Chapter 4
“Be All You Can Be”
Didn’t Sit Well With Me
3rd Recon Battalion Patch
—Not your mama’s regular Marines—
The war in Vietnam continued to heat up. More and more American boys received their draft notices every day. I was 1-A, prime cannon fodder, and the draft was breathing down my neck. Fred was already flying fighter jets in ’Nam for the Marines, and I knew Uncle Sam would soon send me my own personal invitation to become a soldier. It was only a matter of time. If I waited for the draft to get me, I would have to take whatever position they decided to hand out. As one who had no desire to allow other people to control my life, I chose to enlist. If I had to go to war, I wanted to have some choice in the matter.
I decided to join Fred. He was having all kinds of adventures as a Marine A-4 pilot. I knew I could not be a pilot, but I could be a Marine. I had followed in Fred’s footsteps so much of my life, it seemed only natural to follow him into the Marines as well. Feeling good about my choice, I went to the recruiter’s office in Waukegan. All the military recruiters shared a bank of offices in the strip center. I chose the door with the Eagle Globe and Anchor. The motto Semper Fi –always faithful—was etched under it. I learned that one from Fred. I marched smartly up to the desk to greet the beefy man dressed immaculately in a dress blue uniform, complete with the trademark blood stripe down the pant legs.
“I want to be a Marine, sir.” I thought the “sir” was a nice touch.
“Excellent choice, son.” he smiled and shook my hand with a firm grip, “What is it you do now?”
“I drive an ambulance.”
“Well,” his smile became positively gleeful, “Perfect. We always need corpsmen in the Marines.”
That sounded good to me. I thought of all the corpsmen I had evaluated over the last few years. I figured I was at least as good as any of them.
“Okay, I’ll be a corpsman.”
“Great. Now if you will just go talk to that man over there.” I looked where he indicated, and was shocked to see a tall, lanky man in the next office, wearing the unmistakable uniform of the U.S. Navy.
“But that man’s a squid!” I protested, unable to keep the disgust out of my voice.
“That’s right. He’s the Navy recruiter.”
“But I don’t want to be a squid! I want to be a Marine!”
“Yes, I understand. But the Navy trains all of the corpsmen we use.” The Marine recruiter continued, ignoring the sour look on my face, “Don’t worry, son. We’ll guarantee in your contract that you’ll be able to go the Marine Corps right after your training.”
So that day I reluctantly signed up with the Navy. I couldn’t believe that I would have to become a squid to be a Marine. But the Navy and the Marines had been connected since days of old when Marines first berthed on Navy sailing ships, and while they were basically separate services, they still shared certain things. Apparently corpsmen were one of those things. I had to admit, it made more sense than having two different training programs to teach the same thing.
Boot camp proved pretty uneventful. I was still upset about having to be in the Navy, but I figured basic training was probably the same throughout every branch of the service. I spent those weeks being rousted up before dawn to run until breakfast, take some classes, do some more physical training or PT, go to the range, drill some more, then fall into bed to get a few hours sleep before getting up to do it all again, all while being yelled at and insulted by a drill instructor. Fortunately I was in pretty good shape, so the physical part was not difficult. I made a few friends, but most guys kept their distance as soon as they found out I was training to be a corpsman for the Marines. Apparently the Marines had been doing a really good job of getting their corpsmen killed or wounded in Vietnam.
Whenever discussions of eventual MOD came up, someone would always say, “Whatever you do, don’t volunteer to be a corpsman. I hear their life expectancy in the ’Nam is around thirty seconds or, if they’re lucky, thirty feet … Oh, you’ve already volunteered? Well, can I have your girlfriend?”
Right after I completed boot camp, I went on to A-School at Great Lakes Naval Hospital. The medical instruction I received there was my favorite part of the training. I finally felt like I was doing something positive towards my chosen career. My enjoyment was tempered by the discovery that most of the graduating corpsmen seemed willing to do almost anything to avoid going to Field Medical School and then be assigned to the Marines. I began to understand why the recruiter was so glad to sign me up. I figured what the heck, my big brother was a Marine and he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. In the end, there were only four of us from my Corps class who actually volunteered at our enlistment to go with the Marines, Tom, Ed, Corry, and me.
At field medical, as we learned battle dressings and triage, I discovered I was usually way ahead of my classmates. I often silently thanked my ambulance-driving days and all those budding corpsmen for giving me a head start. I tried not to think of the doom and gloom predictions of my classmates.
