Archives: Leatherneck Magazines

By June 15, 1944, the Central Pacific drive of the United States had inexorably pushed the Japanese back toward their homeland. Throughout the methodical island-hopping campaign, the Japanese had put up stiff resistance, fighting furiously on the sea, on land, and in the air. Unlike the Marines, who had developed a combined arms team that included infantry weapons, artillery, and tanks as well as naval gunfire and close air support, the Japanese failed to integrate all their available weapons. Noticeably absent was any significant use of tanks or armor. That would all change with the invasion of the Mariana Islands.

The 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions landed on Saipan on June 15. Japanese artillery and mortars were hidden on the heights overlooking the beaches. Small, local counterattacks attempted to push back the invaders. But the Marines’ com­bined arms teams dealt with each piecemeal attack. Despite more than 3,000 casualties and gains of less than a mile inland, in some places less than three hundred yards, the Marines had a solid foothold on the island. By evening, the Army’s 27th Infantry Division was landing.

On D-day, the men of Lieutenant Colonel William K. Jones’ 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, came ashore on the extreme left flank of the invasion force. Known as “Willie K” by Marines, Jones led his men inland beyond the beaches, where the bulk of enemy forces were entrenched, passing a radio station with its tall tower a few hundred yards from the beach.

The Japanese use of tanks on the first day was disjointed and uncoordinated. At about noon, four unsupported light tanks attacked the boundary between 1st and 2nd Battalions, 6th Marines. “Amtanks,” Marine amphibious infantry support vehicles mounted with a cannon, destroyed three of the Japanese tanks.

During that first night, Japanese sail­ors attempted a small landing with a few amphibious tanks on the left flank of 2ndMarDiv. It was defeated by the combined arms of the Marines, in part due to a new weapon, the 2.36-inch rocket launcher, which would later be nicknamed the bazooka. The Japanese also carried out frequent infantry attacks that night, probing and pushing for weaknesses to exploit. Artill­ery, naval gunfire, tanks and 75mm guns mounted on halftracks supported the Marine infantry, and by morning there were over 700 Japanese dead near 2ndMarDiv and hundreds more in 4thMarDiv’s sector.

The next day, Jones’ battalion continued to carve out the island’s terrain, flanked by 2/2 under Major Howard Rice. The men of 1/6 made way for the remainder of the 2nd Marine Regiment to land.

That night, both Marine divisions formed tight perimeters and prepared for a Japanese counterattack. Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saito, the commander of the Japanese army on Saipan, issued an order for the 136th Infantry Regiment and the 9th Tank Regiment to “attack the enemy in the direction of Oreal (Charon Kanoa Airfield) with its full force.” In “Saipan: The Beginning of the End” by Carl W. Hoffman, Saito described the plan: “The tank unit will advance SW of Hill 164.6 after the attack unit [the infantry] has commenced the attack. The tank unit will charge the transmitting station and throw the enemy into disorder before the penetration of the attack unit into this sector.” Then, the Japanese 1st Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Force would attack from the north, parallel to the beach, to capture the Charon Kanoa Airfield, which was well behind Marine lines. One Japanese NCO noted, “Our plan would seem to be to annihilate the enemy by morning.”

This time, the Japanese had between thirty and forty tanks. Most were medium Type 97 Kai Shinhoto Chi-Ha vehicles armed with a 47mm main gun and a couple of machine guns. A few were the smaller Type 95 Ha-Go armed with a 37mm main gun and two machine guns.

The tanks gave away their presence moving into their attack positions. The Marines heard the sounds of their en­gines, as well as the chanting and shout­ing of Japanese infantry, early in the evening. Due to poor coordination, the Japanese attack didn’t begin until 3:30 a.m. and the Marines were ready.

Captain C.G. Rollen called for armored support as the enemy tanks approached the front line of Company B, 1/6. A pla­toon of M4A2 tanks from Company A, Second Tank Bn, and a section of the halftracks were dispatched to support the infantrymen. Rollen called for artillery and naval gunfire support. The Navy provided an almost constant supply of star shells, turning the night into an eerie bright daylight.

Correspondent Robert Sherrod, in his book “On to Westward,” quoted one Marine who said: “The [Japanese] would halt, then jump out of their tanks. Then they would sing songs and wave swords. Finally, one of them would blow a bugle, jump back into the tanks, if they hadn’t been hit already. Then we would let them have it with a bazooka.”

Major James A. Donovan Jr. executive officer of 1/6, noted: “Many of the tanks were ‘unbuttoned,’ [with their turrets open,] the crew chief directing from the top of his open turret. Some were being led by a crew member afoot. They seemed to come in two waves, carrying foot troops on the long engine compartment or clustered around the turret, holding on to the handrail. Some even had machine guns or grenade throwers set up on the tank.” Marine artillery and machine guns stripped away their infantry support. Then the infantry Marines took over.

The armor of the Japanese light and medium tanks was so thin that, in many cases, Marine antitank rounds went com­pletely through them. Several Japanese tankers became disoriented as star shells and tracers lit up the darkness. They strayed into nearby swamps and were immobilized, making them easy targets for the Marines.

Donovan recalled, “The battle evolved itself into a madhouse of noise, tracers, and flashing lights. As tanks were hit and set afire, they silhouetted other tanks coming out of the flickering shadows to the front or already on top of the squads.” Marine infantrymen hunkered down in their foxholes as some of the enemy tanks managed to reach the front-line positions.

Jones related in a June 1988 Leatherneck article, “One tank, leaking oil heavily, soaked a Marine as it passed over his foxhole. Another Marine, also lying low in his foxhole until a tank passed over him, jumped out and stuck a coconut log in its bogey wheels. The tank spun in circles. And when the bewildered tank commander opened his turret top to see what was going on, the Marine jumped on top and hurled a thermite grenade into the open turret. The tank blew up like a volcano.”

As the battle grew in ferocity, Rollen was injured by the concussion of a near miss. Jones ordered Captain Norman K. Thomas, the Headquarters Company com­mander, to take over the command. Oddly enough, Thomas had earned a Silver Star on Tarawa in relief of Rollen there. Now, as Thomas advanced, he was struck and killed by fire from a Japanese tank. Sergeant Dean Squires saw the captain fall. He shot the Japanese vehicle commander and placed a demolition charge on its back deck—the resulting explosion disabled the tank.

Corporal Donald Watson threw two phosphorous grenades on the back deck of a tank passing by his foxhole, then shot the crew as they exited the burning vehicle. Despite machine-gun fire from another tank, he retrieved a wounded comrade who was stranded in the midst of the enemy tanks. He would be awarded the Navy Cross.

Two other Marines were awarded Navy Crosses by knocking out seven tanks with seven rockets. Private First Class Charles D. Merritt and PFC Herbert J. Hodges moved into the open, dodging from left to right and back again. Both were untouched by enemy tank and in­fantry fire.

Private Robert S. Reed used his rocket launcher to hit four Japanese tanks. After he ran out of rockets, he mounted a Japa­nese tank and put it out of action with a grenade down the hatch. PFCs John Kounk and Horace Narveson stalked the enemy tanks. Ultimately, they scored hits on three tanks with four rockets.

Machine-gun squad leader, Sergeant Alex Smith, frustrated that the bullets of his guns bounced off the tanks’ armor, left his Marines and moved into the open. Using the grenade launcher mounted on his carbine, he disabled three tanks in quick succession.

Japanese artillery attempted to silence the Marine artillery instead of concen­trating on the Marine front-line positions. This let the infantry Marines concentrate on the enemy assault. Marine artillerymen suffered many casualties but continued firing.

During the action, Donovan noted, “The Japanese tanks … appeared con­fused. As their guides and crew chiefs were hit by Marine rifle and machine gun fire, what little control they had was lost. They ambled in the general direction of the beach, getting hit again and again until each one burst into flame or turned aimless circles only to stop when hit.”

As daylight spread across the battle­field, Marine tanks and halftracks ad­vanced into the area, finishing off many of the derelict enemy vehicles. By 7 a.m., the attack was over. Only one Japanese tank remained in action, but it rolled away into the hills. A call for naval gun­fire brought down a barrage of 5-inch gunfire from a destroyer, which turned the tank into a smoking pyre. Despite the long night, Jones’ Marines began the day’s attack at 7:30 a.m.

If all the claims of destroyed tanks were added up, including those of the infantry, antitank guns, tanks, and half­tracks, they would have equaled over 50 tanks. After the battle, 2ndMarDiv ob­servers counted 31 metal carcasses. Perhaps a thousand Japanese men were dead. Jones was circumspect, stating that if the Japanese attack on June 17 had been successful, it “would have been fatal to the division’s fighting efficiency.”

For the rest of the campaign, Japanese tanks were used only in small numbers, the largest armored attack occurred on June 24, when tanks of Co C, 2nd Tank Bn, destroyed seven Japanese tanks near the town of Garapan.

Slowly, relentlessly, the Marines and soldiers conquered the island. Airfields were secured, allowing B-29s to bomb Japan. The only major counterattack was a banzai charge on July 7, the largest in the Pacific Island campaigns, of 4,000 bedraggled Japanese soldiers, sailors, and civilians without armored support. They smashed through front-line positions but were ultimately killed. The campaign for Saipan ended with the island declared secure on July 9.

In Oscar Gilbert’s book “Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific,” the commander of the Marine tanks, Captain Ed Bale, talked about credit for the destruction: “The argument has never been settled who destroyed the Japanese tanks, whether B Company [2nd] Tank Battal­ion or whether Weapons Company, 6th Marines did.” Sherrod gave credit to the infantrymen in an article for Leatherneck: “But most of the [Japanese] tanks were knocked out by infantrymen … who declined to get panicky. They waited in their foxholes until the moment was right, then they let go with bazookas or with antitank grenades. Some of them sat in their holes until the tanks rolled over and past them. Then they aimed at the weaker rear armor.” Ultimately it was the individual Marine, acting as part of the combined arms team, that defeated the Japanese in the Pacific.

General Thomas Watson, commanding general of 2ndMarDiv, surveyed the destruction around 1/6 and pronounced, “I don’t think we have to fear [Japanese] tanks anymore. We’ve got their number.” The general was right; the Japanese never tried a large-scale tank assault in the Pacific.

Author’s bio: MSgt Jeff Dacus, USMCR (Ret) is a retired Marine tanker. He is the 2020 recipient of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation General Roy S. Geiger award. He is the author of the books, The Fighting Corsairs: The Men of Marine Fighting Squadron 215, Desert Storm Marines: A Marine Tank Company at War in the Gulf, and Perceptions of Battle: George Washington’s Victory at Monmouth.

A shuttle van rolled to a stop across the street from the Belleau Town Hall. Out of the side door emerged an elderly gentleman, hunched over, his physical frame sharply contrasted by the fierce resolve propelling him forward. Protruding from his bowed head was a red hat emblazoned with a vibrant yellow USMC.

His eyes rose to meet mine as I introduced myself and he waved his hand for me to follow him. The 82-year-old man was named James, and he told me he had been a recruit at Parris Island in 1959. He had dreamed of coming to Belleau Wood for over six decades. With his health in decline, it was now or never. Earlier in the day, James and his wife walked through Belleau Wood with the intent of “walking in the footsteps of those heroes from 1918.” James was adamant that their day end with a visit to the “devil dog” fountain.

It was clear there was a lot riding on this moment, and he wanted it to unfold exactly as he envisioned. We walked to the iron gate, and after a woman from the local museum had unlocked it, James slowly pushed it open with his cane. He beckoned his wife to join us, and the three of us walked into the old farmyard. When he saw the fountain, James whispered, “It all makes sense.

This is why we are the devil dogs. I knew we earned this title from the Germans in World War I, but now it all makes sense. I’m here because I’m a Marine.”

James hobbled toward the fountain. His wife held his right arm, stabilizing him as he leaned forward to position his head near the water trickling out of the dog’s mouth. He removed his hat, closed his eyes, and craned his neck to drink from the fountain. He paused with his eyes closed, then turned to his wife and said, “I’m done. It’s complete.” His face was splashed with water droplets. He shuffled back to the van and climbed into his seat. After a few minutes, his wife joined him and we waved goodbye as the van drove up the hill. I was left to ponder what I had witnessed—and to reflect on James’ words, which seemed to imbue a profound sense of meaning. He hinted at a lifetime of reasons that motivated him to make a pilgrimage to Belleau Wood and the bulldog fountain.

The fountain positioned him in a line of continuity existing within a sacred landscape. It reaffirmed an overarching narrative that as an individual Marine, James existed inside the collective. He and the Corps were one.
I’m here because I’m a Marine.

History of the Fountain
The Marine Corps has long understood the power of place and the importance of inculcating a sense of connection to hallowed ground. Servicemembers of all branches are tied to particular places, but Marines are collectively tied to the same places: Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh, Fallujah. This list of sacred places includes the devil dog fountain, which has become synonymous with Belleau Wood. However, because Marines were never in this exact location in 1918, the site’s prominence is not grounded in historical events. Rather, it emerged from the confluence of geo­graphic proximity to Belleau Wood, in­dividual and group identity, rituals and rites of passage, personal relationships, devotion, and collective memory. The site is an exemplar of how once-insignifi­cant places can evolve into pilgrimage sites—and of the symbiotic relationship that emerges between sacred sites and pilgrims.

The fountain is located inside the vil­lage of Belleau on private property, formerly the 16th century chateau built for the Graimberg family. The current owners are descendants of Alphonse Paillet, who, in 1842, purchased the chateau, along with most of the hunting preserve known as Belleau Wood. Paillet sold Belleau Wood to the Belleau Wood Memorial Association in 1923, and it was dedicated as a shrine to the American Expeditionary Force. The family retained the chateau ruins and have been an in­tegral part of the growth of pilgrimages to the site. The fountain is sourced by a spring-fed aquifer that supplies water to the entire area.

The sculpted bronze bull­dog head is more accurately a Dogue of Bordeaux, a hunting breed that gained popularity in France in the mid-to-late 19th century. This particular fountain was used inside the farm area of the chateau grounds and is an unlikely struc­ture to emerge as a sacred site. However, its proximity to the battlefield and the significance of the bulldog coalesced into the birth of a Marine Corps shrine. Visits to this shrine are a relatively recent phe­nom­e­non, as Marines were not in the village of Belleau during WW I. There is a possibility that a Marine may have been held as a prisoner of war or treated in the German first aid station under the chateau. But, despite this, there are no accounts of Marines drinking from the fountain during the war.

The historic silence on the topic of the bulldog fountain is conspicuous given its current prominence. It is particularly noteworthy because of the number of fountains established by Americans as living memorials after WW I, such as the fountain on Belleau’s main road that is dedicated to the memory of soldiers from Pennsylvania who died in Belleau Wood. There is no mention of our foun­tain in the writings about Belleau visits to in­clude the 1920 Knights of Columbus pil­grimage, the dedication of Belleau Wood in 1923, or the 1929 reconstruction of the church that also serves as the U.S. Army 26th “Yankee” Division memorial.

Brigadier General James Harbord, USA was incensed by the location of this memorial and released a number of press statements asserting that Belleau Wood belonged to the Marines. Had the fountain been important to the Marines, this would have been a perfect time to emphasize their connection not only to Belleau Wood but to the village of Belleau. Gold Star Mothers also visited the area as part of the U.S. government funded pilgrimages of 1930-1933, and there are no written or photographic rec­ords of them visiting this particular fountain.

After World War II, veterans of both wars continued visiting the area, and the Yankee Division veterans again paid for repairs to the church, which was rededicated in 1953. Also visiting during this time was 20th Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Lemuel Shepherd. He was concerned that people were for­getting the contributions of Marines in Belleau Wood and initiated a plan to erect a monument, which was dedicated in 1955. It seems likely that Shepherd, along with other dignitaries, would have paid a visit to the fountain had there been an established Marine Corps connection to the site. The following decades reflect a similar lack of attention.

Based on testimonies from Belleau res­idents and press pieces from the 1980s, it was sometime during this decade that Marines began to visit the village of Belleau and the fountain as an extension to Belleau Wood itineraries. In the November 1988 issue of Marine Corps Gazette, author Agostino von Hassell described Marines visiting the devil dog fountain and proposed an interesting rationale for why Marines were connected to the village of Belleau. He referenced an account wherein the Germans oc­cupied Belleau in 1914 and encountered the “Hounds of Belleau” inside the cha­teau. During the subsequent fighting in June 1918, the Germans recalled their first skirmish in Belleau, which resulted in the devil dogs moniker. On July 15, 1990, Boston Globe sportswriter Bud Collins asserted that the Marines had bivouacked in the former farmyard of the chateau during the war. This is par­ticularly interesting given the fact that the date of Collins’ visit to the location corresponded to the dates in 1918 when the Yankee Division liberated the village.

Despite the historical inaccuracy of the Marines’ connection to Belleau, both authors linked fragmented pieces into one integrated framework. From this point, the village of Belleau was sub­sumed into the Belleau Wood narrative and fused together as one place within the collective memory of the area. This is illustrated by a conversation I had with a veteran Marine visiting Belleau Wood, who stopped me to inquire about the location of the fountain inside the woods. This man had actually been at the foun­tain and inside Belleau Wood in the early 1990s with a group from The Basic School but had forgotten the sites were geo­graphically separated. At some point in the decades following his visit, his in­dividual memory of the fountain’s lo­cation had merged with the collective memory of Belleau Wood.

While Belleau Wood had been hallowed ground since 1918, the subsummation of Belleau into Belleau Wood was cemented by 31st Commandant General Charles Krulak during his 1997 and 1998 visits. Gen Krulak’s personal connections to the area ran deep—he grew up hearing about the battle from his godfather, General Holland Smith, who had seen action at Belleau Wood—and these visits sacralized the oneness of the landscape in four significant ways. First, he chose the battlefield as the setting for the 222nd Marine Corps Birthday film. Like a prophet standing in the wheatfield, with one arm seemingly reaching back to WW I-era Marines and the other arm extended to future generations, Gen Krulak passionately spoke of continuity, identity, and shared vision. He also ef­fectively used water as a connective motif by saying Belleau Wood was “like a river that runs through all Marines and all Frenchmen … rippling through our souls, renewing us, sustaining us and fortifying us for the trials to come.”

Sec­ondly, Gen Krulak was photographed drinking directly from the devil dog fountain, giving a visual template for how future Marines would engage with the site. Third, he referenced his visit to Belleau Wood as a “pilgrimage of great personal meaning” and emphasized the importance of reenacting the journey of the 1918 Marines. Lastly, Gen Krulak acknowledged the local residents by presenting the fountain landowners with a Certificate of Appreciation, a powerful indicator of the importance the Corps placed on the site.

Current Practices at the Fountain
The devil dog fountain’s emergence as a sacred site is concurrent to the growth of pilgrimages worldwide. The practices there mirror those at other sacred sites involving wells or fountains. These places are often associated with healing properties, miracles, or divine connections, which makes them focal points for spiritual practices and pil­grimages. Pilgrims and visitors come to these wells seeking physical, emotional, or spiritual well-being and either ingest the water or immerse themselves in it. Over time, stories and legends associated with such fountains get passed down through generations.

Like other sacred wells, the bulldog fountain is a center point of gathering for those who share a common identity and has become an important site for rituals and rites of passage, including reenlistments, promotions, and retire­ments. Moreover, the fountain shares another characteristic with other pilgrim­age sites: an element of challenge or dif­ficulty to access. The courtyard gate is locked and knowing how to access the key becomes part of the experience and affirms a sense of exclusivity.

I spoke to a Marine sergeant who told me she had waited her entire life to be at the fountain. The fact that she was sta­tioned in Europe was a dream come true, and being at the fountain was her sign that she was in the right place at the right time. She attributed her good fortune and life trajectory to the Marine Corps and was eager to send photos to her family and friends to show them how she made it to the fountain, knowing how proud they would be.
Another Marine I spoke to, a captain who was a prior enlisted Marine, told me being at the fountain reminded him of the yellow footsteps at PI and how he was walking in the footsteps of Marines from 1918 and taking his place among all Marines. He said that he felt a great deal of responsibility to honor the Marines of the past.

It is customary for Marines to drink directly from the fountain rather than filling a canteen or bottle to drink from. Either during the initial drink or the subsequent one, most Marines are photo­graphed in the same pose as Krulak in 1998. If they are part of a group, they will often flank the fountain for a photo. These photos are subsequently posted on social media with the hashtag #BelleauWood, further cementing the oneness of the two places.

