90 Days a Grunt: A Short-Term Assignment to the Infantry, the Jungle and the Battle at Mutter’s Ridge

In late September 1968, Bob Skeels stepped off a plane at Quang Tri Combat Base. The aircraft delivered three of Bob’s friends to Vietnam alongside him. The four men shared much in common. All were young, newly minted second lieutenants. All had recently graduated from training as 1802 tank officers. For Bob’s part, a surge of personal patriotism drove him to the Corps after college despite growing disillusion with the war at home. Vietnam was the war of his generation, and he wanted to play a part, just as his parents had in World War II. He pursued a career as a tanker. He preferred the idea of a heavily armored carriage with massive firepower carrying him to battle in relative safety.

The four lieutenants hauled their gear off the plane and entered a building to check in. Their crisp new uniforms and beaming golden bars stood out among the faded, drab background of the base. A gruff and weathered lieutenant colonel summoned them into his office. They lined up and snapped to attention. The officer got straight to the point.

“Sorry to tell you this, gents, but a curveball is coming your way. We are short on infantry platoon commanders, so for your first 90 days in country, you will be assigned to a grunt battalion. Welcome to the infantry.”

Bob swallowed hard stifling a wave of emotion. Scuttlebutt had reached the states that 1968 was the war’s worst year yet to be a new Marine infantry officer. Grunt lieutenants held a low chance of survival. Bob gathered his strength to remain upright and breathed a hardy, “Yes, Sir.”

“We couldn’t make a noise because we could tell the guy was a hard ass and he’d bust you right there on the spot,” Bob recalled today. “I was in fear, but your eyes can’t show anything, your words can’t show anything. What are you supposed to do? You just obey your orders.”

The four tankers left the lieutenant colonel’s office and parted ways. Bob received his orders to “Echo” Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines and his spirits faded further when he learned the officer who had informed them of the temporary assignment would later be his battalion commander. The man seemed even less pleased with the situation than the tankers had been.

Bob collected the weapons, clothing, and 782 gear issued to a new grunt bound for the bush. He loaded onto a chopper heading west for Vandegrift Combat Base. The sun disappeared behind distant mountain tops as the helicopter set down. Someone directed Bob to a tent on the perimeter to spend the night. Another chopper would deliver him to his unit at Khe Sanh the following morning. Several NCOs invited Bob to join their card game and dealt him in. In the twilight, ridges and valleys extended for miles, nestled beneath a perfectly painted sky. Could a place like this really be a war zone?

Bob stripped down to his skivvies as they played. The oppressive heat seemed the only blemish on the otherwise beau­tiful country. An artillery round suddenly exploded 150 meters away. Bob scanned the table, gauging the reactions of other Marines. A sec­ond round hit 100 meters away. Everyone ran outside. A third round came 75 meters away. Someone screamed, “Get in the goddamn trench! We’re on the gun target line!”

Six Marines dove headlong into a water-filled hole next to the tent. Wearing nothing but his skivvies and hard-rimmed glasses, Bob plunged in after them. He sank to the bottom and struggled not to drown as the tangled mass of bodies all took cover. Someone knocked Bob’s glasses off and they disappeared into the muck.

When the incoming fire finally stopped, the Marines clawed their way out of the trench. The tent which housed the card game hung in shreds. Naked, soaked, and blind without his glasses, Bob never felt so vulnerable.

“I was so embarrassed. I learned to never go to bed without being fully dressed. From that point on, I always went to bed with my boots on and rifle on my chest. I found out later the incoming rounds were misfires from friendly 105 mm howitzers nearby. That was my first night in country. What a hell of a night.”

In the morning, Bob boarded another helicopter and flew farther west. The chopper descended into thick fog, completely socking in the jungle beneath him. The helicopter crew chief shouted back as Bob peered out the door.

“OK, Lieutenant, you’re here!”

Bob stared, completely befuddled. A white sheet hung in the air, veiling what seemed the entire world outside of the chopper. “What?”

“You’re here, Hill 881 North.”

“Are we on the ground?”

“No, but we’re only about 10 feet off. You’ll be alright, go ahead and jump.”

