of taps.”

“Then Jimmy Bones drawed out his gat, and then he tossed it by,
Said, ‘you ain’t fit enough to live, and not that fit to die;
You’ve served the devil all your life, but now you’ll work for me,’
And then he thought of things to do. Jim Bones can think of three.”

“‘You’ll stand a guard of twenty hours around the Arctic zones,
With fifteen minutes out to thaw the marrow in your bones;
And every hour throughout the night you’ll answer reveille,
And every twenty years or so, you’ll rate a liberty.’”

“‘And all you’ll have to drink is German blood you’ve shed,
And when you’re hungry, you will gnaw the bones of German dead;
You’ll do a jolt in eighty-four for ten or twenty years,
And under a hard-boiled non-com you’ll shed your dying tears.’”

“Then Jimmy stopped, and silence filled the gloomy castle hall,
The Kaiser rose and tried to speak, then fell against the wall;
Said he, ‘I thought the devil was a mean and ugly guy,
But you’ve got Satan cheated with one look out of your eye.’”

“Said Jimmy Bones, ‘Now that ain’t all I’m gonna leave you do,
Them things is just light duty, but there’s heavy duty too!’
The Kaiser throwed up both his mitts. ‘You win!’ That’s all he said,
He gave a yell that was heard in hell, and then fell over dead.”

The old top sergeant paused awhile to see if some would doubt,
He sneezed a sneeze, the stoves grew cold, the window panes fell out;
He rolled himself a cigarette from sweepings off the floor,
And lit it with his flaming eye, and then resumed once more.

“Now German spies sent work to France that Jimmy Bones was dead,
And all his hundred Devil Dogs was slaughtered too, they said;
The women weeped a lot of weeps. The men felt pretty bad,
And all of them were mourning cause the shock it hit ‘em bad.”

“The cook was boiling coffee up from a piece of dried-out meat,
Said he, ‘If they is dead or not they’ll be back here to eat;
The world has never seen the time Marines have met defeat,
They would have gone to hell to cut off Kaiser Bill’s retreat.’”

“A sentry sighted Jimmy’s men a’coming over the hill,
And dragging on behind them what was left of Kaiser Bill;
And when they reached old Paris, they were met with yells and cheers,
And showers of gold enough to last ‘em all a thousand years.”

“They hung a million medals on old Jimmy and his crew,
And when they took ‘em off they had a barrel full or two;
And ever after that each lived just like a millionaire,
They never answered reveille, or heard a bugle blare.”

“And all they did was bunk fatigue from then, forever more,
And when they died, they went above and knocked on heaven’s door;
Old Peter came down to the porch and hollered, ‘Halt! Who’s there?’
“United States Marines,” said Jim. First here, and everywhere’”

"So Peter let the whole bunch in along with Captain Jim,
And each one grabbed himself a harp, and sung the Marine hymn;
And ever after that each stood his guard on heaven’s green,
And nary a German has got past the brave U.S. Marine.”

The old top sergeant heaved a sigh that raised the bunkhouse roof,
And those who sat too close to him were blown ten feet aloof;
He cut the sling from off a gun and took a three-foot chew,
And where he spat, the floor gave way, and hell came boiling through.

Then from the fiery pit there rose a corporal of the guard,
His face was sunk, his flesh was iron, his look was twice as hard;
Said he, “The detail’s still intact around the brimstone floods,
The devil’s peeling onions and the Kaiser’s peeling spuds.”

The old top kicker knit his brow, said he, “All right, that’s well!
But when you’ve finished with that job they’ll start to coal up hell;
And if them billion tons ain’t in before they shut an eye,
I’ll run ‘em up ‘fore Jimmy Bones, and let them tell him why.”