The water’s meaning has evolved over time, too. Marines drinking from the fountain in the 1990s focused on the power of the water to extend one’s pro­fessional life in the Corps. Now, it is said that the water extends one’s physical life for 20 years. It is also considered the ele­ment that links all Marines to one another. Marines drink the water for those at Belleau Wood, for the current Marines, and for future Marines. Many Marines report taking home bottles of water from the bulldog fountain in the same man­ner as pilgrims do from other sacred wells. These bottles are treasured arti­facts that form part of a collection that may include sand from Iwo Jima or one of the Normandy beaches.

Not all visitors coming to the fountain are Marines; others such as civilians and non-USMC servicemembers frequent the site. U.S. Army and National Guard personnel visiting the fountain often recount contested battle histories and the evolving collective memory of the war. In many ways, this reinforces the foun­tain’s status as a pilgrimage site—con­tested narratives always characterize such places. The long-standing inter­service rivalry between the Marine Corps and the Army is also a point of dialogue, with a particular emphasis on WW I. Soldiers often remark that the Marines were never in that location and jest that they will post photos in front of the foun­tain on social media with messages re­lated to historical accuracy.

There is also a sense that the Marine Corps has system­atically removed the Army’s presence in the Belleau Wood narrative, and one soldier told me that the Corps was “doing what Marines do and making everything about themselves.” Soldiers visiting the fountain who know about the Yankee Division’s liberation of the village of Belleau also recount the actions of July 1918. In addition, they point out the weather­ vane on top of the nearby barn, which depicts a Yankee Division soldier with his boot permanently kicking east, symbolizing pushing the Germans out of Belleau.

There is also a local impact resulting from the prominence of the site. The museum across the street, opened in 2008, retains the key for gate access and now has vessels for the water, similar to other holy wells like Lourdes. Local guides have incorporated a stop at the fountain as part of battlefield itineraries in the area. The fountain landowners re­main central to the site and fund ongoing maintenance and access for ceremonies and cultivate personal connections with the diplomatic and military communities in France.

Memorial Day
The steady stream of Marines visiting the Belleau area rises to a groundswell during the Memorial Day weekend. There is a growing list of ceremonies for the weekend occurring across multiple sites, to include the German cemetery and the village church where a Catholic mass is held on Saturday evening. The recent inclusion of Marine Corps participation in this service is conspicuous due to its overtly religious nature, indicative of the evolution of pilgrimages in Belleau.

During the 2023 service, there were con­tributions by French clergy members, local residents, and American military dignitaries. During the sermon, the priest referenced “martyr Marines” who died in Belleau Wood, which is interesting given the fact that the church itself is a memorial for the Yankee Division. During this service, Marines inhabit a space that was paid for by the sacrifices of their brothers-in-arms in the Yankee Division. For the locals, though, these Marines seem to personify the names of the war dead flanking the church walls. The Yankee Division soldiers, who lib­erated the village of Belleau, seem to have been reborn as Marines, a nod to the Corps’ powerful influence on the collective memory of the area in WW I.

On Sunday, the culminating ceremony, infused with grand military pageantry, occurs at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. Similar ceremonies take place at all American Battle Monuments Com­mission cemeteries in France and all of them include military representation. However, the ceremony at Aisne-Marne is palpably “Marine Corps” in choreog­raphy, presence, and tenor. The list of distinguished guests continues to grow and is evidence of the increasing impor­tance ascribed to the ceremony by French military and government officials. More­over, the German Army has a burgeoning presence, and several German soldiers I spoke to shared that they were there to honor the war dead of “our allies” and focus on reconciliation.

The Marine Corps understands the power of place, and the Memorial Day ceremony demonstrates a superior grasp of symbolism, ritual and narrative. Cere­mony attendees from many countries fill the parade ground, and their gazes are initially fixed on the Memorial Chapel, ascending as a stark reminder of the human costs of war. Behind the chapel is Belleau Wood. Prior to the start of last year’s ceremony, visitors watched the Commandant and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps descending from Belleau Wood, shoulder to shoulder with the Chief of Staff of the French Army and a German Brigadier General. Not only was this a powerful symbol of reconciliation between former enemies, it was also a reminder that the Marine Corps, which had been untested in the conflicts of WW I, matured inside the primordial darkness of Belleau Wood and emerged victorious.

The speeches given by dignitaries men­tioned the sacrifice and loss of life in WW I. This reality was made more poig­nant by the setting, which includes over 2,200 graves of servicemembers who died during the war. Death and burial are tangible at places like this, and the proximity of the cemetery to the battlefield creates an immediate sense of the gravitas of the toll of war. The entire Memorial Day ceremony was a well-choreographed display of order, dis­cipline, and precision that sharply con­trasted the chaos and carnage of 1918.

As the ceremony ended, hundreds of attendees made a procession through the town, down the main street, and into the courtyard for a reception at the devil dog fountain. Like other pilgrimage processions, an amalgam of people moved together toward the sacred site. It was even more remarkable given the blending of military ranks within close proximity, which would not occur in any other set­ting. The climactic event was Gen David H. Berger’s arrival at the fountain, where he gave a speech thanking the local hosts, allies, and partners and mentioning the “sacrifices of those who fought here at Belleau Wood.” He posed for a photo with the other generals, who represented the military alliance amongst the United States, France and Germany. He re­enlisted a Marine during the reception as well.

Memorial Day weekend is also about the local inhabitants, often silent stake­holders in the pilgrimage saga of Belleau Wood and Belleau. During this weekend, the Belleau locals are co-creators of the experience; they renew personal relation­ships with Marines and other visitors and have a sense of agency in decision-mak­ing about the ceremonies. This agency is increasingly important as the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The added notoriety and people visiting these sites impacts the locals and, like other pilgrimage sites around the world, their voices are often marginalized. Many of the families have lived in the area since before WW I, and they have their own strong attachments to the sites. These attachments often reflect a dif­ferent type of priority, function, and meaning than for American pilgrims and visitors. During the Memorial Day week­end, the locals also host Marines in their homes, and the relationships forged over decades are treasured by all involved. Finally, the fountain landowners have the opportunity to remind visitors of their benevolence and hospitality, while also ensuring a seat at the table regarding the future of the fountain.

The Hero’s Journey
The Marines fighting in Belleau Wood in 1918 engaged in a hero’s journey mir­rored by an archetypal psychological process. They left their ordinary world for a call to adventure and reached a place known as “Hellwood.” After fighting with the enemy inside this Hell, they were bruised and battered; many were dead. The survivors emerged and returned home with the elixir of victory. Their reality set the stage for a new type of journey: walking in their footsteps through reenactment. Such reenactments began as early as 1919 as pilgrims flocked to Belleau Wood to follow in the footsteps of the heroes. And it was important for them to retrace the steps exactly as the events unfolded in June of 1918. However, the reenactments could only reach the resurrection stage of the archetypal Hero’s Journey through the practice of calling to memory the Marines and their actions—they could not return with the elixir of victory as their forebears had.

Gen Krulak tapped into this need for the completion of the quest in his 1997 video. He provided a pilgrimage template as he moved from the wheatfield into the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, while recalling the people and events of the battle. He was then photographed at the devil dog fountain drinking direct­ly from the source of the water. This imagery sent a powerful message that pilgrimages were a sanctioned part of the Marine Corps experience and further cultivated the idea that places connected to the Corps could be spoken of in overt­ly spiritual terms. His use of the water motif provided further language to de­scribe how Marines are connected to hallowed ground and that there is a life force that fuses all Marines together. The fact that the water originates from the same source as it did in 1918 carries deep spiritual significance. And Krulak’s language around renewal and rebirth set the stage for a shrine that could be visited and revisited by future generations of Marines seeking exactly that.

For James, the 82-year-old Marine vet­eran, his visit to the devil dog fountain was a moment of completion to the nar­rative of his life that opened at Parris Island. He was looking to reaffirm his place within the collective, and it must have been reassuring to know that the memory of past generations of Marines lives on at sites like Belleau Wood. In knowing this, there is the comfort that he will not be forgotten. He had walked the battlefield and communed with the Marines of 1918—and the last step was that he needed to ingest the water from the sacred fountain. Within the fusion of the individual with the collective, I am here because we were here is inter­changeable with we are here because I am here. “Here” is Belleau Wood, which now includes Belleau—their oneness understood through how average places evolve into sacred spaces through their relationship with pilgrims.

James was a pilgrim reenacting the Hero’s Journey, and his final quest was to return home with the elixir from the devil dog fountain. He found completion, belonging, and continuity with the Ma­rines of the past and the Marines of the future. He became fused with a landscape that emerged as hallowed ground. It is quite appropriate that Belleau means “beautiful water”—and the elixir pil­grims seek is the essence of the place.

Author’s bio: Heather A. Warfield is a professor, researcher, author, and con­sultant with subject matter expertise on pilgrimages to the Western Front of World War I. She was a 2022-2023 Fulbright France Research Scholar at the University of Lille where her research focused on post-war pilgrimages to Belleau and Belleau Wood. While in France, she contributed to a number of staff rides and educational experiences for U.S. military groups. In addition, she is the series editor of Pilgrimage Studies and is the co-editor of the book “Pil­grimages to the Western Front of World War I: Historical Exemplars & Con­temporary Practices,” to be pub­lished in 2024. Her book on pilgrimages to Belleau and Belleau Wood is forth­coming in 2025.

Executive Editor’s note: In 2003, NBC News journalist Chip Reid embedded with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines during the opening days of OIF. He spent six weeks living with the Marines and telling their stories to TV audiences back home. He developed a better understanding of what it means to be a Marine—he also developed a profound respect for these young men and the sacrifices they made. Twenty years later, Reid interviewed those Marines again. In this book he tells their inspiring stories of heroism in battle, camaraderie, patriotism and belief in the mission. Reid also writes about recovery from wounds—both physi­cal and mental—and delves into the new appreciation for life that results from post-traumatic growth. We chose to publish this excerpt in this issue because June is PTSD Aware­ness month, and hope that it reinforces the importance of speaking openly about mental health issues. For information about resources available to veterans, visit: www.mca-marines.org/blog/resource/resources-for-veteran-marines/

Preface
On Thanksgiving Day 2021, while driving from my home in Washington, D.C., to the Philadelphia suburbs for a family dinner, a souped-up pickup truck roared past me on I-95. It had temporary plates and two Marine Corps stickers, one on the rear window and one on the bumper. I thought: “Isn’t that just like a Marine. He just bought the damn thing and it’s already plastered with Marine Corps stickers.”

That got me thinking about the most challenging, gratifying, jaw-dropping, and frightening story I covered in my 33 years as a journalist—the slightly less than six weeks I spent embedded with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, dur­ing the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as a correspondent for NBC News.
For years I had thought that one day I would escape the journalism rat-race and write a book, but I hadn’t settled on a topic. “That’s it!” I thought as the pickup disappeared out of sight. For the 20th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2023, I would write a book about the Marines of 3/5.

As I drove, I thought of questions I wanted to ask them. Where are they today and what are they doing? Do they have families? How did their lives change due to their first combat experience? (It was the first combat for almost all of them.) What did they learn as Marines that helped them prosper in civilian life? Did they struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? What do they think about the war today?

When I returned home, I reached out to some of the Marines I had occasionally stayed in touch with and started asking questions. I found their stories fascinating and powerful—and they were eager to tell them. They clearly did not want their service and their sacrifice to be forgotten.

At first, I thought I could get a good cross-section with about a dozen Marines, but word spread about my project and requests to be included started pouring in. Eventually I interviewed more than 40 Marines, plus several wives and grown children, whose experiences and insights were often as engrossing as those of the Marines.

I was often surprised, sometimes stunned, by their honesty, how deep they reached to tell me their stories. On several occasions I heard the words “I’ve never told this to anybody who’s not a Marine, but …”

I was deeply gratified that they still trusted me after all those years. Many of them talked about arriving home from Iraq and discovering that their families knew all about where they had been and what they had done because they had been glued to NBC and MSNBC, waiting for my frequent updates on their progress along the road to Baghdad.

Whenever I appeared on TV, I was later told, the phone tree would “light up” with wives, mothers, and other loved ones speaking only two words before hanging up: “Chip’s on!”

Of course, their passionate interest in my reports had nothing to do with me—it was because they were desperate for information about their Marines. Where were they? What were they doing? Were they in danger? Had anyone been injured—or, heaven forbid, worse? When were they coming home? They hoped to catch a glimpse of their Marine in the background of my live reports—or even better—to see and hear him in an interview. I interviewed as many Marines as I could convince NBC and MSNBC to put on the air.

One of my most prized possessions is an immense photo book with “Ma­rines” stamped on the front in gold letters. It contains dozens of letters and family photos from the Marines’ wives, girl­friends, fiancées, parents, grandparents, etc., thanking me and my crew for en­during battlefield conditions to report on their men.

This book is a tribute to the dozens of Marines I interviewed, and to everyone who served in the Iraq war. Many of the Marines I interviewed also served in Afghanistan, so I think of this book as a tribute to all who served in those wars.

World War II and the Iraq War, of course, have very different places in American history. World War II saved the world from fascism and dictatorship. The Iraq War, by contrast, is a war that many Americans, especially young ones, know little about. Many Americans who do know about the war believe it never should have happened.

I had serious reservations about the war in Iraq even before it began. But I believed then, and I believe even more strongly now, that the stories of those who fight our wars should be told. Even if a war is unpopular, even if you think it was a mistake, our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line and answered their nation’s call.

In writing a tribute to the Marines of 3/5, I believe it’s important to honor not only their service, but also their sac­ri­fice—in battle and in the two decades since. Indeed, there is quite a bit of sacri­fice in the pages that follow, including death in battle; death by tragic accident; life-changing injuries; and the whole panoply of nightmarish symptoms of PTSD. Also, of course, addiction, divorce, and suicide, which tend to plague the armed forces to a greater degree than the non-military public.

But there is also much that’s positive and life-affirming in this book: heroism in battle; the intense, life-long camara­derie among Marines; patriotism and belief in one’s mission; life-changing traits learned as Marines; and the post-traumatic growth that often follows PTSD.

For the most part, I have told the 2003 Iraq invasion story chronologically, from Kuwait to Baghdad, while interspersing that account with stories from the past 20 years about Marines who were affected by specific battles and other incidents along the way. It took only 22 days for the Marines of 3/5 to fight their way to Baghdad, but the effects on those who fought in that war have lasted two decades.

As the convoy moved toward Baghdad and the Marines came under attack almost daily, I was awed by the fact that men as young as 18 and 19 were charging forward under machine-gun fire and making instantaneous life and death decisions at an age when my biggest worries were who to take to the high school prom and what courses to take in college. I developed enormous respect for their courage and devotion to duty. That respect only increased during my time writing this book.

From someone who doesn’t have a military bone in his body, this is my small contribution to ensuring that the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform—even in unpopular wars—are not forgotten.
Marine Families Tell Their Stories:

The Martinez Family
In early September 2003, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines came home from Iraq after a seven-month deployment. NBC News asked me to cover the homecoming of “my” battalion. I met Joe Klimovitz, who was my cameraman in Iraq, at Camp Pendleton in Southern California.

We waited for the Marines to arrive, standing with their wives, newborn babies, mothers, fathers, and other family members, who profusely thanked us for our reports. In previous wars, those with loved ones on the front lines often went weeks or months without hearing a word. With our live and taped re­ports airing multiple times every day, the families kept their televisions tuned 24/7 to MSNBC or NBC.

The Marines arrived in three waves with the last arriving at 2:30 a.m. The families of the final group had waited in a state of nervous excitement for more than eight hours. When the Marines finally got off the buses, Klimo shot video of the emotional reunions and I did interviews for stories that would air later that day.

Looking at those stories years later, one of the lines I wrote stands out: “Many here say that after so long apart, getting back to normal will be hard work.” That turned out to be an enormous understatement for many of the Marines and their families, including Corporal Mike Martinez, who held his son Mike Jr., while I interviewed him and his wife Stefanie, who held their newborn son Scott.

A photo of this moment is in­cluded in this book. Stefanie was overwhelmed with joy to have their family reunited, but Mike was stoic and distant. Looking at his eyes, he appears to have what is known as “the one-thousand-yard stare.”

At the time, I thought that’s just the way Marines are. They don’t like to show their emotions. And of course, he must have been physically and mentally exhausted. In fact, though, as I later learned, the ex­treme disconnectedness of some of the Marines, including Martinez, was also a sign of difficult times to come.

Almost 20 years later, I interviewed Mike and Stefanie Martinez again, this time on Zoom from their home in Califor­nia. Their son Mike Jr. is in the Air Force and joined us on Zoom from a base in Italy. Son Scott, a Midshipman at the United States Naval Academy, joined us from Annapolis, Md.

My first impression of the family on the screen in front of me was of the quintessentially happy military family—the proud father wearing a shirt with the Marine Corps eagle, globe, and anchor symbol, sitting next to his beautiful, smiling wife; the sons, Mike Jr. and Scott, both handsome young men proudly following in their father’s military foot­steps. And in fact, I was right. They are a happy family. But it took a long time, a tremendous amount of patience, and a lot of love to get to this point.

Mike had told me before the interview that he struggled mightily with PTSD for several years following his 2003 de­ployment in Iraq, so I approached the topic gingerly because his family was present. He told me not to worry about it. He was totally open to any question I wanted to ask. “They know 100 percent,” he said.

All four members of this courageous family were not just willing, but eager, to talk about their struggle in detail. Their hope is that other families can learn from their difficult experience. Perhaps someone else who reads this—and is driving his family to the ragged edge because of PTSD—will seek help right away, instead of putting it off for 15 agonizing years.

Mike said he had several symptoms of PTSD, including explosive anger. Just about anything could set him off. He had such a short fuse that his family was always “walking on eggshells.”

Mike Jr. said there was never any physical abuse—but the mental abuse was at times, severe. His father could explode without warning. He said it was like living with a drill instructor. “We were scared. I was always angry, hearing my dad going off on our mom. Why is he doing this? Why is he like this? I didn’t understand at the time.”

Younger brother Scott said: “It was something that we just had to keep going through and endure, despite the fact that we knew it was wrong.”

There were some good times. Even some good years. “It wasn’t 24/7,” wife Stefanie said. “It would come and go in spurts.” But the bad times always seemed to return.

Anger was not Mike’s only PTSD symp­tom. Many veterans with PTSD suffer from addiction. Mike’s addiction wasn’t drugs or alcohol. He medicated himself with food, gaining an enormous amount of weight and peaking at 340 pounds. That made him even more frighten­ing. Stefanie said his attitude was: “I’m big and intimidating, and I don’t care what people think.” Mike said his mindset, before he sought help, was: “This is just who I am. I’m the big bad guy. I’m right, you’re wrong.”

Much of that attitude was aimed at Stefanie, who says the hardest part was that she always doubted herself. “I always felt like there was something I did wrong. Everything I did was never right, and I couldn’t keep him happy.” She was often too frightened and confused to respond to his outbursts. “I would always shut down. I couldn’t say anything.”

Her job, she said, was to try to keep peace in the household. When Mike was angry, she would sneak away to warn the boys. “Just stay away from dad, he’s in a mood,” she would tell them. “I was always protecting them so they wouldn’t get the brunt of the anger,” she told me, as her husband nodded in agreement beside her. Mike’s PTSD almost tore the family apart. “There were moments where I wanted to just give up and leave, take the kids and go,” Stefanie said. “There were many nights I cried myself to sleep because I just didn’t know what else to do. I was stuck.”

She said three things kept her going: her sons, her faith, and her commitment to helping her husband climb out of the dark hole he was in. “Don’t give up. He needs you,” she would tell herself. “You have to stay. You love him. And I do. I love him to death. And I decided, I’m going to fight for him. I have to fight for him because he’s not fighting for himself.”

Mike had sought help at the VA in 2007, but says they weren’t helpful at all. A nurse even told him he needed to “suck it up.” Instead, he gave up. It took him another 12 years to try again. For most people, New Year’s resolutions rarely meet with success, but on Jan. 1, 2019, Mike’s resolution was to get help. And it turned his life around.

He started seeing a therapist who guided him through his time in combat and the horrors he had witnessed, zeroing in on one particular incident—the death of Michael “Doc” Johnson, the battalion’s first fatality in 2003. For years Mike had blamed himself for Johnson’s death, even though his reasoning made little sense. This is how he explained it: “When Johnson got hit, I felt like I failed. As a forward observer my job was to call for fire, to provide support for anybody who’s in need. I broke my radio; I could not maintain communication. My one job was to maintain communications. I could not do that. Because I failed, Johnson died.”