Bob cursed the Marine, the fog, and the hill somewhere below as he slid into his pack. With over 125 pounds of gear on his body, he jumped. The helicopter noise muffled any cracking sounds from his body as he collided with the ground. He lay on his back catching his breath as the helicopter departed. A driving rain began, pelting his face as he stared toward the sky. Men snickered in the distance. Bob hurt too much to care. A Marine finally approached.

“You Lieutenant Skeels?”

“Yeah,” Bob muttered. “My back hurts like hell.”

“Jesus, sir. We gotta get you out of that dead cockroach position.” He helped Bob roll over and get on his feet. “You’re 3rd Platoon Commander. They’re all waiting for you over there on the east side of the hill.”

Bob located his Marines, collected under several ponchos tied together. The platoon sergeant stood as Bob entered their shelter. “Welcome, Lieutenant.”

“Thanks. It’s good to finally be here. I’ve had a couple rough days.” The Marines smirked and shot glances around the group.

“Well, you’re about to have tougher days. What do you want to do now?”

Bob gathered the platoon sergeant, squad leaders, and anyone who was on their second tour. The Marines arrived as Bob decided what to say. One of the grunts beat him to the punch.

“Lieutenant Skeels, before you get started, can I ask a question?” Bob braced for impact.

“Sure.”

“How the hell did we wind up with a green tanker for a damn infantry officer?”

“You guys gotta give me a break!” Bob replied. “Sure, I am green, but looking at your brand new uniforms, some of you guys are just as new as I am. I’m here to learn from you guys that have been here the longest, and we’re all going to be in this together.”

A silence followed Bob’s retort as the Marines traded looks and considered their new leader. Finally, the Marine who offered the challenge let on a smile.

“OK, Lieutenant. We’ll let you have a chance. But no orders for crazy frontal charges!”

Echo Company departed Khe Sanh shortly after Bob arrived and headed north toward the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Bob’s platoon separated from the rest of Echo Co and spent the next two months patrolling the jungle. The unit operated autonomously, rarely seeing other Marines in the bush. The shortage of true infantry officers be­came evident. Bob’s company cycled through multiple com­manding officers while he patrolled the Vietnamese mountains.

Bob learned quickly the hardships of a grunt in war. He and his Marines engaged daily in battle with the jungle. Rats three times the size of those stateside moved in from every corner of the country to follow Marines and feast on garbage left behind. Bob cinched his poncho high around his face every night, lest he find a rat perched on his chin in the morning looking for crumbs. Often, this happened anyway. Just like the rats, he constantly scrounged for food. Inclement weather often prohibited resupply and the isolated Marines survived many days on one C-ration.

Heat and humidity left the Marines constantly wet. Everyone developed jungle rot. Even as his knuckles seeped and split open, Bob called in medevacs for Marines with cases far worse than his own. Leeches dominated the environment, ready to suck out any amount of life the Marines had left. Bob developed his morning routine which included a full-body sweep and removal of leeches with a flame or salt, sometimes up to 30 leeches at a time.

“It was like an extended camping trip with occasional periods of sheer fright,” reflected Patrick “Mac” McWilliams, one of the grunts in Bob’s platoon. “I tell people most of my time in Vietnam was spent battling the elements. We just lived out there, digging a hole every night.”

“Everything we did, we did for our brother in the hole with us,” remembered Bruce Brinke, another Marine serving under Bob. “We didn’t have any grand ulterior motives, we just put one foot in front of the other and tried not to think of the whole 13 months. When you’re a lance corporal, a ground pounder, you just do what the squad leader tells you, and he just does what the platoon commander tells him. You don’t have much of a grand view.”

One of Bob’s squad leaders, Cpl Alvin “Twink” Winchell, struggled finding words to describe his time in the jungle as he recounted the memories recently.

“My daughter is a nurse with experience helping veterans,” Winchell said. “She helped me explain how I survived the jungle. She said, ‘Soldiers are trained to go into survival mode mentally and physically. Some did it well, some caved. The jungle was a site like none other could imagine. Those of you that perfected survival mode attempted to come home. Most of you who are still alive are still in constant survival mode.’ This is how I am to this day.”

LCpl Patrick “Mac” McWilliams on patrol in Vietnam. McWilliams served as point man for Bob Skeels’ platoon on Dec. 8, 1968, during the battle on Mutter’s Ridge. Courtesy of Patrick McWilliams.