The corporal turned and leaped head on down through that fiery mass,
The floor closed up, the bunkhouse swayed with clouds of molten mass.
The top arose, the lights went out, Taps sounded, came the rain,
A chill swept through the room and he was never seen again.

~~~~~~~~~~
A true Marine Corps classic, “Captain Jimmy Bones And His Devil-Dog Marines” originally appeared in an early forties edition of “Leatherneck Magazine" and ranks among the very best of Marine Corps “propaganda.”
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

TAINTED WATER IN THE LAND OF SEMPER FI

washingtonpost.com

Tainted Water in the Land of Semper Fi
Marines Want to Know Why Base Did Not Close Wells When Toxins Were Found

By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Catharine Skipp
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 28, 2004; Page A03

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. --

A military engineer assigned in 1980 to test the drinking water at this
sprawling Marine Corps base punctuated his findings with a handwritten
exclamation point.

"WATER HIGHLY CONTAMINATED WITH . . . CHLORINATED HYDROCARBONS (SOLVENTS)!"
William C. Neal wrote in capital letters on one of his surveillance reports
in early 1981.

A private firm followed up with tests the next year. One of its samples
showed an astonishing result: 1,400 parts per billion -- 280 times the level
now considered safe for drinking water -- of trichloroethylene, a likely
cancer-causing chemical used for degreasing machinery that can impair the
development of fetuses, weaken the immune system, and damage kidneys and
livers. Other samples showed as little as 1 part per billion to as many as
104 parts per billion -- more than 20 times the level now considered safe --
of tetrachloroethylene, a toxic dry-cleaning chemical that can seep into
body fat and slowly release cancer-causing compounds.

The number of people who may have drunk the tainted water, bathed in it, had
water fights with it is staggering: The Marine Corps estimates 50,000
Marines and their families lived in base housing areas that may have been
fed by the wells before they were closed in 1985. Victim advocacy groups
place the figure even higher, at 200,000, which would make Camp Lejeune one
of the largest contaminated-water cases in U.S. history.

Already, more than 270 tort claims have been filed with the Navy's judge
advocate general's office by former residents, who are required by law to
file claims with the military before proceeding with any possible action in
civilian courts.

One of those claims was filed by a Marine air traffic controller named Jeff
Byron. Within months of the 1982 tests, Byron moved his family into base
housing at Lejeune, grateful to leave behind a rickety mobile home in favor
of a modest townhouse with a postage-stamp back yard. Byron and his wife,
Mary, were not told about the water-sampling results, and nearly two decades
would pass before they would find out about them. Now he wakes up thinking
about all the frozen lemonade and apple juice he mixed with tap water for
Andrea, who was born three months before he moved on base, and for Rachel,
who was born two years after.

Both of his girls have been beset with a lifetime of ailments: Rachel, who
is developmentally disabled, was born with a cleft palate and needed leg
braces as a child. She has spina bifida; a gangly, arachnoid cyst on her
spine that cannot be removed; and brittle, rotting teeth. Andrea had a rare
bone marrow syndrome known as aplastic anemia and has been told by her
doctors that the disease could recur if she becomes pregnant.

"I find myself asking, 'What if I hadn't joined the Marine Corps?' " said
Byron, who left the military for the private sector in 1985.

No one knows for sure whether the water at Lejeune made Byron's children ill
or whether it sickened thousands of other former residents -- both Marines
and civilians living on base -- hundreds of whom have organized into a
lobbying group known as Water Survivors. The group's members blame the
contamination for a variety of ills, from chronic headaches to virulent
cancers, from infertility to the incurable leukemia that claimed their
children's lives.

The battle over the water contamination at Lejeune has strained age-old
loyalties, matching Marine veterans against the power structure of an
organization that prides itself in the motto Semper Fidelis, or "always
faithful." The Marine Corps has not denied that contamination took place at
Lejeune.

In a written response to questions from The Washington Post, the Corps said
the wells were not shut down for five years because there were no federal
drinking-water regulations then for the chemicals found in Lejeune's water:
trichloroethylene, or TCE, the metal degreaser that federal researchers say
was kept in leaky underground storage tanks, and tetrachloroethylene, or
PCE, which researchers believe leaked into the wells from a dry cleaner that
still operates across the street from Lejeune's main gate. The Environmental
Protection Agency had recommended levels -- not enforceable standards -- at
the time, and the Corps said the average contamination readings for TCE were
below those levels and that the PCE readings were "only slightly above"
those levels.

In recent months, the contamination case has drawn the attention of the
EPA's criminal enforcement division, which has dispatched investigators to