Once I had completed my training and become a qualified corpsman, I was finally sent to the Marine Corps and assigned to the Third Marine Force Reconnaissance Battalion. I soon discovered that Third Recon was definitely not your mama’s regular Marine Unit. Third Force Recon was one of the elite special-forces units—the “eyes and ears” of the Corps. The job of Force Reconnaissance companies was to conduct preassault and postassault reconnaissance in support of the combat force. In Vietnam they had to get into the thick of things deep in the bush and bring back intelligence concerning enemy concentrations or troop movement that made the difference for the main units of grunts to follow. Reconners were often dropped in small groups into the heart of hostile territory to count enemy activity, or to call in target coordinates for the bombers or heavy artillery. The problem with collecting this type of recon in a thick jungle-covered country was that they had to get almost nose to nose with the enemy to count them.
As a field corpsman, I was expected to go into the bush with my fellows in Force Recon, so, along with the rest of my unit, I participated in a very rugged training regimen designed to prepare us for whatever the Viet Cong might dish out. We thought we were ready for anything. We were wrong.
My platoon was deployed to Vietnam in early 1968, just in time for the bloody TET Offensive. TET was the Vietnamese New Year, held in late January, and had always been deemed a time of cease-fire and celebration—at least until I got there. That year the Communists decided the holiday was a perfect time to stage an all out offensive against urban centers throughout South Vietnam. The offensive was all the more unexpected because of a buildup of forces that lead the American leadership and General Westmoreland to believe that any real assault would be aimed at Khe Sanh, near the demilitarized zone, or DMZ. Most Marine battalions and a large deployment of support forces were being relocated to the north to hold Khe Sanh. Everyone else was preparing to enjoy the holiday truce. The result was that the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong caught the American and South Vietnamese forces napping.
The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces were driven back with extremely heavy losses, but allied forces also suffered losses, especially those out front, like 3rd Force Recon. Ironically, I learned later that several Marine Recon patrols had noticed and reported the buildup in advance of the offensive. But for some reason the experts behind the lines completely disregarded their information. Marine Reconners were constantly plagued by desk-bound bureaucrats who often refused to believe the Intel reconners spent their blood to gather.
At the time, I only knew that we arrived expecting a lull because of the impending holiday, and found ourselves embroiled in a months-long firefight as our area of operation was inundated with enemy contact. The battalion suffered its heaviest losses of the entire war that month. During the 31 days of January ’68 at least thirty-four Reconners died and seventy-two lay wounded. The Marines, including the Reconners, bore the brunt of the brutal fighting in Hue and Khe Sanh.
I, personally, saw very little frontline action. I was too busy getting lots of on-the job training as the dead and wounded poured in. Unfortunately, most of my training consisted of learning how to put guys in body bags. Sometimes the casualties came in as unrecognizable pieces. The stench of death became the only smell in my life. My medical training seemed all but useless. It got to the point that I felt I was more of a “corpse-man” than a corpsman.
One unusually bad day I noticed something familiar about the body I was tagging and bagging. On closer inspection I realized it was Ed. Only a few days later, Tom bought it, and I had to process him as well. Out of the four of us from my class, at least two were already down. I never heard from or saw Corry again, so for all I know I was the only survivor among us.
After only three months “in country,” my recon platoon was called back to the States. We had lost too many men to remain active as a functioning unit. Most of my friends were dead or injured. My adventures in Vietnam had taken the gloss off my image of the Marine Corps. Somehow Semper Fi no longer seemed like a romantic motto. I didn’t want to be faithful anymore. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to serve my country. I just wanted to get away from the Marines.
Once back at Camp LeJeune, I approached the Chief Corpsman. He was an imposing older man who gave the impression of being Corps to the bone. But he was the only one who could help me.
“Chief, do you think there might be some other position available for me?”
He studied me closely for a moment. “You mean something outside of the Marines?”
“Yes sir.” I waited; half expected him to berate me for daring to want a different assignment rather than sticking it out for the glory of the Corps. He made a show of looking at my records, then fixed me with a penetrating stare.
“Have you ever heard of the Navy SEALs?”
I quickly dredged my memory for anything I had heard about the group. Remembering information about squids had not been high on my priority list once I had completed corpsman training, but a little bit of Navy had rubbed off on me.
“Yeah, they’re some kind of UDT unit. Don’t they specialize in underwater demolitions or something?”
The Chief’s gaze intensified.
“Can you swim?”
“Chief.” I looked him right in the eyes. “To get away from the Marines? I can walk on water.”