When his platoon was not patrolling, Bob received orders to help establish new fire bases on remote jungle hill tops. At the future sites of Fire Support Bases (FSB) Alpine and Argonne, the Marines dug holes and set up security as helicopters lifted in heavy equipment to remove the trees. Bob endured the drain of sleep deprivation on these long nights while checking his positions.

One night, as Bob watched through a Starlight scope, he picked up something unknown moving around the perimeter. He investigated in the morning and discovered fresh tiger tracks. From then on, Bob performed his nightly rounds with a pistol in one hand and a 12-gauge shotgun in the other. He had always worried about getting shot in the dark by a probing enemy soldier or even a trigger-happy Marine. Now, the thought of a 400-pound cat ripping him to shreds boosted his anxiety to a whole new level.

In November, the platoon humped all day to the top of another hill where the next FSB would become reality. Soon to be known as FSB Russell, the hilltop proved critical to supporting grunt operations in the surrounding area.

Nights at Russell brought sightings of a species other than tigers. Listening posts (LPs) set 150 meters out from the perimeter radioed in constantly reporting enemy movement. Starlight scopes revealed human forms moving slowly through the jungle, probing the new defenses and mapping out the perimeter. Bob requested permission to engage the targets but was denied so as to not give away the defensive positions. He walked the lines and out to the LPs each night on high alert, shotgun and pistol in hand. With all the enemy sightings, sooner or later, contact felt imminent.

Before dawn on Dec. 7, 1968, word came down of an upcoming operation. For the first time since Bob arrived with 2/4, the entire battalion would take part in an assault. Several other units would also join in the massive cordon and search. The objective was a well-known and well-fought over terrain feature immediately south of the DMZ known as Mutter’s Ridge. Somehow, out of six participating battalions and their subordinate units, Bob’s platoon drew the task of pushing across Mutter’s Ridge on point for the entire operation.

“You’re gonna get your platoon a lot of ribbons on this one,” the battalion sergeant major told him. “That place is a hell hole. This happened in 1966. It happened in 1967. Now, it’s our turn. We gotta go in there and clean them out.”

Bob tried not to dwell on the stupidity of an annual operation where Marines died to simply drive the NVA back across the DMZ. Less than eight hours after receiving the initial frag order, the Marines loaded into choppers and flew to their insertion LZs.

The main objective, designated “Objective Bravo,” occupied the highest hill of Mutter’s Ridge. The rushed timeline planned for Bob’s platoon to secure Objective Bravo the same day the entire operation was conceived. The sun sank lower and lower into the western sky as 3rd platoon moved across Mutter’s Ridge. When Objective Bravo finally came into view, Bob saw not one, but three distinct hill tops rising into the twilight. Storming a single enemy-occupied hill would be difficult. Tackling three such hills seemed nearly impossible—in the dark, surely suicidal. Bob called his platoon sergeant over.

“How the hell are we supposed to take that? It’s got three tops! It would be crazy to try to take that in the dark.”

The staff sergeant stared blankly back. “It’s your call, Lieutenant.”

Bob considered Objective Bravo in silence. Finally, he called up his radioman and raised the company commander. “Echo Six, this is Echo Three. Request permission to set up at our present location for the night and attack the objective in the morning, over.”

An unfamiliar voice replied. “Echo Three, the CO’s not gonna like that. He’s gonna be pissed you’re screwing up his operation.”

Bob struggled to place the voice. Could it really be another new company commander? Whoever it was, Bob didn’t care. “Just ask him.”

An excruciating pause followed. Finally, the voice returned with orders.

“Echo Three, patrol over to the base of Objective Bravo, then return and hold your position for the night. Resume the advance tomorrow morning at 0630. Out.”

Bob set down the radio and breathed a sigh of relief. He passed the word to his squads. They found nothing on their final sweep of the day to the base of Objective Bravo, then returned and dug in. Bob passed the night walking the lines.

Dawn broke over the jungle. 3rd platoon roused early and geared up for the coming assault. Shortly before the appointed hour, Bob’s radio came to life.