With the help of his therapist, and the strong support of his family, he finally accepted the fact that blaming himself was absurd. “It’s the Marine Corps,” he says now. “… Things break. It was absolutely not my fault that Doc Johnson died.” That was the beginning of the end of 15 years of self-imposed torture over unfounded feelings of guilt.

Eventually he reached the light at the end of the tunnel—and turned PTSD into Post-Traumatic Growth. Stefanie, who attended some of Mike’s therapy sessions, says his turnaround has been the answer to her prayers. He’s growing in ways that amaze and inspire her. He’s going to school, with the goal of trading his monotonous job at the post office for his dream job—teacher and sports coach.

“He’s now in a very happy place,” she says. “He’s very content with his life now.” Mike calls it a “positive place,” a dramatic change from the constant negativity of just a few years ago. And he adds that there’s no chance he could have made the change without the love and support of his family. “They were my rock,” he says. He now has a new mantra: “Better every day.” A vast improvement, he says, over his previous mantra: “F— ’em.”

Scott sees a silver lining on the dark cloud of his father’s PTSD. It taught him an important life lesson. “We saw firsthand what PTSD can do to those around you,” he said. “I feel like we have a different understanding than what the average person has.”

Epilogue
And here’s an update on Mike Martinez. During his interview he said he wanted to leave his tedious job at the post office and pursue his dream—to become a teacher and a coach. Well, guess what. He did it. In October 2023, while I was narrating this audiobook, I received the following email from Mike: “After read­ing the transcript from our interview, I wanted to update you with more informa­tion. I have now finished my bachelor’s degree program and I am working full time as a 7th grade math teacher. I also became the head coach for our high school cross country and track and field teams. I genuinely believe PTG is real but strangely must appreciate the PTSD that allowed me to rebuild myself into something that I never thought was pos­sible. I guess it’s true that you can’t have a rainbow without the rain.”

Author’s bio: Chip Reid’s journalism career has spanned 33 years. In addition to being embedded with Marines during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Reid re­ported from Ground Zero and the Pentagon after 9/11. He has also covered stories on the war on terror from Afghani­stan, Israel, Gaza, Uzbekistan, Egypt and around the world.

Marine Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) represent a small slice of the active-duty component. Less than 1,000 of these Marines exist in the service today, with even fewer operating in capacities actually control­ling aircraft. Though small in number, these Marines perform a vital “behind the scenes” function for Marine aviation, providing safety and order within their assigned airspace.

The path to achieving the Marine ATC designation 7257 looks different from other MOS training pipelines. Following boot camp and Marine Com­bat Training, prospective ATCs attend entry-level training at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, Fla. Marine and U.S. Navy instructors teach students the fundamen­tals of air traffic control, tower and radar operations, and provide them with a base­line understanding of Navy and Marine Corps policies and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. Grad­uates depart less than six months later as 7251 Air Traffic Control trainees. Each trainee receives an assignment to one of the 10 permanent Marine Corps ATC Facilities around the world, where the training continues.

A controller’s credentials vary depend­ing on the facility to which they are assigned. In order to control aircraft in­side the assigned airspace, new trainees must complete certifications within an allotted timeframe from the day they check in. This process can take over a year in some cases. Because of this extensive training, ATC candidates enlist for an initial period of five years, rather than the standard four-year contract. During their training period, Marines are cleared to operate from the tower, communicating with aircraft actively landing or departing the runway, and the radar room, keeping an eye on the entire airspace and communicating with incoming aircraft beyond visual range.

In a world where specific credentials are required to hold increasing levels of responsibility, Marine Corps rank structure matters little in deciding who performs what duties. Lance corporals on their first enlistment might act as tower supervisors, watching over cor­porals as they talk with aircraft and instruct sergeants or staff sergeants who just checked in. This practice is largely unique to the ATC field. Every duty station requires its own set of credentials to understand the specific airspace and the types of aircraft it accommodates. As a result, moving to a new location at any rank can be like starting over again. Career Marines can easily spend three or four years away from their craft on a special duty assignment such as recruit­ing, drill instructor or Marine Security Guard. Loss of currency, coupled with the requirement to obtain credentials upon return to the community, can be a daunting task.

At the Marine Corps Air Facility in Quantico, Va., roughly 40 Marines control the airspace in shifts around the clock. Corporal Abraham Gamboa serves as one of the tower supervisors.

“Painting the picture for the pilots will solve all the problems,” Gamboa said, breaking down the essence of his job in its simplest terms.

Tower-related aircraft mishaps typically result due to a lack of communication be­tween controllers and pilots. It is the responsibility of the ATCs, Gamboa explained, to inform the pilots of anything that might inhibit their safe landing or departure. During a Leatherneck visit to the tower at Quantico, Gamboa dem­onstrated this tenant of air traffic control with a sophisticated simulator. All kinds of variables can be entered to throw off the ATCs. While another Marine demonstrated how he would bring in a simulated plane, Gamboa manipulated helicopters circling, weather patterns changing, flocks of birds swarming, and even a herd of deer sprinting across the runway.

“We sequence, we separate, and we make sure everyone abides by the rules to remain safe within the airspace,” ex­plained Staff Sergeant Marcus Beacham, ATC Training Chief at MCAF Quantico.

Controllers assigned to USMC air stations and facilities, like the Marines at Quantico, are also somewhat unique because they are non-deployable. They serve as permanent staff members of each Marine Corps installation. To deploy, controllers must achieve their 7257 des­ignation and be assigned to an Air Traffic Control Company. These units fall under the Marine Air Control Groups of their respective Marine Aircraft Wing. Ma­rines train for deployment in scalable units, from single Marines deploying as liaisons to allied airfields around the world, to a full company deployment into a combat zone. The capabilities they offer scale in relation to the size of the unit going forward and the gear they carry. This quality of Marine ATCs makes them the only branch of service with ATCs trained and equipped to provide expe­ditionary Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) services.

Marine ATCs have accompanied avi­ators in combat since WW II. The first of these Marines served with the Marine Air Warning Group established in 1943, focusing their radar capabilities on pro­viding early warning and fighter direc­tion. Post-war changes upgraded and reformed the group into Marine Air Traffic Control Units (MATCUs). By the Vietnam War, MATCUs offered a full complement of all-weather capabilities.

A small detachment from MATCU-62 served admirably in one of the most high stress and high visibility settings of the war. Led by Captain William J. Flahive Jr., the section of controllers and radar operators arrived at Khe Sanh in February 1967. The North Vietnamese Army shut down all road traffic to the base by the fall of that year. Defenders depended on aerial resupply to keep them in the fight. The ATC detachment faced difficulties of every variety in their effort to orchestrate a continuous flow through the airstrip. A deep gorge just beyond the end of the runway threatened to swallow any aircraft that ventured beyond the tarmac. Thick fog often formed in the warm air, making it difficult for pilots to locate the base in the mountainous terrain. The enemy, however, presented the most deadly and consistent obstacle to overcome.

North Vietnamese antiaircraft and indirect fire kept the Marines under con­stant attack. The ATCs performed their duties regardless. On Jan. 31, 1968, NVA artillery and rockets struck the airstrip, killing Capt Flahive and wounding other Marines of the detachment. More enemy rockets destroyed the primary ground approach control radar a few weeks later. The Marines adapted another radar system, typically employed for bombing missions, to take over this vital task.

As the demand for supplies increased, and enemy fire limited the availability of of the runway, the ATCs played a critically important role coordinating with aircraft to drop supply crates under parachute. They worked directly with pilots, com­municating compass headings and wind conditions in order to precisely time each drop into the designated zone. At the prescribed release point, pilots nosed up and applied full power, forcing pallets of supplies to roll backward out the open cargo door. By the end of the siege at Khe Sanh, the MATCU-62 detachment coordinated nearly 500 container drops, equaling roughly 8,000 tons of supplies.

Marine Air Traffic Control evolved further after Vietnam. By the beginning of the global war on terror, a new de­ployable team of ATCs existed within the Marines’ organization; the Marine Mobile Air Traffic Control Team, or MMT. MMTs operate today as the small­est scaleable unit capable of providing air traffic control services. A textbook MMT is composed of six Marines; one team leader, three ATCs, and two equip­ment maintainers. In Iraq and Afghani­stan, MMTs worked in conjunction with IFR Detachments, today the equivalent of a full Air Traffic Control Company.

Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Kiley, currently serving as the Commanding Of­ficer of Marine Air Control Squadron 1 out of Yuma, Ariz., remains one of the few Marine officers still on active duty that deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan with a full IFR Detachment under his com­mand.

“Marine air traffic control is what makes the Marine Corps an all-weather aviation force,” Kiley said. “For a flying squadron to be all-weather and instrument rated, that means somebody has to be on the other side of the microphone with radar capabilities providing you with instrument flight rules air traffic control services. If you go back to OIF or OEF, IFR Detachments were out there with the ability to provide full radar services and precision recovery.”

Two IFR Dets deployed to Iraq, and one to Afghanistan. These units, nearly 150 Marines strong, provided the crucial capability for Marine aviators to fly 24/7 and beyond visual range. Numerous MMTs moved further out from the main air bases providing ATC services on the front lines. The equipment they carried limited their services to visual range. From January to August 2008, Kiley served as the IFR Det Commander at Al Taqaddum Air Base in Habbaniyah, Iraq. U.S. Navy ATCs augmented the Marines as the detachment became overtasked with air traffic control requirements to support the war. Four MMTs under Kiley’s command went forward from Al Taqaddum to provide ATC services in Fallujah, Ramadi, Mudaisis and Rawah. Controllers in these locations routinely endured enemy fire while performing their duties.

“We’ve always been a hot spot for the pot shot,” Kiley reflected. “You can’t put a tower on top of a building and not expect your adversary to shoot at it.”
In one example, Kiley described the conditions faced by the MMTs stationed in Ramadi at Camp Blue Diamond. “The Marines who manned that tower would peek over a wall just to be able to control aircraft in and out.”

While serving as the Ramadi MMT leader from January to August 2007, Kiley explained the creativity the Ma­rines used in tower construction. “We took previously destroyed humvees and removed their up-armor and put it in the walls of the towers we built. We used their ballistic glass windows as the windows for the tower. The early days of just covering your position with cammie netting were gone. We had to adapt, over­come, and harden those towers with what­ever we could get our hands on to make it a little bit safer for the Marines.”

Marine ATCs remained in Iraq and Afghanistan until the very end of Ma­rines’ involvement. They supported the withdrawal from Iraq during 2010 and 2011, and again from Afghanistan in 2014. In Iraq, during Operation New Dawn, Kiley partnered with U.S. Air Force personnel and the Iraqi government to develop the Iraqi Civil Aviation Au­thority, their version of the FAA, and design their airspace so that Iraq could take over management from the Marines and Air Force.

Outside of combat, the skills of Marine ATCs have been showcased time and time again through disaster scenarios and aircraft emergencies. Corporal Justin McDaniel earned a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal in December 2015 after an AV-8B Harrier pilot de­clared a state of emergency while coming into Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, N.C. When his navigation system suddenly died, the pilot was un­able to locate the airfield through the darkness and inclement weather. Seated at his radar station, McDaniel calmly communicated with the pilot, guiding him to the runway for a safe and success­ful landing.

In 2013, Marines deployed to the Philip­pines in support of Operation Damayan following a catastrophic typhoon. Marine ATCs scaled an exterior stairwell to the top of a damaged air traffic control tower in Tacloban to coordinate the ar­rival of disaster relief supplies. The typhoon blew out every window in the tower, leaving the Marines exposed to the elements and noise of the flight line and the surrounding devastation. The storm destroyed part of the only available runway, leaving extremely limited space for aircraft to land, park, and offload sup­plies. The Marines worked tirelessly alongside volunteer civilian controllers to maintain safe separation in the sky as planes waited to land, and the efficient arrival, unloading, and take off of planes on the ground.

Marines performed similarly during a stateside natural disaster in 2017. That September, the category 5 hurricane Irma pummeled the Caribbean before making its way up Florida’s Gulf Coast. Just two weeks later, another Category 5 storm named Maria struck the Caribbean before swinging wide of Florida’s Atlantic coast and proceeding out to sea. U.S. Navy personnel evacuated Naval Air Station Key West. In their stead, Marines de­ployed into the disaster zone to keep the airfield running and ensure the arrival of relief supplies.

“We took over NAS Key West as the air traffic control authority,” remembered Master Sergeant Kevin Haunschild, leader of the Defense Support Civil Au­thority Detachment from the 26th MEU, deployed to Florida for humanitarian relief operations. “There was only one Navy controller that remained behind when we showed up, so myself and the team that I took down there ended up taking over the airport with a couple of handheld radios out of the back of a F-350.”

The conditions Haunschild and his team faced in Florida would pale in com­parison to the obstacles that he and the MMT from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) endured several years later, performing their duties through another humanitarian crisis with the eyes of the world watching.

On Aug. 13, 2021, Haunschild and Gun­nery Sergeant Julio JoseMendez, the 24th MEU MMT leader, arrived at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. The airport was calm and operating under normal con­ditions, de­spite the deteriorating situation outside the gates. Everything changed less than 48 hours later. As the Taliban overran the city, the civilian Department of De­fense employees con­trol­ling Kabul tower were ordered to evacuate. The 24th MEU MMT remained the only air traffic controllers on the ground able to take their place.

“We were at a meeting with the colonel when the civilians were ordered to leave,” remembered JoseMendez. “The colonel turned to MSgt Haunschild and said, ‘the controllers evacuated the tower. How long until you can get your team up?’ Master Sergeant looked at him and said, ‘Fifteen minutes.’”
Haunschild and JoseMendez arrived in Kabul as part of the MEU’s advanced party. The rest of the MMT remained aboard a U.S. Navy ship. They took a pair of handheld radios and set up on the ground near the taxiway. The new “Kabul tower” location proved safer than the actual control tower due to the increasing security threat. They worked with U.S. Air Force Special Operations Combat Controllers to connect with pilots and let them know an air traffic control authority had returned. The Marines sat on the ground or stood as they controlled aircraft, exposed to the baking sun, noise of planes taxiing on the runway, and rotor wash of helicopters constantly flying low overhead. At some point, an airman brought out a cheap pop-up canopy and couple of commandeered office chairs to upgrade their new home.

“Typically, an MMT is only sustainable for 72 hours,” Haunschild said. “We were able to do it for 17 days. We didn’t do it with much, but we did it.”
On Aug. 15, Haunschild was on shift working the radio when, across the flight line, civilians started pouring over the airport’s outer wall. Hundreds became thousands. A crowd converged on the run­way preventing air operations. Haunschild left the tent at Kabul tower and joined the Marines of “Alpha” Com­pany, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, as they attempted to push the crowd off the run­way. A C-17 taxied through the mass of people. Prior to the now-infamous video of the plane lifting off with civilians clinging to the outside, Haunschild walked alongside the aircraft removing civilians as they held on for the ride. Everyone watched in shock as the plane departed and people fell from the sky.
“At that point, we weren’t in a position to control any aircraft,” Haunschild re­flected. “We were in fight or flight mode. We were trying to do crowd control, and it just wasn’t working. Those first four days were the most chaotic and, unfortunately, the most memorable. You just really can’t explain it.”

By the evening of Aug. 16, the crowd retreated from the runway. GySgt Jose Mendez put on his headset and keyed up once again.

“I wanted to let everybody who was still flying know that there was an air traffic control authority still on the ground,” he said. “We were going to prop back up the control functions and enforce some form of procedures to make the pilots feel safer and know this was not yet the wild west.”

The rest of the MMT arrived the fol­lowing day. With Sergeant Ian Chryst, another Marine ATC, now on deck, the team paired each Marine with a USAF controller in three shifts operating around the clock. The tempo increased as more and more civilians processed through for evacuation and loaded onto waiting aircraft. Traffic flowed constantly through the single available runway. The Marines coordinated an average of 110 aircraft per day, nearly five coming or going per hour around the clock. Stateside rules and procedures went out the window as the Marines did what they had to do bringing in aircraft of all types and sizes, one right after another in whatever order they arrived.

At one point during the evacuation, as the situation devolved into chaos, a small Afghan Air Force plane landed without clearance and stopped on the runway. The pilot and crew inexplicably abandoned the aircraft and disappeared into a nearby hangar. Was the plane left as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device to sabotage the airfield? The Marines knew it had to be moved and no one else was going to move it. Aircraft stacked up overhead waiting to land. Haunschild, JoseMendez, and two Special Forces operators drove a pickup truck onto the runway and inspected the plane. They determined it was not rigged to detonate and towed it out of the way to resume operations.

Personnel on the ground presented one of the greatest threats to the flow of aircraft. At any given time, a vehicle or group of people on foot might cross the runway, leaving the ATCs scrambling to call off an incoming or outgoing plane. At one point, a bus full of people crossed the runway directly in front of a jet barreling down the runway for takeoff. The ATCs stood in shock as the plane creeped off the runway and missed the bus by less than 20 feet. Miraculously, throughout the evacuation, zero aircraft mishaps occurred.

Operations continued uninterrupted until Aug. 26. That afternoon, Haunschild and Chryst manned the radios at Kabul tower when the explosion at Abbey Gate detonated across the airfield directly in front of them. They immediately under­stood what had happened.

“We ceased all air operations for two to three hours as vehicles started coming across the runway with casualties,” Haunschild remembered. “We cleared the airport so they could get over to the medical facility. After that two to three hours, we started landing C-17s at the cyclic rate, strictly to get casualties out.”
The MMT remained at Kabul tower until the very end of the evacuation, finally leaving on the evening of Aug. 30 in one of the last American planes to depart. They handed control over to the Air Force Combat Controllers with whom they had partnered throughout the evacuation. Little remained to be done as the final few aircraft prepared to leave. Despite the myriad of obstacles, primitive conditions, lack of supplies, and skeleton set of equipment, the Marines accomplished a critical mission under the microscope of the world, one they didn’t even know would be their task until they arrived on the ground and took the initiative to get the job done.

“It’s what Marines do,” said GySgt JoseMendez. “Sometimes, you have to do more with less. Sometimes, you’re going to be put in a position where it’s not a specifically fine-tuned and planned situation. It’s a crisis, and no matter what your cards are, you have to play them to the best of your ability.”

For their outstanding performance in the evacuation, Haunschild and JoseMendez both received a Bronze Star. Chryst received a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. The MMT’s experience in Kabul serves today as the most recent major example of the type of situation Marines can encounter at any time.

“God forbid another MMT finds them­self in this kind of situation where everything is unknown,” Haunschild reflected. “You run out of food. You run out of water. You run out of resources. Your logistics chain is cut off. You land, you walk out, and you don’t know if you’re going to leave. This is why we train, this is why we consider ourselves consummate professionals within our MOS, so we can do it anywhere.”

For now, MMTs offer the primary source of deployment with each MEU. The expeditionary capability that Air Traffic Control Companies provide will no doubt be called into action in the event of a major conflict. New gear has been distributed to the companies to upgrade their capability in austere environments and more thoroughly integrate their data into the overall aviation command and control systems. The MMTs deploying with MEUs, or ahead of airfields in a combat zone, will also see changes in the near future.

“Our current organization limits the ATCs within a MMT from providing the full capability of what those Marines are trained to provide,” said Kiley. “We are currently rewriting our Marine Corps Task to unchain our folks and acquire the equipment that allows them to be much more capable, similar to the actions that occurred in Kabul. What those Marines did was herculean. They acquired equip­ment and gear and did things well beyond the scope of an MMT. The future MMT will be a robust C3 node. They will be able to disaggregate into multiple teams to support multiple sites.”

The necessity for the all-weather capa­bilities Marine ATCs offer will only be magnified in the next war. As they stand poised to provide this critical enabling function for Marine aviation in combat, the future for these Marines looks dy­namic and active.

Author’s bio: Kyle Watts is the staff writer for Leatherneck. He served on active duty in the Marine Corps as a communications officer from 2009-2013. He is the 2019 winner of the Colonel Robert Debs Heinl Jr. Award for Marine Corps History. He lives in Richmond, Va., with his wife and three children.

As a tradition, aircraft art in the Armed Forces has been en­cour­aged by some branches while being heavily regulated in others. And though there is currently a massive re­surgence of interest in aircraft art, which has become more widespread within the Marine Corps and generally accepted over the years, that was not always the case. What was once a wartime tradition has now become a way for Marine avi­ators across the Corps to connect with their squadron’s history and their roots as Marines. One artist, through her ex­perience in the Air Force, has dedicated her time to helping depict these histories, using military aircraft as the canvas and bringing new life to the practice of air­craft art as a form of expression.