gather information about the history of contamination at the base. There
also is pressure on Capitol Hill. Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), the
ranking minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee, says hearings are warranted.

"I have very serious questions about why the Marine Corps, who knew the
drinking-water wells were highly contaminated in 1980, didn't close them
until 1985," Jeffords, a Navy veteran, said in an interview. "Sunshine is
always the best disinfectant. . . . We have a strong obligation to provide
all the information we already have to the Marines and their families."

For many former residents, the contamination saga did not begin until 1999,
when they received questionnaires from the Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry, or ATSDR, which studies polluted Superfund sites, such as
Lejeune.

The ATSDR, which focused its research on women who were pregnant while
living on base from 1968 to 1985, issued a progress report in July that
identified 103 cases of birth defects or childhood cancers among nearly
12,600 births included in the survey. Jeffords and his research staff say
the rate is three to five times the normal rate.

The Marine Corps has vowed to cooperate with the study. In a videotaped
statement accompanying the public release of the ATSDR progress report, Lt.
Gen. Rick Kelly, deputy commandant for installations and logistics, said, "I
want you to know that the welfare of our extended Marine Corps family is
very important to the commandant and me." He closed his remarks with the
words semper fidelis.

The release of the ATSDR report came after three years of often bitter
clashes between members of Water Survivors, who used the Freedom of
Information Act to gather mounds of evidence that they say proves federal
officials have not been forthcoming about the contamination, and the Marine
Corps and federal researchers. In a series of 1998 e-mails recently
disclosed on the Marines' Web site, officials at Lejeune discussed how
public concern about water contamination could be stoked by the release of
the film "A Civil Action," which traced the legal battle over contaminated
drinking-water wells in Woburn, Mass.

"Just a thought," Neal Paul, director of Lejeune's toxic cleanup program,
wrote to an official at Marine headquarters. "With the movie coming out in
Dec., can we delay the questionnaires until April/May time frame?" An ATSDR
spokesman said the timing of the survey was not influenced by the Marines.

The ATSDR estimates that the Lejeune wells may have been contaminated as
many as 30 years before being closed -- going back to the mid-1950s -- a
projection that would greatly expand the number of potential contamination
victims to encompass the massive buildup of troops at Lejeune between the
Korean and Vietnam wars. Marine Corps officials described the projection as
"opinion or conjecture" in its written response to questions.

Extending the contamination dates to the 1950s would draw in veterans, such
as Tom Townsend, a retired Marine major, whose wife, Anne, is ineligible for
the study because she was pregnant with their third child, Christopher, in
1966 -- two years before the start date of the ATSDR study, which was chosen
because it marks the beginning of computerized birth records in North
Carolina.

Christopher always had a "strange cry," Anne Townsend recalled, "not a
healthy, full-wallop cry." Christopher's father, who was on duty in Vieques,
Puerto Rico, got home just in time to see him die of a heart defect when he
was 3 months old.

Tom Townsend trades documents and talks strategy with Jerry Ensminger,
another retired Marine once based at Lejeune, whose eyes still well with
tears when he talks about Janey, the 6-year-old daughter he lost to leukemia
in 1985. Ensminger said he wonders whether doctors would have been able to
change her treatment if they had known about the contamination.

For Townsend and Ensminger, one of the most galling pieces of paper they
have unearthed is a notice sent in 1985 to residents of Tarawa Terrace, a
large housing development at Lejeune where Byron and Ensminger once lived,
by the base's then-commander, Maj. Gen. Louis H. Buehl. The notice announces
the closure of two wells because "minute (trace) amounts of several organic
chemicals have been detected," though it does not specify which chemicals
were found.

Some water-contamination experts believe the lack of enforceable regulatory
standards for the chemicals would be a weak defense if the case ever made it
into the courts.

"Even in those days, that would have constituted pretty close to a
drinking-water crisis," said Richard Maas, director of the environmental
studies department at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. "That
information was all out there; it was being used in the late 1970s and early
1980s. . . . If a typical town had done that [sampling], they probably would
have abandoned that as a water source."

Finding out who may have been exposed to the tainted water at Lejeune is
proving to be a monumental task. The ATSDR is poring over aging maps and
pipe diagrams to glean where the water flowed and when. The research is
further complicated by the transitory nature of military life -- many of the
Marines who may have consumed tainted water lived on base for only a few
years and have since moved.

The ATSDR has been assailed by the Water Survivors group and by Jeffords for