“Echo Three, Echo Three, this is Six. Operational change. Foxtrot Company has been tasked with securing Objective Bravo. You will proceed east along the ridge and act as a blocking force for their assault.”

Bob set the radio down. The Marines around him waited for his word. He wrestled with the sudden change in orders. Why now? He knew trying to understand was futile. Their job as point for the operation was now someone else’s job, their fate someone else’s fate. Third platoon’s job now was to simply execute the new orders.

They marched out down a ridge line. The three peaks of Objective Bravo jutted out of the sky to the north with the rest of Mutter’s Ridge extending west out of view. It took most of the day to reach the end of the ridge where it dropped off and opened into a valley leading north to the base of Mutter’s Ridge. In the late afternoon, the point man suddenly called a halt. Bob moved forward. Ten pots of boiling rice sat abandoned on the jungle floor, still simmering. Bamboo tables and chairs surrounded them. Marines crouched on high alert.

“It was a pretty big outpost we encountered,” Bob recalled. “You see something like that, and your sphincter muscle starts to fire. You know you’re going to have contact very soon.”

FSB Russell on Feb. 26, 1969, the morning after it was overrun. Marines from Skeels’ 3rd platoon, including Alvin Winchell, Bruce Brinke and Patrick McWilliams, occupied the site and survived the battle. Patrick McWilliams.

Bob called over Cpl Alvin Winchell’s squad. He gave Winchell five map checkpoints in the vicinity to investigate. The six-man squad set out down a hill towards the first checkpoint on the valley floor. The rest of 3rd platoon started digging in for the night.

Patrick McWilliams took point for Winchell’s squad. The 20-year-old lance corporal volunteered for the spot, even though he had never run point before and had not seen combat. They neared the first checkpoint in a thicket of bamboo and elephant grass. McWilliams crested an embankment running across the valley. The embankment revealed itself to be the edge of a trench line. In the trench directly below McWilliams, a NVA soldier sat eating. Before McWilliams could shoot, the enemy soldier bolted and fired wildly back towards him.

McWilliams considered jumping into the trench after him, then a bullet tore through the hand guard of his rifle, grazing his finger. Machine-gun fire peppered the embankment, creating a dust cloud behind McWilliams as he sprinted back toward the rest of his squad.

He reappeared through the elephant grass as a roar of automatic fire rose above the embankment. Before Winchell could learn what McWilliams had seen, AK-47 fire ripped apart the foliage around him. A sudden sting in his leg dropped Winchell to the ground. He grabbed the radio and found Bob already waiting on the other end.

“What’s going on down there?!”

“We walked into something, it’s a hornet’s nest!”

Winchell switched frequencies to talk with the company’s 60 mm mortars. He directed their fire into the trench and surrounding area. The NVA maintained such a rate of fire that he could not even raise his head to watch the rounds impact. He estimated their range from the sound of the explosions and swept rounds across the valley.

The machine-gunner in Winchell’s squad opened up with his M60. Another Marine shouted, “They’re flanking us!” Meanwhile, the NVA raked the Marines’ position as they advanced. Winchell called the mortars in closer. Grenades suddenly landed between the Marines. Winchell grabbed his own grenades and threw them back. The back-and-forth went on until a grenade finally found its mark. Winchell’s radioman screamed in pain as the explosion blew apart his knee. Winchell moved the radioman farther back, then called the mortars even closer.

“We called it, ‘hugging the belt,’ where they’d try to come in so close that you were afraid to call in mortars on your own men,” Winchell remembered. “Well, I kept bringing them in.”

When the battle opened less than 200 meters down the hill, Bob ordered his remaining two squads to saddle up. The new company commander radioed again demanding updates.

“We’ve made contact with the enemy down in the valley,” Bob told him.

“Well, get someone down there to sweep,” the voice replied.

“Already did. That’s who is getting hit.”

“Hold on, I’m coming up there.”

As the rest of 3rd platoon prepared to move, a second lieutenant appeared. Bob determined this must be his new company commander. Automatic fire raked the ridge line as Bob explained their current situation. Leaves and limbs rained down from the branches above their heads.

“Get your ass down there and get those guys!” The lieutenant ordered.

Bob bit his tongue. No point in getting into it with a senior lieutenant right now.