Placing personalized decorative images on attack aircraft first gained traction among German forces in World War I after a sea monster was painted on the nose of an Italian Macchi M.5 flying boat in 1913. By this time, some squadrons had started to use general unit identi­fication markings. The sea monster was meant to be menacing, a way to grab the attention of enemy pilots and stand out from others in the unit. Upon their return from missions, Allied pilots said they had seen German fighters painted in a multitude of colors soaring through the skies and took inspiration from the unique art. Soon after, Allied forces everywhere, including Marine pilots, began painting aircraft art of their own.

But aircraft nose art did not rise in popularity among U.S. forces until World War II, where it was primarily used as a method to boost morale during the war as it progressed, although it was not officially authorized. The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) pilots had more freedom to personalize their aircraft and were even encouraged to do so by their command, while the strict regula­tions upheld by the Navy were put in place to ensure that no markings aside from squadron badges or national in­signia were permitted on its airplanes. That regulation made it particularly dif­ficult for Marines to participate in the popular practice, which is why there are more existing USAAF bombers with distinctive nose art displayed in museums than Marine ones.

“The Navy did not want the Japanese to be able to identify particular units and recognize when, for instance, a particular carrier was in the area or not in the area,” said Larry Burke, the aviation curator at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. “So, for much of the war, there is no readily visible individual identifier [on the aircraft] other than the Navy Bureau number. But those are small and generally not terribly visible once you get a few feet away from the airplane.” And though that regulation came long before World War II, the rules have been broken from time to time, particularly in the Pacific, where the crews rarely saw top brass. In other words, Marines did it anyway. Paintings of pinups were some of the most popular displays of nose art. But pilots would paint anything from animals to squadron mascots or even Disney characters on their attack aircraft, along with distinctive names for further personalization.

In fact, Walt Disney’s relationship to the military was largely personal. Not only did his older brother Roy O. Disney serve in the Navy during World War I, Walt Disney himself also served in the military as a Red Cross ambulance driver during the same war, where he decorated his ambulance and others in his unit with cartoons. Those ties had a big impact on the appearance of Disney cartoons on military aircraft, which started in 1933. Walt Disney Productions provided more than 1,200 insignias during World War II, creating designs of recognizable characters that would later be used for flight jacket patches, pins and nose art. These designs were done by the studio free of charge and provided to Allied military units as a donation to the war effort.

According to an article on Disney aircraft insignia in World War II pub­lished by the Department of Defense, Donald Duck was the most requested Disney character, with over 216 requests. But Pluto, Goofy, Mickey Mouse and Dumbo were other highly requested characters. Marine Utility Squadron 252 displayed their nose art painting of Disney’s Dumbo on the side of their Curtiss R5C Commando, calling it “The Flying Elephant.” Other squadrons, like Marine Utility Squadron 352 and Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 344, requested insignias that featured Donald Duck with the eagle, globe and anchor tattooed on his left wing, and a bulldog, bearing a similar resemblance to Disney’s Butch the Bulldog, holding a skull-decorated bomb in his paws.

The end of World War II marked the steady decline of aircraft art across all branches—mostly due to the end of wartime activity, but also due to the dis­appearance of the airplanes themselves. After the war, the United States dis­mantled what was left of the 300,000 warplanes or sold them off. Nose art would resurface during the Korean and Vietnam wars but was still more com­monly seen on Air Force aircraft. How­ever, that did not stop Marine aviators from taking part in the tradition, even though Navy restrictions on nose art never truly relaxed.

Aircraft art has continued to fluctuate in and out of use during the turn of the century. Peacetime regulations between wars dimmed the spark of tradition that was eager to grow and evolve, and many were unsure of how to continue the legacy of the aircraft artists before them. But hope was not lost. For over 20 years, one artist has dedicated her time to help­ing aviators across the Armed Forces carry on the legacy of those who came before them through the artistry she paints on the aircraft they fly. Her name is Shayne Meder, and she is a retired U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant who works under the alias “Flygirlpainter.”

Alongside her work as a restoration manager at March Air Reserve Base in California, MSgt Meder has volunteered her services to help military flight crews express their pride and dedication in the form of art. For the Marine Corps, whose history details a strenuous fight to em­brace air­craft art as a tradition amid strict uniformity, her services are welcomed and highly praised.
Meder’s work as an artist started long before she began painting aircraft art for military aviators. “My grandmother was a painter, so I was doing art before I even went into the Air Force,” she said. “I was in support equipment maintenance and did some aircraft maintenance in­spection over the years.

Once they find out you can paint, you end up painting everything from designs on hangar doors to tool­boxes.” In 1987, while working in Stra­tegic Air Command, MSgt Meder began painting nose art on B-52 bombers before transferring to California in 1990. Short­ly after, the base where Meder was sta­tioned was put on a closure list, prompt­ing her to retire. However, that did not stop her from working on aircraft. Years of experience in the Air Force brought along new opportunities, and shortly after retiring, she signed on as the Res­toration Manager at March Air Reserve Base in California after it transitioned from military to private operations. Meder continued to work on and maintain old military aircraft like she had during her days in the Air Force, but it would not be until 1999 that she would begin her journey as Flygirlpainter.

While painting a piece of nose art on a B-17 at the March Airfield Museum, a Navy crew in the area stopped by on their way back from the San Bernadino Mountains. The previous year, there had been a crash, and the crew had traveled back to the crash site to pay tribute to their fellow Marines. One of the crewmembers saw the work that Meder was doing and asked her to paint the tail of an H-60 Seahawk for them. “They wanted this blue tail with a hawk and an eagle on it … I had never painted a helicopter like that before.” Though she was unsure at first, the crew persisted, and in 1999 they flew the helicopter from San Diego, Calif., to March Airfield Base, providing paint and other materials for her to create the design for their show bird. Meder got straight to work.

“I’d always been doing nose art on the base for the KC-135s. And I still do that, but it just steamrolled into this huge thing.” Since then, MSgt Meder has offered her services to any flight crew that has reached out, as long as travel expenses, room and board, and painting supplies are provided. Over the course of her years working as Flygirlpainter, Meder has painted over a dozen V-22B Ospreys for various aircraft squadrons across the Marine Corps, and the number of requests grows with each passing day. For Meder, her work is a way to give thanks to those who serve and have served, and to keep the tradition of air­craft art alive. “I know a lot of people support our military,” Meder said. “They might make cookies or send them care packages, and I love all that, but if I can make them happy and help them by painting them a bird, then that’s what I’ll do.” Her dedication and commitment have garnered her a large following of military aviators all over the country who seek out her services regularly.

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 764 “Moonlight,” VMM-364 “Purple Foxes,” VMM-268 “Red Dragons” and VMM-162 “Golden Eagles” are just a few of the Marine squadrons that have worked with Meder over her years as Flygirlpainter. The designs are striking and detailed, illustrating each squadron’s story in a colorful and creative way. Recently, VMM-268 and VMM-364 spoke with Leatherneck about the work that Meder has done for them and what each of their tail designs represent.

As support squadrons with the Ma­rine Air Ground Task Force, VMM-268, located at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, and VMM-364, located at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., provide assault support transport of combat troops as well as supplies and equipment during expeditionary, joint and combined oper­ations. Their coastal locations, combined with the long-range capabilities of the MV-22B Osprey, allow the squadrons to conduct transpacific assault operations day or night, under all weather conditions.

“Our job is to insert Marines into key positions on the battlefield so that they can attack the enemies’ critical vul­nerabilities. As they execute their role as the front-line war fighters, we ensure that they stay supplied with what they need to continue the fight. And when that fight is done, we bring them home,” said Captain Casey “Mouth” Funk, a pilot with VMM-268. Having always aspired to become a pilot, Funk enlisted in the Corps for the opportunity to fly but was also drawn to the Corps’ values and cul­tural environment. “It’s a community of service built around a requirement to constantly better oneself and help those around you do the same,” he said. While nose art united Marines of the past with their shared longing for home, today’s Marine aviators can find community through art that represents the squadrons’ past and its future.

In 2019, MSgt Meder traveled to Hawaii to paint the tail of an MV-22B Osprey for VMM-268. The design featured two starkly different images, one on each side of the tail. One side displayed the squad­ron mascot, Trixi the Red Dragon, which was inspired by the dragon Smaug from J.R.R. Tolkien’s book “The Hobbit.” The painting of Trixi also pays tribute to VMM-268’s legacy of night operations, which began in 1982 when then-Marine Medium Helicopter (HMM) Squadron 268 became the first Marine Corps squad­ron qualified to fly with night-vision goggles. The other side of the tail features an image of two surfers looking out over the ocean at the setting sun. That image is known as “Endless Summer,” based on surfers Robert “Wingnut” Weaver and Patrick O’Connell, who were documented in a 1994 film titled “Endless Summer II,” directed by Bruce Brown. During the film, the two surfers travel the world in search of the perfect wave. “This squadron has a passion for excel­lence, and every day we show up in search of the perfect flight,” Capt Funk said. “That image, and the spirit carried with it, have long been a part of the squad­ron.” Though completely different in appearance, both paintings show a different part of VMM-268’s history and the fundamental purpose of the artistic expression that aircraft art brings for military aviators.

Nearly three years later, Meder would make her way to Camp Pendleton to paint a tail art design for VMM-364, the “Purple Foxes.” Once designated HMM-364, the squadron was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their service during the Vietnam War and became well known throughout the Corps for descending into landing zones to support ground troops while under fire. On Oct. 9, 2014, the squadron was redesignated. During the redesignation ceremony, all CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters were retired and have been replaced by the MV-22B Osprey.

“The Purple Foxes have a couple of historic stories that blend together to form where that [mascot] came from,” said Lieutenant Colonel John C. Miller, the commanding officer of VMM-364. “HMM-364 was formed in the early ’60s, and the squadron members would visit a bar called the Purple Fox. So that was where the original name came from. They liked this bar, and they would visit on R&R. As they started deploying to Vietnam in combat operations during the war, they acquired a fox pelt that was dyed purple, and that supported the purple fox name that they acquired through the bar.”

Their design features the face of a fierce purple fox ripping through metal with sharpened claws on both sides of the tail. “The purple fox on the aircraft is the traditional patch that we wear around. It’s a more aggressive, I would say, warfighting logo, and it takes up the whole tail of the aircraft,” LtCol Miller said. As with most squadrons who have had aircraft painted by Flygirlpainter, VMM-364 first discovered her work through her social media, where Meder showcases her work and the service she offers for military aviators. In all, it took a week and a half for Meder to complete the painting, but with the help and hospitality of the Marines of VMM-364, the process went smoothly, and the final product pays homage to the squadron’s history and the legacy that they carry with them.

But it isn’t just the artwork itself that differs from the wartime art of the past. As aircraft art continues to resurface within the Marine Corps, aviators who fly a variety of aircraft have the desire to take part in the tradition. This leads to the invention of new ways to express pride and dedication to the Corps without the perception that aircraft art is reserved only for attack aircraft. “The tail is a great canvas for us to show our squadron art. It is easy to see even from a distance,” said Funk, when asked about the im­portance of featuring art on the tail of an aircraft. “The art on the nose was always meant to look menacing … the art on the tail for assault support aircraft is a signal of hope to the troops on the ground that the Red Dragons are here, and we will not stop flying as long as they need us.”

The significance of what Marine aviators do and how they support their Corps is something that Flygirlpainter has been able to depict on the aircraft they fly. Her artwork signifies that there are no limitations to art, whether it’s on an easel or an aircraft. “For an aviation unit, artwork is everything to a squadron. It represents the culture, and each individual squadron that is dedicated to the mission that they have,” LtCol Miller said. Flygirlpainter embodies this mentality in her work. By revisiting this old tradition, Marines have the opportunity to express their love for the Corps, to celebrate those who passed their legacies on, and to take pride in the hard work, the long hours and the sacrifice that it takes to serve as a Marine.

Executive Editor’s note: You can see more of MSgt Meder’s incredible work on Instagram and Facebook under the name @Flygirlpainter, or on her website: www.flygirlpainters.com

Author’s bio: Briesa Koch is the edi­torial assistant for Leatherneck and a graduate student at Old Dominion Uni­versity where she is earning a master’s degree in library and information science.

Executive Editor’s note: This article explores the origins and inception of the Marine gunner and is the cornerstone of an upcoming series in Leatherneck tracing its often-mistaken evolution. Written using official Marine Corps history, it draws extensively from the documents and personnel records stored at the U.S. National Personnel Records Center and National Archives in Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Mo., and at the Marine Corps Archives in Quantico, Va.

One of the Marine Corps’ three original warrant officer ranks, the Marine gunner is arguably the most coveted in the service’s nearly 250-year history. It is also the most misunderstood. In more than a century since its inception in 1916, the Marine Corps has abolished and reinstated the Marine gunner on three occasions. The Marine Corps eliminated the rank and in its distinctive “bursting bomb” insignia first in 1943, only to restore both in 1956 as a designation for non-technical warrant officers. After discontinuing both in 1959 and restoring and revising their use in 1964 as a designation limited to warrant officers in combat arms military occupational specialties, the Marine Corps dissolved both again in 1974. Finally, in 1989, the title and insignia returned for warrant officers assigned as crew-served infantry weapons officers, where they still reside. Unfortunately, with no official written history to reference, the Marine gunner has become an institutional treasure cloaked in confusion.

Naval Origins
To understand the evolution of the Marine gunner is to understand the origins and historical background of the warrant officer itself. The earliest known warrant officers date back to around 1040 in England. According to British naval historian Nicholas Roland, to compensate for the lack of experienced seamanship on the part of the English noblemen and, later, the army officers placed in command of maritime expeditions, skilled civilian journeymen accompanied the ships’ crews to supervise its more technical functions. Hundreds of years later this practice continued to allow commissioned naval line officers to focus on the tactics of fighting a ship and not its operation. This custom extended to providing persistent crew training and equipment maintenance during and between expeditions.

As a reward for an acumen uncommon among its line offi­cers who received their authorities from the king or queen of England, the Royal Navy’s Board of Admiralty issued to select journeymen warrants granting them what naval historian Russell Borghere defined as permanent or “standing” officer status while onboard a ship. An element of the agreement between the board and these warranted or “warrant” officers was they remain with a ship from its construction to its decommissioning, unlike line officers who might transfer to another ship following an expedition. Although an appointment held less authority than a commission, it offered higher pay and seniority over the ranking enlisted Sailor. In time, warrant officers proved to be a necessary and vital link between a ship’s crew and its commissioned officers and the ship’s captain.

The Royal Navy’s first warrant officer ranks (and their corresponding departmental functions and titles) were the boatswain and the master. The lengthier expeditions of the 15th and 16th centuries brought about new functional specialties requiring a warranted officer. The sailmaker, carpenter, surgeon and purser were but a few additions. In response to advances in military engineering, the Royal Navy replaced its vintage cannons with large artillery pieces on their ships of the line in 1571. The change required extensive and continuous crew training on operating procedures, supervised maintenance on the ship’s guns and gunnery equipment, and preservation of the gunpowder, ammunition, cartridges and gunlocks stored inside a ship’s magazines. The Admiralty Board addressed the transition from cannons to artillery pieces by adding veteran army artillerymen to ships’ crews and warranting them to the rank of naval gunnery officer or “gunner.”

A popular Scandinavian term (and name) meaning “one who battles,” artillerymen and grenadiers in several European armies adopted gunner as a title to distinguish themselves from line soldiers. Still today, the Royal Army artillery’s equivalent to the American rank of private is gunner. Royal Navy artillerymen adopted the title for the junior-most seaman and even elevated its significance by using it as the gunnery warrant officer’s official rank and title. To distinguish between the two, commissioned officers and seamen refer to the gunnery warrant officer as “the gunner” to emphasize his singularity, expertise, and authority—and as a matter of prestige.

Warrant officers in American military history date to October 1775, when the Second Continental Congress authorized General George Washington to assemble a colonial fleet to make war with England. Washington used the Royal Navy as the model from which he organized his fleet, including the practice of warranting standing officers “under the rank of third lieutenant” in accordance with Congress’ Naval Committee directives. Among Washington’s warrant officers were gunners. When the new U.S. Congress established a navy in 1794, gunners were again one of its seven standing officers and performed the same duties as their Royal Navy predecessors. The U.S. Navy further institutionalized its warrant officers after the American Civil War by extending appointments to its most experienced enlisted Sailors demonstrating exceptional technical skill and leadership potential.

Warrant officer uniforms in the U.S. Navy were similar in every way to a commissioned officer’s and distinguished only by a half-inch long by quarter-inch wide blue and gold cloth stripe on the uniform cap beginning in 1853. Beginning in 1864, select English, French, and Italian infantry and artillery units incorporated a “flaming grenade” insignia for wear on their helmets and coasts as a mark of distinction. In 1883, when the Navy added insignia devices for each warrant specialty, officials approved for wear on the gunner’s frock coat collar and on the collar of the blue service coat a version of the flaming grenade insignia. The Navy went as far as to distinguish between gunners with 20 years in grade, who wore an insignia cast in silver, from those with less than 20 years, who wore a gold insignia. Overseers of the naval uniform regulations added a blue and gold stripe and the flaming shell to the coat sleeves in 1899.
That same year, the Navy added a com­missioned warrant rank to offer its senior warrant officers an opportunity to advance and take on positions of greater authority. As an aside, the Admiralty Board in England warranted the rank of gunnery sergeant major to that of a Royal Marine gunner, an equivalent rank to the Royal Navy’s gunnery warrant officer in July 1910. The Royal Marines adopted the ‘flaming shell’ as well.

Search for a Mission: The Advance Base Force
The Spanish-American War arguably marks the birth of the modern Marine Corps and the end of the service’s search for a mission. Previously, Marines were primarily ships’ guards, provided physical security at naval stations and American embassies around the world, and formed small landing parties for minor seaborne raids and assaults against enemy coastal defenses. This changed for good in April 1898 when Secretary of the Navy John D. Long directed Marine Corps Commandant Major General Charles Heywood to organize a battalion for duty with the Navy’s North Atlantic Squadron. By June 10, five infantry companies and an artillery battery under Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Huntington’s 1st Marine Battalion was ashore at Guantanamo Bay where it established an expeditionary base for operations against Spanish forces a mere two months after America declared war on Spain.

Although the Guantanamo landing was not the Marine Corps’ first, it was its first attempt at establishing an expeditionary base comprising fixed defensive positions with integrated advanced weaponry and equipment like medium machine guns, light artillery, naval gunfire, searchlights and signals communications. The expeditionary or advance base concept changed significantly how the Marine Corps viewed its role in modern naval warfare and how technological advances impacted its success. It would also become the genesis of its creation of a warrant officer structure, namely that of the Marine gunner.

The war against Spain was a byproduct of a doctrine established in 1823 by President James Monroe to prevent European powers from encroaching upon American interests in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba’s bid for independence from Spain was the first real test of the Monroe Doctrine. Control over the former Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico and Cuba in the Caribbean and Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines in the Pacific at war’s end meant the U.S. now had to develop an approach to defending these territories from a strengthening German and Japanese hegemony in both regions. An advisory committee, the General Board of the Navy, recommended to Secretary Long that he assign Marines with “emplaced naval guns, high angle artillery, machine guns, infantry and water and land minefields” to the mission.

Between 1901 and 1913, the Marine Corps tested and evaluated the advance base concept. In February 1914, the commanding officer of the 1st Advance Base Brigade, Colonel George Barnett, assumed the Marine Corps Commandancy.

Among his chief concerns was managing the service’s commitment to the concept while at the same time providing Marines for protracted naval expeditions to Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Believing also that America and the Marine Corps would enter the war in Europe, Barnett wanted Marines organized into larger tactical formations equipped with the latest battlefield technologies. To prepare for potential war, the Navy’s number of warrant officers, ranging normally between 200 and 300, rose to more than 1,000 in 1916 after the House of Representatives’ Committee on Naval Affairs authorized a 34 percent end strength increase. In much the same way the new Navy Secretary, Josephus Daniels, was expanding and modernizing the Navy to counter Germany and Japan, Barnett petitioned he do the same for the Marine Corps.