limiting the scope of the study to pregnant women.

"We didn't want the whole world to know, or they'd all start calling -- we
couldn't handle that," said Marie L. Socha, an ATSDR researcher who has
worked on the Camp Lejeune project.

The agency has determined that the chemicals would not affect the health of
adults, a contention disputed by Michael Gros, an obstetrician at Lejeune
from 1980 to 1983. Gros, who has T-cell lymphoma and can no longer practice,
has been pushing for the ATSDR to notify all former residents, regardless of
age.

"They've just done the biggest ghoulish experiment on adults, and they don't
want to know the results," Gros said. "What's happening while they're
stalling us is everybody's gone hither and yon, and they're dying."

Leaders of the Water Survivors group, increasingly skeptical about the pace
of federal research, are hoping the possibility of congressional hearings
could speed their efforts to get compensation for the medical bills of
possible victims.

"We want to force these people, under oath, to come in and talk about this
stuff," Gros said. "How do you know your water is contaminated for five
years and do nothing about it? How do you explain that away?"

But, for all the passion, some of Ensminger's old Marine pals want him to
let up.

"They say, 'Semper fidelis -- give 'em a break. Why do you want to hurt the
Corps?' " said Ensminger, a former master sergeant who retired in 1994 after
241/2 years in the Corps.

But an image that rattles around inside Ensminger's stubborn, crew-cut head
will not let him give up. He sees Janey, all big, brown eyes and silly
smiles, watching him as her doctors advised him to stop treatment because
there was no hope. Janey looked up at them, Ensminger recalls, and said:
"You're talking about me. I'm not dead. You're not giving up on me."

One week later, she was gone.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company



~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

A MARINE'S JOURNAL (PART 1)

A MARINE'S JOURNAL
The Wait in Kuwait
Part 1 of a frontline account of Iraq's liberation.

BY BRIAN TAYLOR
Monday, January 26, 2004 12:01 a.m.

(Editor's note: Mr. Taylor joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1996 and was called up for service in February 2002. His enlistment expired in November 2003. He kept this journal while deployed with the Fox Company, Second Battalion, 23rd Marines in Kuwait and Iraq. Comments in italics were added after his return to clarify and expand his account and to define military terminology for the benefit of civilian readers. This is the first of five parts.)

23 Feb 03--Camp Coyote (Marine Corps camp in northern Kuwait where I spent approximately three weeks. Before the invasion began it was home to as many as 4,000 Marines.)

We arrived last night to a tent city erected by Kuwaiti money and imported labor. Accommodations come complete with oak plywood floors. The atmosphere is friendly but focused.

The battalion intelligence chief told us to be ready for operations by 1 March. He told us that 2/23 is the only reserve battalion with a combat assignment (Regimental Combat Team 1) and that 2/6 (an active duty battalion) got passed over for this job. The battalion commander spoke, but his words were carried away by the wind. It was brief in any event.

Shari is due to deliver in two days. Current communications assets likely won't permit phone contact. What to say about it? She will be disappointed. God keep her.

Tomorrow we will stow our sea bags (the big green tube-shaped bag Marines carry their gear in; not for tactical use) in shipping containers. We won't be likely to see them again until the end of the war. Decisions must be made about what gear to carry and what to leave. Even the lightest of us will be carrying an absurd amount of weight.

As it turned out, we did not turn over our sea bags the next day. Senior Marines from several companies in the battalion argued against this plan. It seemed likely that weeks might pass before our departure, and having use of that extra gear, mainly extra uniforms and comfort items, would make life in camp much easier. Keeping our sea bags another 20 days meant starting the invasion with a fresh uniform and a supply of clean shorts and socks.

Our prep time is short. There are very few combat veterans here so the unknown looms large. There is no openly expressed or detectable undercurrent of fear in camp. But I feel some anxiety about how I will perform after we get started.

25 Feb 03

We spent yesterday repacking our gear and trying to come to grips with the battalion gear list. The thought of carrying tents and PT (physical training) gear into combat was odious and immediately drew comments like "whoever wrote this list obviously never humped a pack in his life." Eventually battalion got the message that non-mission-essential gear might need to remain behind.

We also played hearts. Garrard can't win and Smith can't lose. But still being jet-lagged we went to sleep in mid-afternoon and woke up around midnight again. It's not a bad sleep cycle for an infantryman. Lance Cpl. Garrard wrote this letter to the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. today:

Dear U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co.,