“On my way.”

The platoon’s remaining two squads advanced off the ridge toward the gun­fight. They discovered three enemy bunk­ers built into a hill on their right flank as they worked their way down toward their fellow Marines. Bob realized they could not risk leaving them occupied by the enemy to chew his platoon apart as they moved toward his trapped squad. He adjusted course for the bunkers. Enemy fire slowed their progress as the platoon strung out through the jungle. The point squad finally reached the bunkers and found them unoccupied. Bob sent a run­ner back through the line to get a count and let everyone know they would resume course back towards Winchell. The runner returned with unexpected news.
“Lieutenant Skeels, we’ve got two missing.”

“What? What do you mean, missing?”

“They went missing some time during on our movement. No one back there saw them.”

Bob fought to keep his bearing as his heart sank to the pit of his stomach. His radioman approached. Fixed wing aircraft held station overhead, ready to pummel the valley floor. Bob still hadn’t located Winchell’s squad. Now, with two Marines missing somewhere in the area, he couldn’t risk jets dropping their bombs. He called the aircraft off and formed up his remaining Marines to move out toward Winchell and search for the missing men.

Bob witnessed at least 20 uniformed enemy soldiers 400 meters away, safely perched on a hilltop near Objective Bravo and firing into the valley. They obviously felt impervious to the battle raging as they added their fire into it.

More Marines fell wounded as the platoon advanced. The man next to Bob was shot in the chest. Bob rolled him over and removed his shirt, revealing a large exit wound. He moved the Marine back uphill toward the abandoned bunkers where a casualty collection point formed.

A small observation plane soared in over at treetop level. The pilot came up on 3rd platoon’s radio and advised he spotted a Marine lying motionless on the jungle floor, shot dead center in the chest. Bob called for volunteers.

“I need two volunteers to come down there with me to look for our MIA.”

One of the remaining squad leaders chimed in. “Lieutenant, you can’t go, you’re the lieutenant!” Without hesitation, two other Marines spoke up. “We’ll go, Lieutenant.”

LCpl John Higgins and PFC Paul Dains stepped forward. Bob didn’t know what to do. Two Marines were missing, at least one probably dead. One squad was trapped in a fight for their lives. Aircraft and artillery waited his word to obliterate the valley. Multiple casualties required evacuation. Darkness threatened to consume Mutter’s Ridge at any minute. The senior company commander demanded answers.

“All right. Look, just get down there. Take a look and get back here. You’ve got five minutes. Just take a look and get back here!”

Back in the valley, Winchell continued calling mortars for what seemed like an eternity as the rest of 3rd platoon tried to reach him. He inched the explosions closer and closer. Mortars rained down merely 20 meters away. Shrapnel cut down trees and vegetation around the Marines. A piece of searing metal tore into Winchell’s knee. When other Marines also suffered friendly shrapnel wounds, Winchell ceased the fire. The NVA retreated from the area. The mortar barrage saved them.

He rolled over and rose to his good knee. Suddenly, through the trees, he saw LCpl Higgins walking alone 30 meters away in the direction where the NVA fire had originated and where they had retreated. Winchell caught his attention and frantically pointed toward the enemy positions. Higgins acknowledged him and proceeded on, disappearing back into the jungle.

Back with the rest of 3rd platoon, Bob checked his watch. Five minutes came and went. Five more minutes passed. As Bob debated what to do, movement down the hill caught his eye. A Marine staggered through the trees. Not Higgins or Dains, but one of the Marines who went missing earlier. He appeared badly wounded, purple in color, and missing his helmet and rifle. The Marine stumbled and fell. Bob rushed down the embankment and picked him up. He struggled back to the perimeter with the Marine over his shoulders. He ordered his radioman to call for a medevac as he lay the Marine with the other casualties.

Dusk settled in and it started to rain. The wounded had to get out now. The only chopper available or willing to come was an Army Chinook. Bob praised and thanked the pilot as he helped load nine Marines on board the helicopter.

More good news arrived shortly after the chopper departed. Winchell’s squad made it safely back up the ridge and linked up with the other elements of Echo Company. All six Marines were wounded, but all six made it back alive. Winchell and his radioman were evacuated due to their wounds. The word helped Bob remain positive. Higgins and Dains had to be out there somewhere, waiting out the darkness, waiting out the NVA.