The Case for Gunners in the Marine Corps
Essential to modernizing the service and ensuring its mission success, in Barnett’s judgement, was the continued retention of experienced senior enlisted Marines and getting the most from their leadership and their proficiency with the latest military technologies, particularly advance base force weapons and equipment. In an Oct. 11, 1915, memorandum drafted in advance of his annual testimony before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Naval Affairs, Barnett wrote that the “reenlisted noncommissioned officers constitute, next to the officer, the most important part of any military organization.” As for their specific role, Barnett conceived that since “the services of warrant officers are just as badly needed in the Marine Corps as they are in the Navy,” making them officers might be the best approach to maximizing their continued service.

Barnett conveyed the same to the House Naval Committee on Feb. 29, 1916. Describing the most recent expeditions as “naval mission[s]” contributing directly to the “highly tech­nical” advance base concept, Barnett stressed that integral to the concept’s continued success hinged upon maximiz­ing experienced noncommissioned officers skilled in caring for and maintaining “the heavy guns, sub­marine mines, searchlights, [and] field wireless stations” and to serve as “infantry, as engineers, and as aviators, etc.” Their continued service in one of the recommended two “grades of warrant officers,” Barnett offered, was not only beneficial to the Marine Corps but “an act of simple justice to the senior noncommissioned officers” who “perform the most responsible kinds of duty in an extremely efficient manner.” After his testimony, Barnett took questions from committee members. As to what he intended to call these warrant officers, he replied, “We would call them marine gunners and quartermaster clerks.”

News that the U.S. Senate had approved the committee’s House Resolution 15947 reached Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels in early August, prompting Barnett’s staff to draft Marine Corps Order (MCO) 27 on Aug. 18, establishing the service’s first warrant officer screening and appointment process. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Naval Appropriations Act of 1916 into law on Aug. 29, specifying that “the warrant officer grades of [M]arine gunner and quartermaster clerk shall be created, and that 20 [M]arine gunners and 20 [M]arine quartermaster clerks shall be appointed from the noncommissioned officers of the Corps.” These were to be the only permanent appointments, though the act prohibited neither Barnett from recommending nor Daniels from approving any number of temporary appointments on an as-needed basis.

In accordance with Article 1645 of the Navy Regulations, MCO 27 directed that only after being “satisfied from their records” that applicants were “mentally, morally, and physically qualified” could Barnett recommend a Marine for appointment. The mandatory first step in assessing the applicant’s moral aptitude was through an interview with a commanding officer. Measuring the applicant’s mental fitness would come through a battery of written academic and military-specific tests. Those applicants scoring high enough on the written exams would undergo a thorough medical screening.
Barnett organized an examination board comprised of four Marine officers whose responsibility was to track the process and then recommend to him the names of 11 noncommissioned officers to serve as technical specialists and another nine for non-technical or ‘general duty’ leadership positions requiring Marine officers. The fields and specific areas of expertise necessitating a “warrant gunner” were:

• Main Battery (Advance Base): ordnance and gunnery, fire control, handling heavy weights, and boat seamanship.

• Submarine Mines: use, care, and preservation of submarine mines; fire control; electricity; and boat seamanship.

• Field Artillery: field artillery and drill regulations, fire control, field service regulations.

• Searchlights: use, care, and preservation of portable searchlights; electricity; and gasoline engines.

• Signals: use, care, and preservation of various forms of visual signal, telegraph, telephone, and wireless outfits; electricity; and gasoline engines.

• Engineering: military field engineering; military field topography; demolitions; explosions; construction of bridges, roads, etc.; and field service regulations.

• Aviation: use, care, and preservation of aeroplanes; dirigible balloons; balloon kites; captive balloons; gasoline engines, and military topography (especially with reference to terrain observation from air machines).

• Machine Guns: use, care, and preservation of the various types of machine guns; machine gun tactics; and field service regulations.

• General Duties: firing regulations, field service regulations, and administration.

Getting the Word Out
For years the Marine Corps kept its personnel and the pub­lic informed through announcements in national and local newspapers. Promotions, assignments, retirements and deaths, and news of interest all appeared in print. Two additional sources were the Recruiter’s Bulletin, published by the Marine Corps Recruiting Bureau, and the Marine Corps Association’s Marine Corps Gazette (and Leatherneck beginning in 1917).

As early as Sept. 9, Ohio’s Dayton Daily News reported the Naval Act’s details. One article in particular spoke to an advancement opportunity for noncommissioned officers whose “over age, lack of education, and other deterrent circumstance” precluded them from the traditional path to becoming Marine Corps officers. The article went on to explain that “these warrant officers will be known as [M]arine gunners and quartermaster clerks and their pay and allowances will range from $1,250 to $2,000 a year.” An unnamed Headquarters Marine Corps official interviewed emphasized that the service was seeking worthy enlisted men over 30 years of age and simply “who are able to do things.”

In the weeks and months ahead, newspapers like The Washington Post kept Marines apprised during each step in the screening process. On Dec. 3, the Post announced that a board “engaged at the headquarters of the marine corps in examining recommendations of the commanding officers and other papers pertaining to enlisted men” who seek to become Marine gunners.

The Marine Examining Board
The phased screening process laid out by MCO 27 began when an interested noncommissioned officer initiated his intentions to apply for an ap­pointment and culminated with Barnett forwarding the names of selectees to Secretary Daniels for appointment. Each applicant first had to complete an interview with his commanding officer (field or post command and naval com­mand) to obtain a command endorsement. En­dorse­ments had to attest to the applicant’s moral fitness to perform the duties of a Marine officer. Applicants then submitted handwritten requests to the board to take the required medical and professional exams. The interview results, com­mand endorsement and hand-written request had to be sent to Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington, D.C., by early December, when the next phase of the screening was to begin.

In between the endorsement interviews and the final selection were the actions of the “Board for Recommendation of Marine Gunners and Quartermaster Clerks,” known also as the Marine Examining Board. Barnett issued a letter on Nov. 20 directing Brigadier General John A. Lejeune to preside over the board and the second screening step. Present at his House Naval Committee testimony, Lejeune understood what Barnett desired in warrant officers. Joining him as board members were Colonel Charles G. Long, Lieutenant Colonel William B. Lemly and Major Harry R. Lay. Their primary task after reviewing applications and applicant service records was “recommending to the Major General Commandant the names of noncommissioned officers” to take the medical and professional exams.

According to its official signed report, the board met daily between Nov. 25 and Dec. 5 and reviewed applications from 117 noncommissioned officers who applied for Marine gunner. They selected 54 to advance to the third phase, which was the professional exams. In preparation, the board solicited from subject matter experts in each field and specialty exam questions and answers as well as to determine how the professional exams were to be administered. As the questions and answers arrived, the board mailed them to some 16 separate locations, 11 of which were naval stations along with three ships, and, finally, to the Marine commands deployed to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

As the screening process and exam preparation played out, questions as to what the Marine gunner’s rank insignia would consist of sur­faced. Barnett’s choice was a chased spherical shell three-fourths inch in diameter similar to the Navy’s device with the flame five-eighths inch high. The 1917 revision of the 1912 Marine Corps Uniform Regulations dictated that the Marine warrant officer’s uniform requirement “will be the same as prescribed for a second lieutenant, but that the Marine Corps emblem and the sword knot will not be worn.” In lieu of the emblem would be an insignia of “silver on the collar of the undress and white undress and of bronze on the summer field and winter field coats and on the shoulder straps of the overcoat and on the collar of the flannel shirt when the coat is not worn.” Marines would soon after refer to the insignia as a “bursting bomb.”

The Washington Post announced on Dec. 17 that the Marine Examining Board had issued notices to selected applicants to report to various naval stations within the continental U.S. on Jan. 29, 1917 for the medical exam and, if cleared for duty, to take the week-long professional exam. Those overseas were to return to America at once if commanding officers could not arrange an adequate exam facility. A memorandum released by the board directed that the professional exam period run from Jan. 31 to Feb. 7, with at least one test administered each day except Sunday.

The Professional Exam
Three components made up the professional exam required for Marine gunners with a maximum of 100 total points. The first measured the applicant’s aptitude in composition, reading, writing and spelling as well as basic arithmetic, with the second testing the general knowledge of the Army’s Infantry Drill Regulations. The material covered in these first two components were identical and subject to the same grading values with a maximum possible combined score of 30 points.

The third component challenged the applicant’s advanced knowledge and proficiency in their identified fields and specialties. Depending on the field and specialty, an applicant could expect a different number of tests, though each required the interpretation and drafting of schematics and calculations to answer the many scenario-based questions taken from actual events related to the areas of expertise highlighted in MCO 27. Each area had specific grading values with a maximum possible combined score of 30 points. Testing for aviation and engineering applicants covered six separate specialty areas with main battery and submarine mines tests covering four different areas. Field artillery, searchlights, signals, machine guns and general duties applicants underwent testing in only three specific areas.

The remaining 40 points would come from the board’s review of each applicant’s official service record, including the results of their commanding officer’s interview. The board considered recommendations from past commanding officers or officers in charge, expeditionary service, marksmanship, and military and civilian education and training, as well. Applicants had to obtain an overall average of 75 percent to undergo further consideration.

Conclusion
On March 16, Barnett received from Lejeune the board’s report, ranking highest to lowest in order of exam averages the names of 20 noncommissioned officers. Barnett signed and forwarded the list to Secretary Daniels, who issued the signed appointment letters on March 24. The board then sent telegrams to the commands of selectees and released the names to the Recruiter’s Bulletin and news outlets. The Washington Evening Star was one of the first papers to reveal the names on April 2. In the hometowns of those selected, local papers published more personalized announcements. On April 4, the Daily News in Lebanon, Pa., announced “Lebanon Boy Gains Distinction in the United States Marine Corps.” The following day Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York, bragged “Rochester Man Goes Up In The Marine Corps: Promoted After Passing Competitive Examination.” Across the country, towns celebrated those “rising from the ranks.”

The first 20 noncommissioned officers proudly pinned the bursting bomb insignia on their stock collars for the first time in Marine Corps history only days after Daniels signed their appointment letters. Several received orders to the 1st Advance Force Brigade. Those already overseas on expeditionary duty in Haiti and the Dominican Republic remained with their commands and assumed various leadership roles. Others boarded transport carriers at Quantico for movement across the Atlantic to France; some would not come home. All, however, played a part in fostering the reputation retired Marine Major Gene Duncan spoke of in his 1982 book “Fiction and Fact from Dunk’s Almanac.”

“God made Warrant Officers to give the junior enlisted Marine someone to worship, the senior enlisted Marine someone to envy, the junior officer someone to tolerate, and the senior officer someone to respect.”

Author’s bio: Dr. Nevgloski is the former director of the Marine Corps History Division. Before becoming the Marine Corps’ history chief in 2019, he was the History Division’s Edwin N. McClellan Research Fellow from 2017 to 2019, and a U.S. Marine from 1989 to 2017.

This month, the Marine Corps’ top shooters will gather at Marine Corps Base Quantico to compete for the Lauchheimer Trophy—the award for the highest aggregate rifle and pistol score at the Championship Match. Who was Lauchheimer, and why is the Marine Corps’ most prized shooting trophy named after him?

Charles Henry Lauchheimer was born on Sept. 22, 1859, the fifth of Meyer and Babeth Lauchheimer’s nine children. His parents had immigrated from Bavaria to Baltimore, Md., where his father cofounded a successful clothing manufacturing company. The family worshiped at the city’s Oheb Shalom synagogue.

In June 1877, Lauchheimer graduated from Baltimore City College, a public secondary school. He won a Peabody Prize and a $50 cash award for finishing fifth in his class. That summer, Congress­man Thomas Swann of Baltimore held competitive examinations to select his West Point and Naval Academy nominees. Swann limited the competition to Balti­more City College students and graduates. Among six applicants vying for the nomi­nation, Lauchheimer emerged victorious.

Lauchheimer performed well at the academy, graduating in the top fourth of the class of 1881. He was popular with his fellow cadet midshipmen, as Naval Academy students were then known. In his second year, he and several class­mates had been restricted to the Naval Academy’s yard due to disciplinary infractions, depriving them of Saturday afternoon off-base liberty. In response, they sewed bedsheets together to create an enormous banner on which they wrote, “Give us liberty or give us death.” They displayed their makeshift protest sign on the front of their barracks, facing the superintendent’s quarters. The ringleader of that prank was Lauchheimer. Years later, he was elected the president of his alumni class.

When Lauchheimer attended the Naval Academy, the cadet midshipman training program lasted six years. The final two years were spent at sea. Lauchheimer was assigned to USS Richmond, the Asiatic Station’s flagship, for most of his tour. In June 1883, the class of 1881 re­turned to Annapolis to take a final ex­amination. In the era of a constricted Navy, commis­sions were available for only 23 of the 86 test takers. The final examination re­­sults elevated Lauch­heimer to 14th in his class. Preferring the Marine Corps to the Navy, he re­quested and received one of 10 available Marine commissions. Lauchheimer and nine of his classmates became the first Naval Academy graduates to serve as Marine Corps officers.

Second Lieutenant Lauchheimer re­ceived his Marine Corps officer in­doctrination at the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Marine Barracks. There, he and his newly commissioned classmates fell under the tutelage of Colonel Charles Heywood. The tall, imposing colonel was a Civil War veteran who went on to become the Marine Corps’ ninth Commandant.

Lauchheimer assumed command of USS Ossipee’s 28-member Marine guard at Philadelphia’s League Island Navy Yard. On ship, they patrolled the Suez Canal and the Western Pacific. During the cruise’s second year, Lauchheimer suffered a severe bout of typhoid fever, which he attributed to the drinking water in Nagasaki, Japan. He spent 70 days on the sick list.

The highlight of the old wooden sloop’s Asian cruise occurred in August 1886. Tensions were building on the Korean peninsula amid fear of Chinese inter­vention. When a Chinese gunboat es­corted six troop transports into the Korean port of Chemulpo, the U.S. Minister Resident and Consul General in Seoul telegraphed Ossipee’s captain, imploring him to send “a guard of 20 men to protect the Legation.” The fol­low­ing afternoon, Lauchheimer led Ossipee’s Marine guard from the ship’s berth in Chemulpo to the U.S. legation in Seoul. There, the Marines provided security until reboarding Ossipee four days later, the perceived crisis having passed.

After Ossipee returned to the United States, the Marine Corps selected Lauch­heimer for advanced military training. He attended the Naval Torpedo School in Newport, R.I., in the summer of 1887, and after completing the three-month program, he studied at the Naval War College, then only in its third year.
When he reported to his next duty station at Marine Barracks Washington, D.C., he decided to leave the Marine Corps—but then changed his mind after almost a year of leave. Eight months into that leave period, he wrote to his Naval Academy classmates that he “found the atmosphere of civil life [to be] frigid.” He returned to duty, promoted to first lieutenant, and, in 1890, began a 16-month tour commanding USS Enterprise’s Ma­rine guard. Following that shipboard assignment, Lauchheimer spent five months on recruiting duty, looking for a few good men in his hometown of Baltimore. His career took a pivotal turn when he reported for duty in the office of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy (OJAG) in March 1892.

In October, he enrolled in Columbian University’s law school (since renamed George Washington University Law School). Classes started at 1800, allowing him to attend while still working at OJAG in the nearby State, War, and Navy Build­ing (now known as the Eisenhower Ex­ecu­tive Office Building). When Lauc­heimer completed the two-year program, he received an honorable mention for best examination for the Bachelor of Laws degree.
Lauchheimer would spend the rest of his Marine Corps career as a staff off­icer, and with the aid of his law edu­cation, he excelled as a judge advocate. His litiga­tion work in both court-mar­tial and civil­ian courts won accolades. The Government Printing Office pub­lished two editions of a procedural guide that he prepared for naval courts and boards. At the Naval War College, he also delivered well-received lectures that were published in the U.S. Naval Institute’s profes­sional journal, Proceedings.

Starting in 1899, Lauchheimer ex­per­­ienced a meteoric rise in rank, jump­ing from first lieutenant to colonel in just six years. During his seventh year at OJAG, he underwent a rigorous two-day promotion examination. Following a medical exam, he was tested on admin­istration, field engineering, minor tactics, military law and infantry fire discipline. On the examination’s second day, he conducted a parade and drill practical exercise followed by oral examinations in artillery mechanical maneuvers, small arm firing regulations and naval gunnery. Lauchheimer passed the examination. He did best in military law, obtaining a perfect score. Probably reflecting his extended time away from troop handling, his lowest score was in drill regulation.

Lauchheimer was promoted to captain in February 1899. He did not serve as an O-3 for long. On March 3, the Senate confirmed President McKinley’s nomina­tion of Lauchheimer to become the as­sistant adjutant and inspector of the Ma­rine Corps with the rank of major. Writing in his Naval Academy class newsletter, he explained that his new duties included “being Inspector of Target Practice of the Marine Corps, having charge of this entire subject throughout the Corps.”

The first officer to hold the position of Inspector of Target Practice, Lauchheimer strove to improve Marine marksmanship. He oversaw the construction and up­grading of live-fire ranges. He also fostered the Marine Corps’ competitive marksmanship program. After joining the National Rifle Association’s board of directors in 1900, Lauchheimer super­vised Marine Corps teams in shooting competitions.

In 1901, Lauchheimer entered a Marine team in a match at an international rifle meet in Sea Girt, N.J. The Marines finished sixth of 11 teams. The following year, the Marines scored sixth of nine in two of the meet’s team matches. Despite being bested by five National Guard teams, the Marines took solace in having beaten the Army for the first time in a team marksmanship competition. Lauch­heimer’s best shooter was then-Second Lieutenant Thomas Holcomb, who in 1936 would become the 17th Com­man­dant of the Marine Corps. Holcomb won a $5 prize for finishing seventh overall in the meet’s President Match. Lauch­heimer required the lieu­tenant to re­linquish the prize money to the U.S. Treasury because he won it while per­forming duties at government expense.

In what must have been a bittersweet moment, when Lauchheimer was pro­moted to lieutenant colonel on March 23, 1903, his duties as Inspector of Target Prac­tice were transferred to a junior of­fi­cer. Lauchheimer had significantly boosted the Marine Corps’ marksmanship program during his four years in that role.

As a lieutenant colonel, he was dis­patched to Manila to establish the office of Adjutant and Inspector of the Marine Corps in the Far East. He also assisted the Attorney General of the Philippines in legal matters involving the Navy Department. Lauchheimer returned to Washington in December 1904 after a year abroad and was soon promoted to colonel, replacing the Adjutant and Inspector of the Marine Corps’ upon his retirement…

However, following his meteoric rise, Lauchheimer suffered a career setback in 1910. He and the Commandant, Major General George F. Elliott, repeatedly clashed, leading to a court of inquiry. The court faulted both Elliott and Lauch­­heimer for the imbroglio. As pun­ish­ment, the Taft administration transferred Lauch­heimer to Manila. Just a few months from mandatory retirement age, Elliott was allowed to remain as Commandant.

Lauchheimer did not sulk. He actively executed his duties, inspecting various Marine Corps units and facilities in the Philippines. He also won praise for rec­om­mending security improvements at the U.S. legation in Beijing after in­spect­ing that facility. His fellow officers dem­onstrated the esteem in which they held Lauchheimer by electing him pres­ident of the Army and Navy Club of Manila.

Lauchheimer’s supporters back in the United States mounted a lobbying effort to restore him to his previous position. As a result of that campaign, the Taft ad­­ministration reassigned Lauchheimer from the Philippines to San Francisco in November 1911. His transfer to the West Coast did not mollify Lauchheimer’s champions, who maintained pressure to reinstate him as Adjutant and Inspector of the Marine Corps. In the presidential election year of 1912, Taft relented. Lauchheimer returned to Headquarters Marine Corps and resumed his duties there in October. By then, Elliott had long since retired, having been replaced as Commandant by the undistinguished but politically well-connected William P. Biddle. Taft badly lost his November 1912 reelection bid, finishing behind both the victor Woodrow Wilson and former President Theodore Roosevelt.

Little more than a year after Lauch­heimer’s return to Headquarters Marine Corps, the Army and Navy Club of Wash­ington bestowed the signal honor of electing him as its president. A month later, Lauchheimer’s career received a major boost when his Naval Academy classmate and close friend George Barnett became the 12th Commandant of the Marine Corps. Lauchheimer’s responsibilities grew under Barnett. He assumed control of Marine Corps recruiting and sat on several boards determining Marine Corps policy.

