Marine Memories

Some years ago I wrote a series of stories for my kids so they could understand that their old man was not a hero, just a human. I've included, below, a few of the anecdotes that show my sillier side.

California - 1965

It's amazing how just a few months can change your attitude and actions. Summer, 1964, I'm living my normal lifestyle, just having graduated high school and I and my friends spent most of the summer at the beach. I was a surfer in those days and we nearly lived at four or five different beaches. I don't know why, but when the surf wasn't up we could always find waves at San Onofre. The problem was that it was located on the Marine base. Civilians weren't allowed to surf there and when we did the nasty old Marines would seize our boards, take them to the gate, and make us swim or walk to the gate to retrieve them.

Summer, 1965, I've finished boot camp, had my leave, and there are three weeks before ITR (Infantry Training Regiment) starts and they put me on mess duty. I'm assigned to the laundry room and don't have all that much to do so I take a part-time job at the club. (I'm only making $93 a month in those days and, at the club, I get two or three dollars an hour and all the cokes I can drink.) The club has two locations, one in the main San Onofre camp and the other at the beach. Suddenly I find I'm one of those nasty old Marines working at the club in San Onofre and one of my duties is to ... yep, seize the surfboards of all the civilians who try to surf on OUR beach. Did my past experiences make me more lenient? Hell no, I was one of the hardest-asses in the place and was quite proud that I seized more surfboards than anyone else in the club.

Vietnam - 1967

Our rear-area compound was surrounded by a wall about a foot thick and fifteen feet high. Eighty to a hundred meters long and about sixty meters wide, the inside was lined with single- and two-story buildings using the outer wall as part of their structure. We were told it was an old French villa built in the early twentieth century. Our mess hall was one of those inner buildings. About fifty feet long and thirty feet wide with an adjoining building at one end we used as a galley. The only reason I mention the mess hall is that Ho Chi Minh, in early 1966, supposedly boasted he would eat his new year's feast in our mess hall. He didn't do it, but did he really say that? Don't know. That's just what Hanoi Hannah said.

Around the outside of the wall were a number of smaller buildings used for various purposes. One of them was our barber shop. About twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide there were three chairs; one for officers and two for enlisted with two Vietnamese girls working there. Most barbers were women and, strangely, they earned more than the local prostitutes. Haircuts cost $1 and we always tipped the girls an extra $4 or $5. Why? Because after the haircut, they gave you a massage. Get your mind out of the gutter -- you leaned forward in the chair and they massaged your neck, shoulders, and back. By the time you walked out you were limp. My problem was that they wanted to use a straight razor for all the trimming. None of the modern three- and four-blade razors can come close to matching the closeness of a properly-honed straight razor. My problem was having a young Vietnamese girl holding a razor to my throat. I always made them use a safety razor on me.

Still in Vietnam - 1967

In that same compound/unit/timeframe I met Cpl. Dave Sherrod. He was our assistant radio chief and he showed me the human side of the war. A devout Catholic, he had been put in contact with a priest who ran an orphanage on the outskirts of Da Nang, about ten miles from our compound. One morning I was on my way to the PX and Dave gave me some money asking me to buy a carton of cigarettes. “You want to do something nice?” Yeah, sure.

“Buy an extra carton of cigarettes and I'll show you something really cool this afternoon.” Okay, young, horny, single Marine, I immediately think about the fact that I can get oral satisfaction for just two cigarettes and trying to figure out what I can get for a whole carton is just overwhelming. That afternoon he takes me to the orphanage where the priest is overjoyed at receiving two cartons of cigarettes.