The sun rose quietly over Mutter’s Ridge on Dec. 9. Bob moved out with his diminished platoon at first light. Echo’s 2nd platoon joined them in searching for their missing Marines. The enemy had completely abandoned the valley, retreating to their stronghold on Objective Bravo. Bob’s platoon located the Marine spotted from the air the day prior. PFC Charles Hall Jr., was no longer missing, but was now the platoon’s first confirmed KIA.

Nearby Hall lay the lifeless body of PFC Dains, similarly cut down by a sniper’s bullet. They proceeded on toward the trench where Winchell’s squad made first contact. A later count revealed 52 enemy bunkers constructed beyond the trench line. Lying next to one of these bunkers, the Marines found the body of LCpl Higgins.

Echo Company spent the rest of the operation blocking the eastern flank of Mutter’s Ridge as Foxtrot Company assaulted Objective Bravo. On Dec. 11, 1stLt Steven Broderick led the assault across the three-topped hill, his platoon in the position Bob’s was intended for before the operational change. Broderick died in the battle, moving among his squads and directing them under fire. He posthumously received the Silver Star.

Twelve other Marines were killed and 31 wounded while taking the objective, later renamed “Foxtrot Ridge.” Over 170 enemy bunkers were counted there, stuffed with ammo, weapons, and supplies. In all, less than 60 dead NVA were left on Mutter’s Ridge to be counted. Commanders deemed the operation a sweeping success and a prime fighting example of the Corps’ mighty air/ground team.

Bob remained with 3rd platoon through the end of December. He wrote up LCpl Higgins for a posthumous Silver Star. The citation recognized Higgins’ bravery under fire throughout the day of Dec. 8, his initiative in volunteering to seek out the missing Marines, and courage for continuing on alone toward Winchell’s squad, where he died trying to help them.

Bob’s 90 days as a grunt ended as the new year rolled around. He left 2/4 for Bravo Co, 3rd Tank Battalion on Jan. 3, 1969.

Having adopted the mold of an infantry platoon commander, Bob struggled at first remembering how to lead a platoon of five tanks. Near the end of February, Bob and his tanks stood guard over a bridge along Route 1 near the DMZ. One evening, radio traffic trickled in about a fire base near Mutter’s Ridge that had been overrun. Bob’s ears perked up when he heard the name FSB Russell. Having spent several weeks carving Russell out of the jungle, Bob could never forget the place. His platoon occupied Russell, alongside numerous others, when Bob left them. On the night of Feb. 25, over 200 NVA sappers broke through the perimeter and overran the outpost. In the ensuing terror, 26 Marines were killed and 77 wounded.

Bob begged his new CO to let him go to Russell and check on his old platoon but was refused. Winchell, McWilliams, Brinke and all the others would have been there. Bob did not know if any of them survived.

Bob supported infantry operations along the DMZ for the remainder of his tour. He worked with numerous grunt battalions moving in and out of the bush. Every time he went out, Bob loaded his tank with extra C-rations and passed them out to the grunts. He knew they were always hungry. When grunts were wounded in battle, Bob sometimes evacuated them, riding on the fenders of his tank. He knew helicopter evacuation was not always possible. Every time he went out for two or three days, he thought of the infantry enduring weeks at a time in the jungle.

Bob, like so many other Vietnam veterans, spent the next 40 years trying to forget the war. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Bob found a patriotic spirit that inspired him to join the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He formed new bonds with veterans who shared experiences similar to his own. They inspired strength to dig deeper into his past. Bob visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. He found John Higgins, Paul Dains, and Charles Hall on panel 37W of the wall. He searched each line for other names he’d recognize. He bowed his head in thankfulness, discovering that no more of the Marines he had ordered evacuated on Dec. 8 had died of their wounds.

Bob located a website published by the LZ Russell Associa­tion. Here, he finally connected once again with Winchell, McWilliams, Brinke, and other Marines from 2/4 who survived Mutter’s Ridge and the nightmare at LZ Russell. Winchell received the Bronze Star with “V” for heroism on the night Russell was overrun. Brinke was wounded and received the Purple Heart. Bob learned that 2ndLt William Hunt, the lieutenant who replaced him in 3rd platoon, was killed there.