Lauchheimer had thoroughly re­habi­li­tated his career by 1916, when an opportunity arose for further ad­vancement. Following the deaths of 124 Americans and 1,071 others in the German U-boat sinking of RMS Lusitania, President Wilson sought to expand the U.S. Navy. The result was the Naval Act of 1916. The statute authorized the production of 156 new Navy vessels. The Marine Corps shared in the largess: the act created the Marine Corps Reserve and authorized the President to greatly expand the Marine Corps’ size. Most significantly for Lauchheimer personally, the statute created seven new Marine Corps brigadier general billets. One was reserved for the senior officer in the Adjutant and Inspector’s Department. President Wilson chose Lauchheimer for that position. The Senate confirmed the nomination the day after receiving it. On Sept. 8, 1916, Wilson signed the commission appointing Lauchheimer as the first Jewish general officer in United States Marine Corps history.

Less than seven months later, the Uni­ted States entered World War I. The Marine Corps expanded more than five­fold during the war and Lauchheimer was the officer in charge of filling the ranks. His recruiting effort was remark­ably successful. Declining to accept draft­­ees, the Marine Corps positioned itself as an elite all-volunteer force. By the war’s end, the Marine Corps had received 239,274 applications for 60,189 openings. Commandant Barnett lauded Lauch­hei­mer’s oversight of the recruiting campaign.

The Wilson administration recognized Lauchheimer’s exceptional performance of wartime duties with the Distinguished Service Medal. Unfortunately, that medal was awarded posthumously. After com­pleting a West Coast inspection tour, the 59-year-old Lauchheimer suffered a severe stroke in July 1919. Following a coma, he suffered paralysis, and he re­ained hospitalized until dying from another stroke on Jan. 14, 1920.

Lauchheimer’s siblings sought to commemorate his Marine Corps service by establishing a shooting medal in his honor. Commandant MajGen Barnett enthusiastically endorsed the idea, noting that Lauchheimer had been “instrumental in establishing the present system of target practice in the Marine Corps which has placed the Corps, as you know, in the first ranks of the shooters of the United States today.” When John Archer Lejeune replaced Barnett as Commandant on June 30, 1920, he continued to work with Lauchheimer’s family to establish the commemorative shooting award. The result was a bronze relief trophy depicting Marines advancing in battle. Above the battle scene are the words, “The Lauchheimer Trophy for Annual Competition in Small Arms Firing.” Below the battle scene is the inscription: “Presented to the United States Marine Corps by the Family of Brig. Gen. Charles Lauchheimer.” The original 50-pound trophy included 14 small shields on which to engrave the annual winners’ names. The Lauchheimer family also paid to cut the die for a badge to be presented to each year’s top three competitors.

When they presented the trophy to the Marine Corps, Lauchheimer’s siblings explained that they donated it “as a means of keeping his name before the Marine Corps, to which he devoted his life, and for which he felt a love, affection and loyalty so well known to all his comrades and associates.” Commandant Lejeune replied that the trophy’s commemoration of “the distinguished services rendered by your brother, the late Brigadier-General Charles H. Lauchheimer, will forever enhance its value to every Marine.”
The first Lauchheimer Trophy competi­tion was held in 1921. Over the past century, the original brass plaque has been remounted twice to accommodate more nameplates for the annual win­ners. The trophy’s presentation to the Championship Match’s top shooter in April will once again honor Charles H. Lauchheimer’s role in developing Marines’ marksmanship prowess.

Author’s Bio: Colonel Dwight H. Sullivan, USMCR (Ret), is a civilian at­torney in the DOD Office of General Counsel and an adjunct faculty member at the George Washington University Law School. He is the author of “Captur­ing Aguinaldo: The Daring Raid to Seize the Philippine President at the Dawn of the American Century.”

In August of 2021, the Japanese na­tional baseball team won the gold medal in the Olympic Games. They defeated the United States 2-0 at Yoko­hama Stadium, in the same city where Japanese and American baseball teams squared off against each other for the first time more than a century ago. The two countries have a long, shared history of baseball. Because Marines have been stationed across the globe, they found themselves in a position to take part in these international baseball games, which many people hoped would foster goodwill and promote peace between the two rising superpowers of the early 20th century.

The United States’ global influence expanded rapidly on the heels of the Civil War. One of the main exports that fol­lowed was baseball, which exploded in popularity domestically during the war. Americans took the game to far-ranging outposts, playing it among them­selves to relieve boredom, and planting its seeds in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Japan—all places where baseball is still very popular today. Major General John A. LeJeune bragged, “Everywhere we go, we leave them bas­ball.” This notion is somewhat true, but the truth is a little more complicated. For instance, Cuba had already had a profes­sional baseball league for two decades by the time the Marines showed up dur­ing the Spanish-American War in 1898. In fact, Spain had tried to suppress base­ball because it was rivaling bullfighting as the most popular sport on the island. It was American and Canadian mission­aries who spread the game well before the U.S. Marines showed up to play.

American businessmen also took the game of baseball with them as a rec­rea­tional pursuit, but for the most part, they had no interest in expanding the game outside of their enclaves. The missionaries wanted to include a form of physical edu­cation in their foreign schools and often introduced the sport to local students as a form of exercise. Many believed that they were teaching American-style values to their students, and that would help them to become “civilized.” In China and Japan, baseball would become very popular by the end of the 19th century.

In treaty ports such as Yokohama, foreign athletic clubs catered to European and American members. Rugby, cricket, and baseball were popular pastimes among the inhabitants of the foreign settlements. The Yokohama Athletic Club, founded in 1868, was initially almost exclusively British. Over time, Americans supplanted the British, and baseball sup­planted cricket as the most popular sport played at the club by the late 1880s. Ac­cording to Donald Roden, author of the article “Baseball and the Quest for Na­tional Dignity in Meiji, Japan, published in The American Historical Review, Ameri­cans living in Japan used baseball as a way to express their national identity.

Sports clubs in treaty cities restricted access to Japanese athletes. They could not participate in the sporting events, but they were hired to maintain the grounds  on which the games were played. Despite the pro­hibi­tion, a Japanese baseball team from Ichiko University challenged the Ameri­can baseball team in Yokohama in 1891, but the Americans declined. Un­deterred, the Ichiko side continued to challenge the Americans. Because of the restric­tions, the Americans declined for nearly five years before finally relenting. They agreed to play, and the May 23, 1896, game was a lopsided and embar­rassing defeat for the Americans. The students of Ichiko trounced the Ameri­cans 29-4. On June 5, the Americans agreed to another game, hoping to avenge the loss. The team bolstered their roster by using extra players from the U.S. Navy vessels in Yokohama Harbor. These efforts did not achieve their desired re­sults, and the Americans suffered a sim­ilar humiliation, suffering a 32-9 defeat. A third game eventually went the Ameri­cans’ way after they pulled more ringers off of the newly arrived USS Olympia, according to Roden.

At this point, baseball’s popularity exploded in Japan. Roden recognized that Americans in Yokohama played baseball to maintain their identity as Ameri­cans, viewing it as a rugged, in­di­vidual­ist sport, while the Japanese players found that baseball aligned with their collectivist ideals. They felt the team sport was better suited to underpin collectivism than individual sports like judo. Baseball took on whatever ideal the players needed it to take. Americans saw their turn at the plate as an expression of their independent nature, as man-to-man combat. Japanese players saw their turn at the plate as an opportunity to sacrifice themselves for the good of the team.

Japan, like America, started an age of expansion towards the end of the 19th century. When the Japanese Navy crushed the Russian Navy in the 1905 Battle of Tsushima, the western powers took notice. The Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese war changed the military dynamic in Asia, and the United States began to view Japan as a potential adversary. Both nations wanted to keep a foothold in the Pacific Ocean, securing islands to use as bases to re-coal their fleets. War with Japan seemed like a very real possibility after Japan’s annihilation of the Russian fleet.

Because baseball had become so pop­ular in Japan, both the United States and Japan thought that college and all-star tours of each other’s countries would foster a sense of goodwill and enhance the chance for peace. Baseball seemed like a good way for the countries’ young men to meet, compete peaceably and foster good diplomatic relationships. These tours started in 1905, when Waseda University’s baseball team toured the United States and lasted through the 1930s. The most notable of these was the 1934 American all-star tour of Japan, which featured superstars like Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth.

Marines also played baseball against Japanese teams nearly until the United States entered World War II. In 1910, Waseda University played a series of 24 games in Hawaii against local civilian teams, U.S. Army teams, a U.S. Navy team and the Marines. Waseda won 11 of their games, including two games out of three against the Marines. This would be the first of many games be­tween Waseda and the Marines over the next 23 years, the most high profile of which was a 1927 game in Quantico, Va., with Japanese Ambassador Tsuneo Matsudaira and Commandant John A. Lejeune in attendance.

Waseda University was a frequent op­ponent of the Marines in China as well. It was in China that the Marines and Japanese teams faced off against each other the most often. Both countries en­joyed equal footing in the international settlements in the Chinese concessions, and both countries used baseball as an opportunity to exhibit national pride.

There were two areas of China where Marines regularly played sports. The first was in North China and included the cities of Peking and Tientsin. The Marines of the Legation Guard joined the North China League, a baseball league composed of the American and Japanese businessmen of the foreign settlements in those cities, and the 15th Infantry, a U.S. Army unit in Tientsin. Occasionally, the teams of visiting U.S. Navy ships joined in. The earliest games were in the 1910s, and they continued until the onset of WW II.

The second area was Shanghai. In 1927, a civil war in China was about to erupt. The Marines sent the 3rd Brigade, under the command of then-Brigadier General Smedley Butler, to Tientsin and Shanghai to protect the international settlements there. Much of the brigade went to Tientsin, and they formed a base­ball team that joined the North China League.

The 4th Marines went to Shanghai and stayed there until 1941. They found that the city was rife with sporting competi­tions, including polo, soccer, rugby, ten­nis, bowling and baseball leagues. The American and British civilian population living in the international settlement made dozens of sports fields. The city boasted five YMCAs, one of which catered exclusively to the U.S. military personnel. There were several baseball fields in Shanghai but the most well-kept was at the Shanghai Race Course. The race course itself tended to be a major hub of sports and military activity. Since the 4th Marines’ billeting was dispersed through the city, the track’s infield was a place they could drill and pass in re­view. The facilities included a grandstand, a baseball diamond, tennis courts, cricket pitches, several soccer and rugby pitches, and tees and greens to play golf shoe­horned in between everything else. Chinese laborers meticulously maintained the race course; its baseball diamond was one of the best in the world.

Shanghai’s thriving sports atmosphere benefited the Marines’ physical condition­ing, but some commanders did not see it that way. One Marine officer lamented the fact that duty in the city was making his troops soft—the infrastructure did not allow the Marines to practice field problems, and they had to perform forced marches through the city streets early in the morning before commuters choked them off. Marines drilled and paraded through the well-maintained infield of the Shanghai Race Course and the Columbia Country Club, some of the only training spaces available to them. The commander wanted his units to rotate through the Philippines, where they could do proper military activities in a harsh environment to toughen up.

Due to the lack of regular military train­ing, the 4th Marines in Shanghai were a perennial baseball powerhouse playing through the Shanghai baseball matrix. The teams in the league generally con­sisted of civilian businessmen and gov­ern­ment officials called the Amateurs and U.S. Sailors anchored on the Man of War Row on the Huangpu River or the Yangtze River Patrol. Some years, the 4th Marines fielded a regiment-wide team. Other years, each battalion and the headquarters fielded their own teams. And some years included Japanese and Chinese civilians. The league was quite multinational.

The Peking Marines unsuccessfully attempted a goodwill tour of Japan in 1925. In 1930, the 4th Marines managed to tour the country, where they were welcomed by throngs of cheering fans. They played 14 games against college and corporate teams and won 10 of them. Leatherneck published an account of the tour in January 1931. The 4th Marines failed in an attempt to tour the country again the following year.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese col­leges and high schools toured China, playing games against Japanese and American baseball teams. Year after year, the Marines played against touring Japa­nese universities like Waseda, Keio, Meiji, Tokyo, the Saga Commercial School, and others. The visiting Japanese students usually gave the Marine teams a tough time. They used Japanese baseballs (slight­ly smaller than American ones), hired local Japanese umpires, and let the Japanese team set the ground rules. They usually played at the Hongkew Park dia­mond, which was in the Japanese defense sector of Shanghai. The games had an air of mutual respect and cordiality. Ma­rines in China talked every year of how exciting the visiting colleges were be­cause of their remarkable style of play.

In July 1936, the Golden Dolphins, one of Japan’s first professional baseball teams, traveled to Shanghai to play base­ball. They planned to play the 4th Marines, American civilians and the Japa­nese civilian baseball teams in a best two-out-of-three style tournament. They handily defeated each team in succession and won without the need to play the third game. The Americans made an all-star team of Marines and civilians, which the Golden Dolphins beat as well. The North China Herald reported that the professional side was going to travel to Tientsin to play another game against the Marines there, but no record of that game was reported in the English newspapers of China.

The Meiji University team visited in the summer of 1937 and beat the Marines twice, the American civilians twice, and the local Japanese civilians once. They then beat an all-star team of Marines and civilians 10-0. The visiting team sent a letter of appreciation to the Marines for the spirit of their play, which they pub­lished in the July 31, 1937, edition of Walla Walla. The visit from Meiji was one of the last times Japanese universities sent teams on tours to China, because the Second Sino-Japanese War began to erupt through the country.

Not for the first time that decade, Ma­rines watched firsthand as China and Japan edged closer to war. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, and hostility be­tween the two nations boiled over. In late January 1932 the Japanese military sta­tioned in Shanghai attacked Chinese army units in the district of Chapei. Ma­rines took defensive positions along the Soochow Creek, which separated their de­fense sector from Chapei. They watched as Japan burned the district in the two-month-long battle. A Japanese bomber, operating from an aircraft carrier off the Chinese coast, bombed a cotton mill, injuring a few Marines who were billeted there.

The Japanese attack on Chapei ended in March. Though many of the Marines felt he base­ball season, and that summer at least two Japanese college teams visited. Those were the Saga Higher Community College and Ritsumeikan College. The 1932 Shanghai league included a team of Japanese businessmen and a U.S. Army team from the 31st Infantry Regiment, which deployed to the city during the crisis to reinforce the Marines.

But in late summer of 1937, Japan took a more aggressive posture in China. Fight­ing once again erupted in Shanghai, and the Japanese fought to drive the Chinese military away from the city. In October, the North China Star reported that a Golden Dolphin pitcher who the previous year had embarrassed the teams of Shanghai, identified only as “Matsu­moto,” joined the Japanese Army and was sent back to China, where he was killed in action.

Relations between the Japanese and American governments rapidly un­raveled. The Marines were ordered to keep the armed non-American units out of their sector by any means neces­sary. After several months of intense fight­ing, the Japanese succeeded in ex­pelling the Chi­nese fighting forces from Shanghai and acted more bellig­erently toward the other countries of the inter­national settlement. They attempted to bring armed troops into the American defense sector, where Marines resisted their ploys to conduct armed patrols there. In December 1937, the Japanese bombed the USS Panay (PR-5), of the Yangtze River Patrol. The bombing killed three U.S. Sailors and wounded dozens more. President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered a military re­prisal against Japan, but the isolationist stance of the United States pervaded. Eventually, the Japanese government apologized and paid for the damage done to the ship.

After the fighting of the previous year, the 1938 Shanghai baseball league con­sisted of three Marine teams and one team of American amateurs. Gone was the cooperative atmosphere from earlier years. The Second Sino-Japanese war raged through the country, and it looked like war was imminent in Europe. The foreign military contingents evacuated Shanghai, leaving the Marines in an in­creasingly vulnerable position. The base­ball league in Shanghai survived through the 1941 season, but only American teams entered the competition in the final three years.

International baseball lasted a little longer in Peking and Tientsin. Between 1929 and 1938, the only Marine Corps team in North China was the one put together by the Legation Guard. In 1938, the 15th Infantry left Tienstin, and the Marines took over their compound. They fielded a second team, used the 15th Infantry’s Can Do Field and joined the North China League.

In 1939, Marines faced off against a baseball team from the Japanese Embassy, winning 6-4. In the summer of 1940, the Marines played one final baseball game against a Japanese military team. They used a rubber baseball, as the leather-cov­ered baseballs were becoming hard for the Japanese government to supply. The Japanese team beat the Marines 14-1, but in consolation, the Marines were treated to libations at the Japanese club after the game. The camaraderie of the baseball teams in 1940s China was one of the last times the two countries would be on good terms until well after WW II. At least three of the Marines who played in the final July game later ended up as prisoners of war.

During WW II, the sport endured do­mes­tically—America always has base­ball. Japan was forced to withdraw from the sport until their eventual surrender. Baseball returned to the Japanese popu­lace after the war as a way to regain nor­mal­cy. It seems fitting that the two na­tions are still facing off—and that Japan won its gold-medal game in Yokohama, where the games between the two coun­tries began.

Author’s bio: Kater Miller is a curator at the National Museum of the Marine Corps and has been working at the museum for 12 years. He served in the Marine Corps from 2001-2005 as an aviation ordnanceman.

On Nov. 29, 2023, I had the oppor­tunity to interview Sergeant Major Carlos A. Ruiz, the re­cently appointed 20th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, at his office in the Pentagon. I looked forward to our con­versation, as I knew little about him beyond his official bio and hoped to understand what kind of Marine and leader he is. I arrived prepared with questions focusing on the current state of the Corps, and where we are headed. To my surprise, the interview kicked off with a series of questions directed at me. The Sergeant Major wanted to know about my time on active duty and my time since in the civilian world. He asked about my wife, my children, and how my work life balances time for them. He even concerned himself with how much traffic I encountered on the way and if I found a parking spot. One question he posed proved most difficult, and I still wrestle with my answer.

“How long did it take you to find your way?”

As we progressed onto other topics, I realized his questions were no accident or mere pleasantries. They were a reflec­tion of his personal journey through 30 years wearing the uniform and a genuine concern for individual Marines. I understood that some of the items I desired to ask him might simply be distractions from what is truly important in his eyes. The Sergeant Major’s philosophy on life and definition of his new role, however, remains focused on helping Marines find their way and preserving the way of the institution amidst a never-ending tide of change.

He first reflected on the many mentors throughout his career who helped him find his way in the Corps. The Sergeant Major was born in Mexico and became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Fresh out of boot camp in 1993 as a brand-new Marine warehouse clerk, Ruiz missed his flight to Okinawa after boot camp, leaving him UA to his first duty station in the fleet. The Sergeant Major laughed as he remembered this cringe-worthy entrance into the Corps, recogniz­ing the importance of others pointing him in the right direction and setting him up for success.

“It’s the ability of others to make you focus on what is in front of you, and to see the potential in you,” he said. “I’m just glad that happened for me, that someone said, ‘you are more than this. You can do something else.’ That happened for me constantly. At every rank along the way, there was always somebody to touch me and say, ‘move this way.’ I have been very lucky.”

Fittingly, the first mentor to come to his mind was the first NCO he encountered in the fleet once he finally arrived in Okinawa. A Marine named Sergeant Tukes helped Ruiz push beyond his dismal start and taught him what the right path could look like.

“Sgt Tukes was an infantryman who couldn’t reenlist in the infantry. At that time, the Marine Corps was very small, so he reenlisted with a new MOS of warehousing. He was like a fish out of water, but Sgt Tukes and his NCOs were my entire world. When you’re young, there’s no first sergeant. There’s no battal­ion commander. You see them every once in a while, but my world was with Sgt Tukes. He was the person who looked like, walked like what I imagined a Ma­rine should be like. Everything that was promised at some point in my enlistment period was right there in front of me.”

A machine-gunner by trade, Tukes led his section of warehouse clerks like a machine-gun section and ensured they believed that in Sgt Tukes’ world, every Marine was truly a rifleman. Ruiz and the other junior Marines fought for a spot on the machine-gun team to spend more time with their sergeant. They loved to hate him on their routine hikes across the island, watching in awe as he remained on his feet pacing back and forth during breaks, forcing them to drink water and recite general orders or machine-gun data.

“That was a great experience for me,” Ruiz remembered. “I was sold. When you have someone like that, then you spend the rest of your career trying to be Sgt Tukes for someone else. If I can just get others to feel what I felt, I think that’s the hook.”