My name is Lance Corporal John Garrard. My friends and I are running desperately low on Skoal Wintergreen Long Cut. Being a part of a forward deployed infantry unit, we are cut off from any opportunity to purchase your products. The Marine Corps prides itself on tradition. It wouldn't seem right for us to lay the hammer down on Iraq without a nice fat chew. Grunts and chew are like peanut butter and jelly. They just don't work without one another. If you could be so kind to send us some chew, we would be forever indebted for your generosity. Please send us some tobacco in an unmarked box so the losers in the rear don't steal it.

Thank you,
LCpl John Garrard
USMC

John has a can-a-day habit but strangely forgot to bring any tobacco. At my suggestion he drafted his letter on the back of an MRE (meal ready to eat; modern single-serving combat ration) box to maximize its front line effect.

This afternoon Sgt. McMullen delivered the first real warning order I've ever received--or rather, the first warning order for a genuine combat operation. Thirty miles north of the border is a disused ammo dump. We are to clear it so follow-on forces may build an EPW (enemy prisoner of war) processing center. It is believed to be unoccupied but light resistance is expected en route.

26 Feb 03

Immediately after the company finished an MRE breakfast, the first hot meal of this deployment rolled in on the back of a five-ton truck. So we ate again. Skipped the MRE lunch though.

Platoon conducted PT this morning. We did the "daily seven" and wind sprints. As we concluded the signal "GAS! GAS! GAS!" rang out so we ran the five paces or so to where our masks were staged and donned and cleared. We spent 40 minutes in masks buttoned in our tents against the possibility of chemical attack. In a nearby area 11th Marines was conducting a drill--false alarm. A few minutes ago the signal rang out again so we are in masks again. In fact I'm writing by flashlight in a closed sweltering tent.

I woke last night at 12:40 feeling that Sharlene had just given birth. No word arrives from the Red Cross and I am anxious for news. I want to know that the baby is well and well formed and healthy, and that Shari is recovering.

And I want to take this mask off.

Unmasked now. It occurred to Cpl. Broberg that all this gas masking has begun on the very day that the First Marine Regimental HQ arrived on scene. And that it has the flavor of unannounced drill. There is a persuasive wisdom there.

27 Feb 03

Capt. Schoenfeld handed me a printed message from the Red Cross informing me of the birth of my son at 12:55 p.m., date not mentioned, presumably on the 25th. It was a fine moment, though not what I would have preferred for the occasion.

Handshakes all around. Eight pounds, 15 ounces. Lots of remarks on the size and well wishing.

Then I walked over to the battalion aid station and received treatment for what appears to be a case of conjunctivitis. The treating officer, Cmdr. Krushka, asked me to return the unused eye drops when I am done because medicine is scarce.

There goes another gas alert. Perhaps there is a causal relationship between journal writing and gas alerts. I should leave off for now.

All clear and unmasked now.

Fragmentary info about our upcoming operation is beginning to filter down. The Fifth Marines are hitting an objective on our left and the Brits are way out on our right flank. The Second LAR (Light Armored Reconnaissance battalion) is attached in support of us and Fox Company will be the main effort in the battalion assault on the objective. Aerial recon shows no activity at the site but there are forces between here and there. One hundred fifty meters beyond our objective is an MSR (main supply route) through which enemy may flee the Fifth Marines. Still no date yet.

Camp life is becoming routine. Marines generally get along and go about their business, but tent walls are thin and sometimes the drama spills out. But what sounds deadly serious to Marines trapped within sounds hilarious to Marines listening without. Fights between young Marines, or the hollering of thoughtless NCOs (noncommissioned officers) at luckless subordinates, are all audible in the lanes between tents. And the predictable futility of that kind of troop management is almost funny when heard from the tents of Marines in other platoons and companies.

Sgt. McMullen is the ranking Marine in my tent and is about the most amiable, happy squad leader I've known. With mock seriousness he narrates his way through MRE mealtime, weighing the comparative merits of different preparation techniques for the dry peach cobbler, or any other mundane gibberish he can enhance with purposeful hand gesturing.

At Garrard's suggestion I replaced Cpl. Taneja with Cpl. Siggard as the assistant automatic rifleman. Taneja assures me that everything is fine, but clearly struggles to find his place in the platoon. Siggard takes some ribbing about being a Marine Corps cook, but is fitting in. He also expresses interest in the weapons systems and team functions, which pleases Garrard.

I learned how to start an IV this afternoon. I stuck Cpl. Biggers in the arm and even managed to hit his notoriously difficult vein. Broberg stuck Arnold and removed the cap on the needle before he had the hose ready and blood jetted out of his arm down his trouser leg and boot. Everyone seemed pleased by the spectacle and they probably learned enough to do it themselves in a pinch.

28 Feb 03