The Marines asked Bob to fill them in on the operation at Mutter’s Ridge and what had happened leading up to their making first contact of the operation. This proved yet another plight of the grunts, to obey orders without question, while not always understanding what they were doing, where they were going, and why they were there. Bob did his best to explain the broader picture and took the opportunity to tell them what they had meant to him all his life. “I came away from those 90 days with the belief that the grunts deserve everything,” Bob reflected today. “They deserve all the support that anyone else can give them. Dec. 8, ’68 was a terrible day in my tour. My worst day. I only spent 90 days as a grunt. I don’t know how they endured that jungle for 13 months. It was truly the honor of my lifetime to serve alongside those Marines.

“The Gift”

Revealing the Lasting Impact of Corporal Jason Dunham

In the years following Jason’s death, the Dunham family donated several items to the collection of artifacts housed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, including his woodland MARPAT blouse. (Photo by Kyle Watts)

In 2003, film producer and director David Kniess caught a red-eye flight from California, bound for the East Coast. A young Marine took the seat next to him. They struck up a conversation, and Kniess soon abandoned any thought of sleeping on the plane.

“He was just one of those people that you meet, and you immediately know there’s some­thing special about them,” Kniess recalled in a recent interview. “Very courteous, charis­matic; one of those people you meet, and you don’t want the conversation to end.”

The two stayed up talking through the night as the flight crossed the country. Kniess learned the young man’s name was Jason Dunham. He would soon be deploying to combat with “Kilo” Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. When the plane landed and they caught different connecting flights, Kniess shook Dunham’s hand and told him to take care of himself.

Several months later, in May 2004, Kniess received a call from a friend.
“Did you see The Wall Street Journal today?”
“No, why?”
“Remember that kid you told me about? Do you know what he did? Go get the paper.”

Kniess picked up a copy and saw Dunham’s portrait on the front page. He read on to learn how Dunham had been gravely wounded in Iraq and died eight days later after smothering a grenade with his Kevlar helmet to save the lives of two of his Marines.

Kniess wrote a short story about his exper­ience meeting Dunham on the flight and published it online. The story made its way to Jason’s parents, Deb and Dan Dunham, in Scio, N.Y. Before long, Kniess found a voicemail on his phone from Dunham’s mother. He initially ignored the message. What would he say to her?

When she called again, he realized he could not continue putting off the conversation. Kniess returned the Dunhams’ call, speaking with them about the story he wrote and rem­iniscing about their son. A friendship de­vel­oped quickly, and within a month, Kniess was on his way to their home in western New York.

The relationship with the Dunham family expanded in the following months. In Septem­ber 2004, Kniess met Dunham’s fellow Ma­rines as they returned from their deployment in Iraq. He listened to their stories and learned the full details of what Dunham had done and became determined to create a documen­tary about Dunham and the Marines who served with him.

Dan Dunham, left, adopted Jason as a baby. He and his wife, Deb, right, raised Jason in Scio, N.Y, with his siblings. In the film, Dan and Deb recount Jason’s history, what drove him to the Corps, how he grew into the selfless and charismatic man that he became.

As the years passed, he maintained a close relationship with the Dunham family and the Marines Dunham served alongside. One by one they left the Marine Corps, while Kniess waited for the right time to tell Dunham’s story.

Shortly before Kniess met Dunham’s family and began developing relationships with his Marines, he had worked on a separate documentary covering Vietnam veterans in the battle of Khe Sanh. One of the Marines being interviewed, a Bronze Star with “V” recipient named Bob Arotta, struggled as he recounted the friends he’d lost.

“He told me some very graphic stories from his time during the siege,” Kniess remembered. “He told me, ‘You know, the things that hap­pened then affect me more now than on the day they happened.’ That message was fresh in my mind as these guys started coming home from the war. I kept thinking, when is that day going to come for them? They were still in the Marine Corps. They still had the brotherhood. But I knew that day would come when the full effect of the war would hit them, and I worried about all of them. Sure enough, over the years I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. A lot of these guys are doing great now, but some of them aren’t with us anymore. It got to a point where they became old enough and a lot of this reflection had already happened.”