Three decades have passed since his time with Sgt Tukes, with opportunity and accomplishment at each stop along the way. Ruiz spent three years on re­cruit­ing duty early in his career, and later four years as a drill instructor. To this day, his time as the Drill Instructor School’s chief instructor remains one of his proudest accomplishments. He deployed to Kuwait in January 2003, pushing north to Iraq that March with the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His first experience with an infantry battalion in combat came as the company first sergeant with Lima Company, 3/4, while deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. In addition to his duties as the company first sergeant, Ruiz served as the Shock Trauma Platoon Commander, helping evacuate wounded Marines from the front line to medical care. He completed a second tour in support of Operation Enduring Freedom before receiving orders to Inspector-Instructor Staff.

He returned to the infantry in 2013 on his first assignment as a newly minted sergeant major, serving with 3rd Battal­ion, 5th Marines. He served in various assignments through the last decade, most recently holding dual roles as the Command Senior Enlisted Leader for both Marine Corps Forces Reserve (MARFORRES) and Marine Corps Forces South (MARFORSOUTH).
Ruiz took over his current role in August 2023. He accepted the responsi­bility with characteristic joy and humility.

“There was no plan for this, there was no plan to be this!” SgtMaj Ruiz said. “The jubilation I felt when I found out I had been selected to be Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, though, was no different from the way I felt when I was selected for lance corporal. And then again for corporal, and again at every rank. It was terrifying. I’m thinking, ‘wait, you think I can be a corporal?’ But someone said, ‘yes, you can.’ The fear of letting others down drives you to work, prepare, and to really listen to what the force and the environment is telling you.”

SgtMaj Ruiz defined his role as a representative and voice for all Marines, officer and enlisted, on all institutional programs and how the Marine Corps is preparing for the future.

“What’s bigger,” he added, “I am the one person that must deliver to the indi­vidual on the promise of what it was going to be like to be a Marine. The prom­ise we made to each Marine and their families. The promise that we made to the American people, that who we say we are, we are. If we are not moving in that direction and doing the things that are synonymous with being a Marine, I think that’s where I belong the most.”

Force Design 2030 initiated a rapid sequence of changes across the force. Now, several years into its implementation, Ruiz made clear his take on the future.

“General Smith came in and told us to get rid of the, ‘2030.’ When you look at what the threat is today, we needed to change. Sometimes we have a habit of going head on into a brick wall over and over and over again, and the environment is compelling us to change. General Berger got us on the right path, and Gen­eral Smith continues with that, he’s just saying change faster. Take all the plat­forms and whatever fancy things we are buying, put them in the hands of the M­arines, and they’ll come back to us and tell us how to better employ it. All the technology is good, because we need to give an advantage to our Marines, but it is the human being that we continue to invest in. We can keep investing in tech­nology, but Force Design 2030 is not designing a way out of the culture of what a Marine is. We are not redesigning that. We are just making it more lethal.”

In addition to fielding all the new gear, Marines across the fleet experienced the changes to training, MOSs, unit sizes and deployment strategies. Heavy financial investments have already been made to modernize equipment and training for fighting the next war dispersed across the Indo-Pacific.
“I don’t think we will ever finish chang­ing,” Ruiz said. “I think the moment we think that we have arrived and are finished changing, someone is going to kick our ass.”

Through all the changes, the Sergeant Major admonishes the entire Marine community to remain focused on who we are. While the changes taking place might alter the direction and outlook of the Corps as an institution, and raise concerns and controversy, they do not change the identity of Marines.

“Even the worst critics who might spend all year shooting at my target, on Nov. 10, they’re not,” he reflected. “There is an expectation of the veteran commu­nity for us to be better than they were. I think it’s my job to find a better way to communicate that we are. This generation is not only meeting the standard of 10 years ago but elevating that standard for the next fight. You can get distracted by what’s on the news or the political en­vironment or whatever is going on today, but if you go to Twentynine Palms right now, there is still a Range 400 happening. The Marines are still as fit. They’re still as sweaty, stinking, carrying everything they have to carry, and they’re still run­ning towards the objective. They’re still closing in on the last 300 meters and ac­complishing the mission. They’re a little smarter and a little faster. They call it, ‘innovation’ today. It’s a fancy word, but it’s still the Marine way. Getting the job done and a culture of winning has not changed. I want to evolve, but I want to protect that culture.”

To help accomplish this goal, Ruiz frequently relies on social media to con­nect with Marines and the veteran com­mu­nity. His message of transparency and positivity has proven successful and trusted. In one example at the end of October 2023, when the Commandant experienced a heart attack and was hospi­talized, the Corps chose to officially share this news through SgtMaj Ruiz. His be­lief in the power of social media comes tempered with the understanding that each content creator’s motivation will dictate the positive or negative impact of their message.

“On social media today, there are a lot of very serious Marines at all ranks with professional accounts who are trying to mentor. They see a need, and they use these platforms as a way to fill a gap and spread information like steel sharpening steel. I say, ‘yes please! Give me more!’ I engage on social media because you can’t get to know me or what I think by reading an ALMAR, MARADMIN, or a letter from the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. I can’t be everywhere at once, so I try to use social media to show Marines that it’s OK to smile, it’s OK to be happy when it’s time to be happy, and serious when it’s time to be serious, to be transparent as best as I can. What I don’t appreciate about social media is when the uniform is used to deliver something motivated by instant gratification, looking for likes or views. If you could imagine yourself 10 years from today talking about your service and someone pulled up these videos, I want you to do that before you hit post. It may gratify whatever that itch is today, but it doesn’t age well. I would ask those Marines with a foothold on social media to just think and use it for good. What do you want to be thought of our brand?”

His views on the importance of trans­parency are bolstered by his experience as a recruiter early in his career, and the understanding that transparency remains the key ingredient to the Corps success in recruiting. Last fiscal year, the Marine Corps succeeded as the only branch of service, other than the comparatively small Space Force, to achieve its targeted recruiting numbers. This proved a re­mark­able accomplishment in the current climate and speaks directly to the enor­mous effort of Marine recruiters. Across the board, they exceeded their target of more than 33,000 non-prior-service enlistments in FY23. The Space Force, by contrast, achieved its recruitment goal of less than 500.

“Imagine having a job where 99 per­cent of people tell you ‘no’ every day, and you’re just searching for that one ‘yes.’ All the credit goes to the recruiters. They’re the ones working the extra hours and driving the extra miles. We recruit and retain at the rate we do because our recruiters are pretty transparent about what we’re going to do to you. Somehow, that transparency is rewarded by interest. This is still one of the very few places in America where there is still a rite of passage, and that’s attractive. Our part, then, is if we are not who our recruiters say we are; professional, disciplined, lethal; then we cannot recruit.”

In addition to recruitment, retention emerged during the interview as another key focus today. Several Talent Manage­ment programs within the Force Design structure have cut through red tape, making it easier for Marines to reenlist. Marines with specific skill sets, such as cyber security certificates, can more easily enlist directly into those types of MOSs. Rules regarding families with both spouses on active duty have changed so that families cannot be split between separate duty stations unless a General Officer approves the decision. Other checks and gates have been implemented for certain family situations in an effort to keep Marines and their families con­nected to their support system and to each other.

“The institution will always come first, and some things we won’t be able to make perfect for everyone, but we are trying,” Ruiz stated. “The point is, it’s a signal to our people that we are making steps to understand their situation.”
The Sergeant Major focused on the total force when discussing retention, both active and reserve Marines. He credited his time as the sergeant major of MARFORRES with illuminating the full value of the reserve component and the important role it plays in the overall mission of the Marine Corps. For Marines set on leaving active duty once their contract is up, career planners are working hard to show them how re­maining in uniform with the reserve can benefit them, as well as the Corps.

“From very early on it’s a fight for talent to stay, and a fight for where [to stay],” Ruiz said. “It’s OK to go active or reserve. Service is service, and I just want access to you when it’s time.”

In view of the total force, Ruiz in­cluded the veteran community, placing immeas­ur­able value on what these Ma­rines add. As the number of active Marines with combat experience dwindles, specifically at the ranks of sergeant and below, Ma­rine veterans increasingly represent the sole source of knowledge and perspective on this all-important topic.

“I need the veteran community,” he said. “Not just to stand on the sidelines, but to engage with the active community. I remember as a young sergeant in Ser­geant’s Course at Twentynine Palms, Colonel Mitchell Paige, Medal of Honor recipient, came to tell us his story. No one in the room was breathing. He spoke about the night and when it was over, the bodies around his machine gun, and I was just in awe. I imagine experiences like that have happened frequently over the last 248 years. The wise leaders will find time to bring in those veterans to talk to their Marines. We need it. What we get from them in that 45-minute con­versation, we can’t duplicate in days of PME.
There’s only one of me, but there’s a lot of veterans out there who care. I think I owe from my billet a lot more engage­ment to the veteran community to bring them in, to help them understand the en­vironment of where we are at and what the threat is, and how much we need their help. We are all in it. If you ever wore the uniform of a Marine, it takes all of us to make the Marine Corps who we say we are.”

When you hear the Sergeant Major speak in person or through social media, his concern for preserving the Marine Corps way rings genuine. His commit­ment to individual Marines comes through with a positive and refreshing message. Like Sgt Tukes did for him three decades ago, SgtMaj Ruiz still believes that any Marine can be a powerful influence and help someone else find their way in the Corps.

“This is what I have been trying to get through to the Marine Corps; you don’t have to wait until you’re older to be excited about being a Marine. You don’t have to wait until you’re out the service and you start looking back and think, ‘this was a good time in my life.’ I don’t want you to wait until then. I want you to wake up in the morning and make a choice that you can have that impact today.”

Author’s bio: Kyle Watts is the staff writer for Leatherneck. He served on active duty in the Marine Corps as a communications officer from 2009-2013. He is the 2019 winner of the Colonel Robert Debs Heinl Jr. Award for Marine Corps History. He lives in Richmond, Va., with his wife and three children.

Ask any Marine who among the pantheon of notable and illustrious Marines between World War I and World War II were most responsible for the Corps becoming the premier amphibious assault force in the world during the Second World War and many names would be mentioned: The iconoclastic Major Earl “Pete” Ellis, whose ideas and assumptions, according to authors Jetek A. Isley and Philip Crowl, “became the keystone of Marine Corps strategic plans for a Pacific War;” Major General Commandant John H. Russell (1934-1936), who author Merrill Bartlett said “guided the development of amphibious doctrine, preparing the Marine Corps for its major contribution in World War II;” and Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, who played key roles in the development of the Landing Vehicle, Tracked (LVT) and the ubiquitous Higgins Boat as a young officer.

But John A. Lejeune, Major General Commandant from July 1920 to March 1929, may not be on many Marines’ short list of those Marines most responsible for transforming the Marine Corps into an amphibious assault force that had the capability of taking islands such as Tarawa and Iwo Jima in World War II. It is not that Marines are unfamiliar with Lejeune. Indeed, Lejeune, referred to as the “Greatest of All Leathernecks,” is well-known not only for his 1921 Birthday Message that is read annually but also for several other key accomplishments. He founded the Marine Corps Association in 1913, the Marine Corps League in 1923 and “created the Marine Corps Institute.” And, of course, Camp Lejeune is named after him. But most Marines may not be aware of Lejeune’s crucial role in setting the Marine Corps on the path to becoming the world’s premier amphibious assault force it would become, and the nation needed, in World War II.

In the first two decades of the 20th Century, the Marine Corps’ primary mission was to provide the Navy with an Advanced Base Force (ABF) to seize undefended or lightly defended islands in the Pacific as part of War Plan Orange (WPO). WPO was the Navy’s strategy for advancing across the Central Pacific to relieve the Philippines, fight and (presumably) win a modern-day Jutland against the Imperial Japanese Navy in the western Pacific; followed by blockading the Japanese Home Islands, leading to a complete United States victory. However, the Marine Corps Lejeune took over in 1920, while having the ABF in its force structure, was focused on the “Banana Wars,” not on supporting WPO. Lejeune would change that, ensuring the Marine Corps could survive as a separate service because it had a unique mission within the overall military establishment. Lejeune’s reforms and efforts during his nine-year tenure as Commandant laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Fleet Marine Force in 1933 and the publication of the “Tentative Manual for Landing Operations” in 1934; both of which undergirded the development of the capability to conduct opposed amphibious landings.

Background
Following the American victory in the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. Navy needed bases between the newly acquired Philippine Islands and Hawaii to provide sheltered anchorages for their warships to use to replenish their coal supply if and when they were required to conduct a westward advance to relieve the archipelago from a Japanese blockade. “The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War: Its Theory, And Its Practice In The Pacific” by Jeter A. Isely and Dr. Philip A. Crowl, originally published in 1951 and republished by Pickle Partners Publishing in 2016, has this to say:

“Shortly after the conclusion of the Spanish-American War the attention of high naval planners was turned toward the problem of building a permanent force capable of seizing and holding advanced bases to be employed by the fleet in the prosecution of naval war in distant waters. Up to that time the duties of the Marine Corps had been limited largely to supplying marine detachments to vessels of the fleet and furnishing guards for navy yards, except during wartime when units of the Corps had actually participated in minor landings. The relatively easy victory over Spain did not conceal the fact that the fleet was incapable of sustained operations even in waters as close as those of Cuba, and the projection of American power far into the Pacific as a result of Commodore George Dewey’s victory at Manila Bay made the problem of acquiring bases even more acute … shortly after the war the General Board of the Navy, impressed by recent events … determined to set up a permanent advance-base force within the naval establishment. It was axiomatic that warships powered by steam were tied to their bases by the distance of their steaming radii and, since it was impracticable to maintain permanent bases in all parts of the world where the fleet might conceivably engage in action, it would be inevitably necessary in wartime to seize temporary bases against opposition if necessary. Defense of such bases once seized was an inseparable problem. The Marine Corps, an organization consisting of ground troops but with naval experience and under naval authority, was the obvious solution to the difficulty. Immediately tentative steps were taken to prepare the Corps for this new line of activity.”

Though preliminary steps were taken in 1901, the Marine Corps did not officially establish the Advanced Base Force until 1913. “Although the germs [sic] of later amphibious training my be found in this early advance base activity, it is clear that the great weight of the emphasis was not on offensive landing operations,” Isely and Crowl also wrote. “In fact, there is little resemblance between this early concept of the main function of the Marine Corps and its subsequent role as a military organization specially trained for amphibious assaults against enemy shores. Although in theory the advance-base force was supposed to be prepared to seize as well as defend bases, in practice all of the training concentrated on the defense.”

Even then, World War I and the “Banana Wars” conspired to keep the Advanced Base Force from being front and center in Marine Corps thinking. World War I was a seminal moment in the history of the Marine Corps because the Corps went from primarily “supplying Marine detachments to vessels of the fleet and furnishing guards for navy yards” as Isely and Crowl state, to gaining the ability to fight on the most modern and intense battlefield imaginable. The Marine Corps’ ability to field a brigade that could go toe-to-toe with the Germany Army (and its attendant “First to Fight” publicity) shifted the Marine Corps, both substantively and in the public’s mind, to moving beyond only providing ships’ detachments and being colonial infantry, to being an elite conventional fighting force; an image that would be cemented in World War II.

But the Banana Wars, which started before World War I, persisted during World War I and continued post-war, was the Marine Corps’ conscious primary focus when Lejeune became Commandant. What Lejeune foresaw and most didn’t, was that the colonial infantry role was not a viable mission for the Marine Corps long-term because opposition was growing against American intervention; which ultimately led to President Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” in 1933, “a policy of nonintervention in local affairs, applying specifically to Latin America.” He would be successful in his endeavor to wean the Marine Corps from the primacy of the colonial infantry role and put the Marine Corps on a trajectory to be an amphibious assault force, but only after overcoming deep-seated opposition within the Corps.

The Marine Corps’ Future:
Colonial Infantry or Advanced Base Force?
Joseph Simon, author of “The Greatest Leatherneck of All Leathernecks: John Archer Lejeune and the Making of the Modern Marine Corps,” writes “… by early 1920, the ABF—developed over the last 20 years—was in limbo, unable to support the Navy’s challenge in the western Pacific. In effect, the Marine Corps had returned to its old mission of providing troops for expeditionary and occupation duty in Haiti and Santo Domingo, acting as colonial infantry. Visionary Marines who supported the Navy’s new mission in War Plan Orange did not want to return to the past but did not have the power to establish amphibious assault as the [Corps’] new wartime mission.”

Marines had been fulfilling the colonial infantry role for the first two decades of the 20th century; indeed, “they had accumulated enough experience to write and publish “The Small Wars Manual” in 1921. (Author’s note: Originally called “The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars” when published in 1921; renamed “Small War Operations” in 1935; then renamed the “Small Wars Manual” in the 1940 revision, the title by which it is known today.)

Many Marines enjoyed being deployed to Central and South America. They lived like kings while serving in exotic lands—or what Americans perceived to be exotic lands; the reality never seemed to live up to the fantasy. Fighting natives in the jungle promoted a swashbuckling image of Marines and was an inducement to young men who sought adventure. The Banana Wars provided great leadership opportunities for junior officers who would patrol for days with their only contact with higher headquarters being a radio carried on a pack animal that had to be assembled at the end of each day’s patrol. Marine officers had real-world opportunities to employ small unit tactics against the local insurgents; gaining experience that only comes with actual combat. According to one of his biographers, the legendary Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller looked back on his experience serving in Haiti in late 1919 and the early 1920s, as a watershed moment in his career:

“It was not until years later that Puller realized the full richness of his Haitian experience, and the value of its lessons in soldiering and hand-to-hand combat—he had fought 40 actions,” writes Burke Davis in “Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller.”

“He had not only been bloodied; the guerrilla combat had been almost continuous, most of it introduced by ambush on the trail. Puller had stood up well under this strain, and had come to trust his own physical prowess and ability to lead men under fire. He had discovered that native troops could become superb soldiers. He had developed his instinctive talent for using terrain in battle, and learned the lessons of jungle fighting … Despite his youth, he was one of the most seasoned combat officers in the Corps.”
The greatest and most senior champion for continuing to emphasize the colonial infantry role in the Marine Corps was an Old Corps legend—Brigadier General Smedley “Old Gimlet Eye” Butler. Butler owed his career advancement as much to his father, the highly influential Senator Thomas Butler, Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, as much as to his service as a Marine fighting in the Banana Wars at Guantanamo Bay, the Philippines (three times), China, the Panamanian Isthmus, Nicaragua, Veracruz, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

“[A] highly decorated Marine officer with little formal education beyond high school, [Butler] had won two Medals of Honor and believed in the egalitarian warrior ideal. Butler supported the [Corps’] old mission, was ambivalent about the amphibious mission, and believed that the Marine Corps performed better when separated from the Navy,” according to “The Greatest of All Leathernecks.”

The difference in Lejeune’s outlook and Butler’s is the result of their different experiences as senior officers. Like practically every other Marine, Lejeune fought in the Banana Wars, but he commanded a brigade and then a division in conventional, high-intensity combat on the Western Front. Butler’s career was in essence, from the beginning to the end, fighting in the Banana Wars except for deploying to France with the 13th Marines and then commanding the personnel depot at Brest at the very end of World War I. Butler’s focus was on the Marine Corps’ celebrated past that was going away and Lejeune’s focus was on positioning the Marine Corps for the future. If that was not enough, Butler who “believed that the Marine Corps performed better when separated from the Navy,” would have had trouble working in harness with the Navy to seize and defend advance bases where coordination between the two services was crucial. (Author’s note: Butler would later write “War is a Racket,” a book that repudiated his service in the Banana Wars.)

Fortunately, Butler was sidelined in the middle of Lejeune’s tenure as Commandant when Butler temporarily left active-duty service to be the director of the department of Public Safety for Philadelphia. While Butler wasn’t the only Marine who opposed Lejeune’s desire to move away from the colonial infantry role, he was the most senior and vocal. With him out of the way, Lejeune’s reforms could move forward unimpeded.

Lejeune’s Reforms
There are numerous things Lejeune did to improve conditions in the Marine Corps and, as Simon says, “to make the Marine Corps the most efficient military organization in the world.” Lejeune provided enlisted Marines with opportunities to learn a trade through vocational programs; reorganized recruiting service to ensure the Marine Corps was enlisting only the highest quality recruits, and worked diligently to economize and cut costs, earning Lejeune goodwill with Congress. Lejeune also “defined the relationship between officers and their men as ‘that of teacher and scholar’” and “promoted the Corps as an institution that uplifted young men’s lives mentally, physically, and morally.”

Several of Lejeune’s reforms directly led to the Marine Corps developing into the amphibious assault force it became after his tenure. While Lejeune did not remake the Marine Corps into the amphibious assault force that would become its hallmark, he laid the groundwork for that to be the case.