The Fourth Army Infantry Division arrived yesterday. On their first day here they opened a PX, a social club and who knows what else. But their war-fighting gear is still a great way off. Imagine the convoluted set of military priorities that allows such things to happen. It is as if war fighting is incidental to the Army's existence and not its reason for being.

Sgt. McMullen brought a backpacker's multi-fuel stove and all the required gear for percolating coffee in the morning. The company staff is positively abusive in the way they lean on him to "hook up" the CO (commanding officer) or themselves. And his coffee and fuel are running short. It annoys me to see him exploited that way, but he is too decent to consider it exploitation.

At 0900 Staff Sgt. Ivers told me to get my gear and my weapon and jump on Maj. Liddy's humvee to Camp Commando, which is operational headquarters. Commando is half of an old Kuwaiti base situated near Kuwait City. It is a busy purposeful place--a Marine Corps installation but full of Army personnel, Seabees, Brits and reporters. There, unlike here, people shower regularly and shave daily without fail. There are women in uniform, and women with guns. There are mess facilities, barbershops, an exchange and phones. It has nearly all the amenities of an American base.

I went to Commando to use the DSN (Defense Secure Network) line to call Shari. I reached her at about 2:00 a.m. Utah time, but she was awake to feed John Byron. She told me that she had had to undergo an emergency C-section when the baby pinched off his umbilical, but although in the process of asphyxiating himself, he snapped back admirably when they had him out in less than two minutes. She had to endure the incision sans anesthetic due to time constraints, but it went well enough for her. She held the phone to his head and I thought I could hear his eager sucking and nasal breathing. I wish I could just look through a glass on that scene.

I assured Shari that all is fine and fun here. Relayed a message from First Sgt. Lopez to his wife via Shari that he has arrived, is well, and loves her. He made me promise to keep it secret.

During the ride to and from Commando, I sat in the back of an open humvee on security with my rifle in condition 3 (magazine loaded, no round in the chamber, safety on) pointed outboard on the Kuwaiti freeways. Kuwaitis would speed by and smile, wave and give a thumbs-up. Feb. 26-28 are Kuwaiti Liberation Days, a memorial of the short ground operation during which U.S. led coalition forces drove Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait. Apparently the locals haven't forgotten the favor. The drive-by interactions brought me a great deal of gratification and real sense of military pride and adventure.

Now we are the invaders, come to rout out tyranny from its nest. Confusion to the enemy.

1 Mar 03

After the return ride last night from Camp Commando I found Fox Company gone from tactical assembly area Inchon, this area, by bus to Matilda. There are showers at Camp Matilda. I caught the next ride over with Weapons Company and took my first shower in a week. After living on a dust-swept desert plain for even so short a time it felt wonderful. Frankly, I expected not to shower at all, but to wash out of a canteen cup until the war is over. The canteen cup, out of which I bathe and shave, is not for drinking.

Today our platoon has camp guard duty. For four hours during the day and four hours later tonight we gear up, load weapons and stand posts. I guarded a couple of electricians while they installed electric service to the tents (they're not done yet). One was a Pakistani, one an Indian, and we are required to escort them wherever they go, and presumably shoot them if they try anything funny.

At one point while guarding three workers during their lunch, I breeched guard protocol just and little and asked if any of them spoke English. The Pakistani did. From him I learned their nationalities. They ate canned curried meat on flat bread with some kind of yogurt or cheese sauce. It looked and smelled far better than MREs.

When not on guard duty, or otherwise occupied, we rest in the tent (a 20-by-40-foot) take care of our gear, read or play cards, or write letters.

2 Mar 03

I attended an LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) service today in one of the newly erected regimental tents. Forty or 50 LDS Marines from various elements of RCT 1 (Regimental Combat Team; the entire regiment and attachments). We took the sacrament and shared testimonies. The finest moments were the singing of hymns, which make worship so easy and free. And doing it all in such an improbable place as this, and with a rifle at hand and a gas mask on the leg makes one even more mindful of the goodness of God.

Rumors about when we may cross the LOD (line of departure; where the invasion begins) and initiate this effort circulate daily. But the general consensus is that we will be fighting in Iraq by the second or third week of March.

The desert camps are rapidly filling and multiplying. The amount of men and material massed here is so large that any pretense of a mere show of force must surely be gone. We are here to fight, not threaten.

The lights came on last night. The whole camp cheered when electric service was finally established and the previously dormant fixtures flickered on in our tents. Now we can cease tripping over one another in the dark and burning our scarce batteries.