Advanced Base Force Becomes Marine Expeditionary Force
Perhaps the most important of Lejeune’s reforms was to rename the Advanced Base Force (ABF) the Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF). (Author’s note: In this context, “Marine Expeditionary Force” is a term meaning the available Marine forces on either the East and West Coasts available for deployment [one MEF on each coast]; not what Marines today know as an MEF.) As Simon writes in “The Greatest of All Leathernecks,” “ABF operations [were] of a defensive nature” and authors Jetek Isely and Philip Crowl state in “The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War” that “The advance-base force was in actuality little more than an embryo coastal artillery unit.” According to author Joseph Alexander in his book “Storm Landings: Epic Amphibious Battles in the Central Pacific,” the name change speaks to the offensive and more comprehensive mission of providing the fleet with “specially trained and equipped amphibious forces able to fight their way ashore.” “As of 1925 [a MEF] consisted of infantry, artillery, auxiliary troops such as engineers, signal, gas, tank and aviation units, all of them equipped and trained for service with the fleet.”

According to historian Alexander, Lejeune lobbied hard for the Navy to integrate the new MEF into the fleet.

“Lejeune understood that the future of the Marine Corps lay with the Navy and worked diligently to bring the Navy and Marine Corps closer together … Lejeune recommended to the Navy that the MEF become an integral part of the fleet, convinced the special board of policy of the Navy’s General Board that the MEF was essential to the fleet for conducting ship-to-shore operations, updated the pamphlet Joint Action of the Army and Navy (1927) to officially establish the [Corps’] role as the first to seize advanced bases in amphibious operations… .

“Again in 1926, Lejeune recommended that the MEF become a part of the fleet. He wrote to the CNO that ‘in order to clarify terminology, it is recommended that the Marine Expeditionary Force or Advanced Base Force,’ which would serve with the fleet … be designated, ‘Marine Corps Force, U.S. Fleet.’ ” Unfortunately, at this time the Navy was not prepared to recognize the MEF as part of the fleet.

“While Lejeune had only limited success in converting the Navy to his viewpoint, he succeeded in inspiring younger progressive leaders in the Marine Corps and Navy as to the importance of the new mission, a challenge that motivated these men to adopt and refine the mission of amphibious assault in the 1930s and 1940s.”

The MEF was the precursor to the Fleet Marine Force (FMF) and the transitional step between the defensive-oriented ABF and the offensive-oriented FMF capable of amphibious assaults against the most strongly fortified positions in World War II.

Marine Corps Schools
If the MEF provided the intermediate force structure step between the ABF and the FMF, Marine Corps Schools (MCS), established by Lejeune in 1921, would be the institution most responsible for providing the intellectual underpinning for the Marine Corps’ ability to assume the amphibious assault role as its own. According to Alexander, “one of Lejeune’s greatest and most enduring contributions to the Corps was the establishment of the MCS. As Commandant, Lejeune saw a great need for more in-depth military training for officers in order to modernize the Corps … Based on his own experience, Lejeune knew that the average Marine officer received minimal formal military training.

However, in the beginning, MCS did not focus on amphibious warfare. According to Alexander, Lejeune’s “original intent in developing the MCS in the early 1920s was to utilize his experiences in the world war to teach new officers and recruits infantry tactics and how to fight a modern war using a combined-arms approach. This approach stressed greater firepower by combining infantry, artillery, tanks, and aircraft in the attack against a powerful enemy. Although this focus remained until the mid-1920s, it later became clear that Lejeune wanted to use the combined-arms approach for amphibious operations.”

As stated in “The Greatest of All Leathernecks” by Simon, the original focus of MCS was to teach “how to fight a modern war.” But after Marine officers learned the basics of combined arms on land, the MCS would transition to focusing on the amphibious assault.
“Lessons learned from the study of Gallipoli became part of the Marine Corps—Navy maneuvers of 1924 and 1925. In the early 1930s, Brigadier General James C. Breckinridge, head of the MCS, significantly increased the study of the failed Dardanelles operations. The Gallipoli amphibious disaster became a key part in the study of landing operations and helped develop the landmark ‘Tentative Landing Manual’ of 1934.”

Usually, the establishment of the MEF in 1933 and the publication of “Tentative Landing Operations Manual” in 1934, are considered separate events. But there was a relationship between them that is often overlooked. Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr., USMC (Ret) says it best in his essay “The U.S. Marine Corps: Author of Modern Amphibious Warfare” in “amphibious thinkers produced the Fleet Marine Force; this unique unit in turn gave body and substance to the doctrinal theories of its creators; and the interaction of the two combined in substantial measure to make possible the victorious beachheads of World War Two.”

Other Reforms
There were three other reforms Lejeune did that still serve the Marine Corps today. According to Simon, based upon Lejeune’s experience in command of the Army’s 2nd Division in France, he adopted the French Army’s G-1/G-2/G-3/G-4 staff system for “independent field commands of brigade size or larger” streamlining and making staff functions more efficient.

Second, Simon writes that “Lejeune pioneered the modern use of air power in the Caribbean occupations … For the first time, Marine aircraft provided direct air support to small infantry units on the ground fighting rebels in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.” Lastly, the Butler-directed reenactments of Civil War battles in the early 1920s, would on the face of it, be nothing more than “a reproduction in pageantry form of the Civil War battle at that place, as little would be gained by either officers or men as regards lessons of a military nature.” While true to a greater or lesser extent, especially early on, Lejeune saw these reenactments as valuable training opportunities. They got the Marines into the field under wartime conditions and tested equipment “under service conditions.”

Conclusion
During his nine-year tenure as Major General Commandant, Lejeune did not transform the Marine Corps from a colonial infantry force into an amphibious assault force. Lejeune set the Corps on the trajectory to becoming the world’s premier amphibious force by moving the Marine Corps’ focus away from the colonial infantry role; changing the name of the ABF to MEF and expanding its focus; and establishing MCS, which would in a few short years after Lejeune’s tenure, write the “Tentative Landing Operations Manual.”

As Simon writes in “The Greatest Leatherneck of All”: “Lejeune’s great­est legacy to the Marine Corps of the 1930s—and even to the Corps of today—was his capability as a strategic leader in providing direction, purpose, and identity. Lejeune could envision the near future and… [could] convince the Navy Department and the Joint Army and Navy Board that his vision for the Marine Corps was realistic. Lejeune established for the Marines “their own separate and very distinct culture and identity.” Perhaps Lejeune’s greatest strength was his ability to anticipate future conflicts and prepare the corps to successfully deal with them—specifically, a likely war in the Pacific. Lejeune made the visionary decisions that changed the culture of the Marine Corps and laid the foundation for the development of amphibious warfare that established the standards realized during World War II and after.”
Major General Commandant John Archer Lejeune was indeed, “The Greatest of all Leathernecks.”

Author’s bio: Maj Skip Crawley, USMCR (Ret), was an infantry officer in 1st Battalion, 7th Marines during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. He has had numerous book reviews published in Marine Corps Gazette. This is his first article for Leatherneck.

Editor’s note: The following story is an excerpt from the book “The Rifle 2: Back to the Battlefield” by Andrew Biggio. When Biggio returned from deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, he had questions about the cost of war, so he decided to ask those who knew the answer—World War II veterans. Marines like John Trezza, whose story we published here, told Biggio about the complexities of life after combat. The book can be purchased at https://amzn.to/47lUNs2. You can listen to a few in-depth conversations I had with Biggio on the Marine Corps Association podcast, “Scuttlebutt,” www.mca-marines.org/scuttlebutt.

The sounds of explosions and distant gunfire were fierce. There was no such thing as a break during D-day on Iwo Jima, and since there was no rear echelon, the battle raged everywhere. The call for fire missions was constant, but the men of “Fox” Battery, 2nd Battalion, 13th Marines, had no choice; they had to pause. “Our guns were red-hot. If we put another shell in through the cannon, we risked killing our whole gun crew,” John Trezza told me.

John Trezza stared at his 75mm how­itzer. It was glowing red. You could have cooked hamburgers for the whole com­pany on it. If another shell was placed into the artillery piece it could detonate. The Marines from his battery had just run a hundred shells through it in a short period of time. The Japanese had em­place­ments everywhere on Iwo. There was no end in sight to the calls for fire missions. They were facing an entrenched enemy estimated to be over 20,000 strong.

Casualty collection points and rendez­vous areas developed behind the artillery units on Feb. 19, 1945, throughout the day. Wave after wave of Marines landed, and those who were supposed to be in re­serve found themselves hitting the island midday on D-day instead of in the following days, as they’d initially sup­posed would occur.

Packs and supplies of those killed on the island began to pile up behind Fox Battery. Then one pack arrived that seemed to hush the sounds of distant gunfire as the Marines passed it around. Written in black ink on a piece of gear attached to the pack was the name “BASILONE.” The Marines of Fox Battery studied it in disbelief.

“When it got to me I couldn’t look at it,” said John, as he sat on a couch 77 years later. He was still emotional about the Italian-American war hero from New Jersey who had been killed in action. The two had much in common. They were both Italians, both Jersey boys, both Marines, and most of all, both proud Americans. John Basilone was admired by the whole Marine Corps after his actions on Guadalcanal, actions which had earned him the Medal of Honor.

“Before we left Hawaii, I got the chance to meet him. We all looked up to him. He didn’t have to go back into combat. He had a ticket to stay home forever and sell war bonds. He wanted to be with the Marines and he died doing so,” John added. It was amazing to see the profound impact Gunnery Sergeant Basilone still had on his Marines nearly eight decades later. These Marines were not 18 years old anymore. Here was 96-year-old man still upset as he remembered the loss of a Marine Corps icon. This was deep ad­mira­tion. No propaganda could accom­plish this. Gunny Basilone was truly a legend.

Back on Iwo Jima, an 18-year-old John Trezza couldn’t look at his fallen hero’s empty pack. It would be admitting that Basilone was really gone, and that the Japanese could kill anyone. Yet John’s turmoil over seeing Basilone’s gear was soon interrupted. It was time to start shelling again. The infantry depended on it.

John’s fatigues were powdery white, his uniform crusted by the salt from the ocean in which he had been submerged only hours before. His landing on the beach had been anything but pleasant. For all the Marines of the 5th Division, it had been hectic.

The entire 5th Marine Division was created for the purpose of taking Iwo Jima. It was the first time the Marine Corps developed such a unit with one island as its objective. John trained on Camp Tarawa in Hawaii for six months, then loaded onto the troop transport ship. It was there he met Medal of Honor re­cipient John Basilone. They and the other Marines aboard spent 38 days on the ship, heading generally west. After landing, the two would never meet again, yet John would never forget him. Iwo Jima affected the lives of all Marines who took part for generations to come.

After a long month of zigzagging through the Pacific, the 5thMarDiv an­chored near the island of Saipan. The Marines took to the decks of the transport ships. “We would watch the B-29s take off to do their bombing runs. It seemed like there was one taking off every mi­nute,” John said. This activity gave the Marines something to occupy their time, and the young men crowded the decks to view the mighty Army Air Corps fly away to strike Japan.

What they didn’t yet know was that those same B-29s were most likely be­ing used in an attempt to prevent the on­slaught that lay ahead for the 5thMarDiv. But aerial carpet bombing of the volcanic island of Iwo Jima proved to be unsuc­cessful. Saying the Japanese were a “well-entrenched enemy” was an under­statement. Their tunnels, caves, pillboxes, and artillery emplacements remained for the most part unscathed despite American bombing raids. Anything that could be moved was wheeled or pushed into a tunnel or cave. The only advantage the bombings gained for the invading Ma­rines was to provide defilades for cover. Other than that, Iwo Jima was like every other island, a smoky flaming mess with thousands of Japanese soldiers at the ready.

After a few days the ships left Saipan, destined for their final stop: Iwo Jima. “It was Feb. 19, a Monday morning, I’ll never forget it,” John said, shaking his head.

Before the sun rose, Marines were pushing their way through chow lines in the ship’s mess hall. It was noisy and hectic, and adrenaline was high. The first waves of Marines made their way to the bottoms of their ships. The ship carrying John’s unit was an LCT (landing craft tank). Stored inside the ship’s hull were amphibious tracs and DUKW (pro­nounced “duck”) boats that could be launched from the bow once the ramp opened. Overhead, fighter planes soared, providing covering fire for the first waves of Marines heading for the beach. The landing crafts and amphibious vehicles of this first wave chopped forward in the ocean until they reached the black sand.

“The first wave was unopposed. The Japanese wanted them to make their way inland to a certain point before opening up on them,” John explained.

“Which wave were you?” I asked.

“Third wave,” he replied. “All hell broke loose on the second wave.”
It was John’s turn to load onto the DUKW boat. “There were four of us. A Coast Guard guy was driving it,” he recalled.

The DUKW is a boat with wheels ex­tending underneath it. It does not travel fast on water, as John and the other Ma­rines quickly found out.
John recalled the frightening ordeal. “We were drenched with water within minutes of leaving the ramp of the big ship. Mortar shells were landing on each side of us.”

Landing crafts were also taking direct hits not far from John’s DUKW. The ocean seemed to be crowded with burn­ing, scuttled landing crafts. The immense enemy fire, now concentrated on the beach and ocean, was causing a traffic jam for incoming waves of troops. The Coast Guard skipper in charge of John’s DUKW boat couldn’t find a place to land on his designated area of the beach.

The beach was littered with vehicles and Marines. The pileup was proving to be deadly and prevented reinforcements from coming ashore. The DUKW boats’ skippers were all having trouble finding openings, and when they did they risked running over Marines already present and bogged down by enemy fire.

The Coast Guard skipper of John’s DUKW boat had to work fast. He pow­ered the boat to the far left of the designated area. “He led us right into a cove,” John said.

The DUKW boat full of scared Marines made its way into the natural opening. As it pulled into the cove the Marines began to jump off the sides.

“I jumped off the back and nearly drowned.” Unbeknownst to John, the water here was significantly over his head. In a sheer panic, he unslung his rifle from his body. His M1 Garand sank to the bottom of the ocean. Stripping himself of his gear, John rose to the surface, gasping for air. The DUKW boat was still within arm’s reach.

“I grabbed hold of it and climbed back on,” he recalled. The incident still left John feeling short of breath 77 years later.

John boarded the boat again. “I had no helmet, no weapon, no nothing!” The DUKW boat spun about, trying to find a spot where John and the others could place their feet. The skipper was able to locate solid earth for John to step out on. John waited for the thumbs-up, then was off.

“I ran as fast as I could to the beach. When I looked up I saw a 300-foot cliff. ‘Should I go up there?’ I thought. ‘What’s on the other side?’ I figured I would go back to where I was supposed to land first, Red Beach One.”

John began to follow the beach farther down before making his advance inland. “I was running around bareback, with no equipment whatsoever!” John was practically shouting as he related this to me in his living room. The extreme cir­cumstances of his landing had lost none of their shock value over the years.

Nervous and unarmed, John scurried along the black sand. “I got to Red Beach 1 and there was still no possible way to get in. I don’t know how all those guys got into that little pass,” John said. Red Beach 1 was blockaded with vehicles, bodies, and equipment. There was no way around it. “That’s when I decided to go to Red Beach 3.”

John ran further along the sand toward Red Beach 3. At this beach a weaponless John observed a set of makeshift stairs that ran along the cliffs. “They must have been built by the Japanese. There were a couple hundred stairs and they ran all the way up.” This pathway seemed the only way to link up with his unit. He began to crawl up the side of the stairs.

“All the way to the top there were dead Marines along the stairs. They were slumped over and all appeared to be shot through the head and face. They each had just a small trickle of blood running from between their eyes.”

The bodies of Marines who had at­tempted to ascend the stairs were scattered over the hillside. They were the victims of earlier waves, and John gazed at each one as he climbed around them, the lifeless bodies serving as markers the higher he climbed.

“Every one of those guys I saw dead …. ” John had to pause. The memory of the fallen Marines still haunted him. “Every one of those guys, my heart went out to them.” Nearly 80 years later, the tears still came.

What happened when you got to the top of the stairs?” I asked.

“Then I found my outfit!” John said, a smile on his face. Reuniting with his field artillery battalion was obviously a much happier memory. “Right then and there I found my guys.”

 

Fox Battery was set up not far from the summit of the cliff John had climbed. Their guns had been dragged into po­sition in the earlier two waves.

“The first man I saw was a forward observer from my battery, a lieutenant. I didn’t want him to know I didn’t have a rifle, so at this point I’m still trying to look for a weapon. I didn’t look long before we had our first fire mission.”
John’s attempt to arm himself would have to wait. The 75 mm howitzers were ready to fire.

“I lost count how many shells we fired. The forward observer was giving us coordinates all day, and at night we shot illumination rounds. By day two we were running out of ammunition.”

John’s battery was doing a historic job grunts of the 5th Marine Division.
At night, however, things got weird. An unknown voice called out to them. “Fox Battery, where are you? Fox Battery, where are you?” The voice seemed to come from far in the distance. “We found that so strange. We were taught never to call out to one another in the night. So we hid low behind our guns and ignored it.”

John believes it was Japanese soldiers testing to see if they could infiltrate. Some Marines and forward observers had gone missing. There was no way to tell if they had been tortured or killed for information by the Japanese.
“The next day, day three, we totally ran out of ammunition for our howitzers,” John said. The Marines of Fox Battery made multiple runs to and from the beach trying to track down any ammo they might find for their guns.
The less they fired, the less protection the infantry had. As an artillery man, you were the king of battle and often the hand of God. It was artillery that could knock down rows of banzai charges.

Ammunition finally reached the beach­head, and men ushered rounds to Fox Battery’s position. The new high-explo­sive shells had arrived just in time. Enemy counterbattery fire was incoming.

“Luckily we had a time-fire radar. We could adjust quickly and knock them out.”
By day seven, Fox Battery’s position was known to the enemy. The Japanese zeroed in. Enemy counterbattery poured in faster than John and his gun crew could adjust. Finally their ability to return fire ceased altogether when an enemy shell exploded to their left. The Japanese artil­lery blew John and the other Marines off their howitzer like rag dolls.

Stunned and temporarily deaf in both ears, John lay facedown in the dirt. Other Marines were scattered around. They slowly attempted to get up and get back to the gun. John found he could not bounce back like the others. As they sat him up, he looked down below his belt line. There was smoke coming from his groin. He had a large hole in his pants. He was hit.

“I placed my hand in my pants. I was hit right by my family jewels,” he said quietly.

John was bleeding heavily. As the men shouted for a corpsman, the roar of other artillery pieces firing drowned their screams for help. John tried to staunch the blood loss from his groin, but soon passed out.

“When I gained consciousness, I was in a tent hospital. I looked down at my groin. I could see they did a good job fixing me up, and I passed back out.”

It was a relief for a 19-year-old boy to know he still had his penis and testicles. Still under a considerable amount of morphine, John was transported to a hospital ship offshore for more re­habilitation. While John was out of the fight, the battle for Iwo Jima raged on.

“Dealing with my injuries was some delicate stuff. You could put three or four fingers into my wound,” John ex­plained. He would spend the next five months recovering in hospitals both in Guam and Hawaii.

John was ultimately satis­fied with the healing process. He could have lost his man­hood on Iwo Jima. Thanks to surgeons, he was able to have a normal life and create a family.

“I came home and later joined the sheriff’s depart­ment on May 1, 1950. I retired in 1978.” John retired as the deputy warden of the Essex County Jail in New Jersey. In the prison system he would run into other Marines who had chosen to go down a dif­ferent road after the Battle of Iwo Jima. “It makes you think if the war contributed to the behavior of some Marines after their return home from combat.”

John had a point. Like many others, he and I both had chosen law enforcement after the Marines. By doing so we were at times con­fronted with the fact that some Marines chose crime.

As I placed the rifle into its case, I believed my time with John had come to an end. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

“Well, I got a long drive back to Boston.”

“You aren’t going anywhere until you have some of my meatballs!”

John hobbled over to the kitchen and turned on the burners on the stove to warm up a pot. A few minutes later, he was off-loading giant meatballs on a plate for me.

I knew I had a long drive from New Jersey to Boston ahead of me, but I sat down with the Italian-American Marine. I bit into one of the meatballs he had made, and he told me I couldn’t leave until I was finished with my meal.
I can honestly say they were the best damn meatballs I ever had.

Author’s bio: Andrew Biggio is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is currently serving as a Massachusetts police officer and is the president of the nonprofit Boston’s Wounded Vet Run. “The Rifle II” is his sec­ond book.