There are 20 people in this tent and it is crowded. The desert creeps in under the flaps and follows us in on our boots.

At 1300 Capt. Gougen came to the tent and offered to take my fire team and me down to the battalion command operations center tent to see digital photos of the baby. Maj. Kundith took a photo of us to send home and then we crowded into the COC. They were going over aerial imagery of our first objective and making plans. But they happily turned all that off, inserted a new disk in the computer, fumbled to find the right application for picture viewing. My whole team moved into the seats formerly held by most of the command staff and then everyone in the COC looked at baby pictures. It was an incongruous moment when desert warriors paused to stare at a new baby and congratulate his father. Whoever ran the slide show promised to print the pictures off and pass them along later.

4 Mar 03

No one here knows when we will cross into Iraq. And I suppose it is possible that we might not go at all, if the radio reports of diplomatic efforts are to be believed. But it seems inconceivable that so much force should be massed here just to allow it to be dissipated by international diplomats a world away, people who, for the most part, take no notice of U.S. security imperatives. Here in the camps the feeling is that this is a military task that must be accomplished.

And the sooner the better. I've got other things to do. A marine from H&S Company, a clerk, brought the pictures of John by my tent last night. The pictures capture that startled look newborns wear while they are trying to gauge the size of their new space. It must be disconcerting to be unable to touch the very edges of your world at any moment and instantly know your place in it.

The USNS (U.S. Navy Ship; civilian-manned) Greenlake, the ship on which our battalion's heavy gear and vehicles are embarked, has arrived at a Kuwaiti port. Now it waits for dock space and unloading service.

Yesterday we practiced loading and unloading the seven-ton trucks on which we will probably ride into Iraq. The beds will be lined with sandbags to insulate troops against the effects of anti-vehicle mines. Some marines complained that the sides will not be similarly fortified against small arms fire. But it's not our call. That decision was made by someone who won't be riding in the back of a truck.

We had classes about how to breach a minefield with a grapnel (a small anchor used for grappling) on a line and bangalore torpedoes. We had a refresher course on M240G machine-gun employment.

And we played a mort of cards. We play hearts like we were giving it up for Lent. I have a strategy of thinning out my diamonds or clubs by initial trade, and then sloughing off everything else. I can usually avoid taking a point that way, and it drives Broberg and Garrard mad when I almost immediately start sloughing hearts or the queen of spades right away.

This morning I got up at 0500 and went to chow, the only one in my platoon who bothered. Then I lined an MRE box with a black trash bag and did my laundry. Laundry day was actually two days ago for our company, but there was a sandstorm that caked every wet thing with a crust of mud. Most of us wisely waited. But Capt. Schoenfeld, our platoon commander, saw Cpl. Giles doing his socks yesterday and ordered him to stop as it was not our day for washing. So this morning I took my wash behind the truck farm and washed several sets of underwear and socks. I hung it to dry inside the tent. I can scarcely fathom why a captain of Marines would trouble himself with a matter so trivial as when Marines wash socks, particularly three days before we go to war.

Word came down yesterday that the 9th is the day we go. In three days my seven-year focus on training will change into application. It is time for doing.

8 Mar 03

OK, it isn't quite time for doing. Yesterday's intelligence brief revealed that our battalion's armored vehicles have been given to First Regiments other battalions. Now we are waiting for other vehicles and probably not crossing the LOD with RCT 1.

I washed my hair this morning with some shampoo donated by the Salvation Army. I just knelt on the ground and poured water out of my canteen. I feel great.

The storm yesterday kept us inside our tents. Someone in headquarters shared a computer with Second Platoon and we watched a movie. We made a makeshift theater out of MRE boxes and watched "Austin Powers 3."

I wish I had new news of Shari and the children. How is John's jaundice? How does Jane progress through kindergarten? And what is Keith's occupation?

Cpl. Broberg and Sgt. McMullen decided that we should all grow mustaches. Sgt. Rogers, the Third Squad leader, sports a notoriously scrubby and thin mustache, which he clings to despite all our mockery. So Broberg instituted one last mockery--we will all have mustaches in a few days superior to his humble "dirt lip."

9 Mar 03

An Echo Company Marine negligently discharged his SAW (squad automatic weapon) in the next tent this morning. No one was hurt. He is now facing a court-martial at the hands of the division CG (commanding general) with a likely reduction of rank and possible brig time. Poor devil. His punishment for negligently discharging his SAW into the floor of his tent was deferred until after the invasion, when the battalion wisely elected to take no formal action.

Today we rolled our watches back three hours from local to Zulu time (Greenwich Mean Time). This is done for operational reasons.

The MEF (Marine expeditionary force) commander, Lt. Gen. Conway, spoke to RCT 1. He stood on an amtrac (a flat-bottomed military vehicle that moves on tracks on land or water) and spoke into a microphone so the 4,000 or so Marines could hear. He talked about how Marines fight, how to master fear, and how to behave once in Iraq. As he was finishing a point about the advantages of operating in a Marine Air-Ground Task Force with organic air assets, two AV8-B Harriers flew over at about 200 feet. One looped and they arched upward. As we watched them fly away four Cobra attack helicopters abreast of each other came in at 100 feet on a low attack run to let us see what our enemies might see. The Cobras approached so low and fast that there was almost no warning. Our enemies won't see much.

Gen. Conway said that the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division near Basra just learned that they are facing the Marines. He said, "Imagine what Hajji said when he learned that he will be facing the Marines in a few days time. He probably said, 'Abuba Belushi!' Which is Arabic for 'Ain't that a Bitch! The Marines.' " It was all fine and motivating.

13 Mar 03

Two days ago Gen. Mattis spoke to the battalion. He gave operational details about the allied advance on Baghdad. And he gave very frank answers to questions on any topic. He told us we will be given priority status when units queue up for rotation home after the war ends.

Mail still arrives only slowly, but I have been more fortunate than most receiving several pieces so far while others have received none.

The platoon walked the mile over to the Fifth Marines LSA (Logistics Support Area) yesterday to use their showers. That, and a clean shift of underwear and uniform, restored a degree of civilization. But tonight another stumble-around-and lie-in-the-dirt exercise is scheduled so the shower effect will be quite destroyed.

14 Mar 03

Delays could keep us in this camp for some time. The U.N., that cesspool of anti-U.S. sentiment, is doing its utmost to foil the U.S. Their primary objective or strategy is apparently to maroon Cpl. Taylor in this desert until the sun kills him or Gen. Conway takes the First Marine Division back to California.

Today Staff Sgt. Ivers burst into the chow tent and boomed, "Second Platoon you're done eating breakfast. Go back to the house!" Chief Warrant Officer Tomka was in a rage because he had mismanaged the Regimental Guard schedule and there was no one queued up to relieve Echo Company. So Fox Company Second Platoon got whipped into its gear and hustled out to the perimeter posts. And that's how things go in the Marines. Someone shows his ass on the job and covers it up by blasting someone else.

It is all one though. We were scheduled to stand those posts tomorrow anyway. I sat at pillbox six, a pile of sandbags covered with a camo net, for six hours. I sat with Garrard and we chatted each other up for the whole time about wives, kids, boats, motorcycles, war, officers, promotion, demobilization and other Marines. Garrard is a rare gem.

16 Mar 03

It is Sunday and there is no significant training scheduled. The SAW gunners and their assistants may go out this evening and burn off some rounds.

Yesterday Fox Company had a fire team competition. We ran from station to station in the heat of the afternoon with assault gear on, performing infantry tasks at each stop. At one station we had to disassemble and reassemble weapons, at another treat a simulated casualty and call for medevac. At another we were tested on vehicle recognition and weapons recognition. We gave NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical weapons) flash reports and performed prisoner searches. There were others.

Final results are not in but I hear we did not win. We topped all the Second Platoon teams though and placed highly in the company.

Last night we marched out as a company for night movement exercises. Coordinating the movement of a company formation in the night is difficult. The exercise was primarily for the platoon commanders who need practice controlling 40 men dispersed across the sand.

17 Mar 03

The time is 11:15 Zulu and Sgt. McMullen just passed word that at 1500 we will be loading our sea bags into the Conex boxes (for storage in Kuwait). Presumably this is in preparation for crossing the line of departure. I will enclose this journal in my bag at that time and take a blank one with me. There is a chance that we won't get our bags back--ever. I hope that isn't the case, as I want my journal and all the other contents of my bag.

The battalion is getting ready to publish its frag order (short for "fragmentary"; an update to a standing operations order). Our initial mission is changed.

I love my family. I long to see my wife. I long to play with my children. I am positively desperate to see and hold John Byron. God keep each of them.

(Next week: Part 2--Into Iraq.)

Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/btaylor/?id=110004602
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A MARINE'S JOURNAL PART 2



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This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
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