In 2020, 16 years after Dunham’s death, Kniess felt that enough time had passed, and it was time to tell the story. Not just the story of Dunham’s service and heroism, but also how his actions formed the foundation of life-altering events for so many others who served with him. Filming and production of the documentary began despite significant delays brought on by the Coronavirus pandemic. Travel and gatherings were restricted, but the team found a way to make it work as they traveled around the nation interviewing everyone necessary to tell the story.

LCpl Bill Hampton (left) and PFC Kelly Miller (right) fought alongside Dunham in Iraq and were wounded in the grenade blast that Dunham smothered with his Kevlar helmet. These Marines, along with numerous others from Kilo, 3/7, share the gripping details of what Dunham did on Apr. 14, 2004, and how his sacrifice changed their lives. (Photos courtesy of Three Branches Productions, LLC)

The film opens with Dunham’s family back­ground. Dan and Deb Dunham are not his biologi­cal parents, and the film details how Dan came to adopt him. From a young age, Dunham learned what responsibility and a strong work ethic looked like as he watched over his younger brother and worked with his father on a dairy farm. His parents encouraged Dunham’s enlistment in the Marines. They understood, even before he graduated high school, Dunham needed a challenge to thrive; not a contest against others, but to continually challenge himself.

“We get a lot of credit for what he did,” Deb Dunham states in the film. “We don’t deserve that. We sent them [the Marine Corps] a young man that had a lot of good values. He went to the Marine Corps and the seeds that we prayed we had planted and would [grow] well, they blossomed, and the Marines polished what we gave them. Whenever people would say, ‘Are you a Marine?’ Jason would flash that grin and say, ‘You bet your sweet ass I am.’ He was proud of it. He was a Devil Dog, and that was what he wanted to be and do.”

The film proceeds into Dunham’s service in the Corps and eventual deployment to Iraq with Kilo, 3/7. One lesser-known fact emerges from the film; Dunham extended his enlistment so he could deploy to Iraq with his Marines.

The documentary covers the details of Dunham’s heroism and the events leading up to his final act of smothering a grenade with his Kevlar helmet. The two Marines next to him that day, Private First Class Kelly Miller and Lance Corporal Bill Hampton, describe what happened and reflect on Dunham’s his actions, as he traded his life for theirs. Other Marines who watched Dunham’s patrol leave the wire that day reveal the aftermath of the loss and how the details of his actions came to light. Stunning images of Dunham’s helmet, ripped to shreds, play alongside Marines’ descriptions of how they tried to process the day.

Much of the later portions of the film demonstrate precisely how Dunham’s actions continue to im­pact a growing number of people. Many of the Marines interviewed have battled guilt and post-traumatic stress. Dan Dunham describes his own bout with guilt following his decision to take his son off life support eight days after he was wounded.

Another perspective offered by the documentary comes from the spouse of a Marine who served with Dunham in Iraq. Becky Dean, the ex-wife of Marine veteran Mark Dean, participated in the film and described her former husband’s significant battle with PTSD in the years following his de­ployment in the hope of helping to demonstrate the tragic effects of war on the families back home.

“A lot of people don’t realize that PTSD is transferred to the kids and spouse,” said Kniess. “Especially the spouses. They are front and center. They get the brunt of it. Having Becky’s story included is something I think a lot of people out there will relate to.”

Perhaps the most powerful part of the story centers on a Kilo 3/7 reunion organized for the film. In September 2021, 3/7 Marines from across the nation gathered in the Dunhams’ driveway in New York before marching to the local cemetery where Dunham is buried. The candid remarks captured for the film on that occasion are both heartbreaking and inspiring, revealing the true extent to which Jason Dunham impacted the people who had the privilege of knowing him.

The production crew endured numerous hard­ships and setbacks filming during the pandemic but despite these challenges, Kniess reflected that the most difficult part of making the documentary was conducting the interviews. Month after month, interview after interview, Kniess and his team relived Dunham’s story with Kilo 3/7 veterans around the nation. Each time felt like opening an old wound. He knew it would be difficult for the Marines to relive that day. Kniess did not fully expect the emotional toll it would take on him. He saw it in the faces of his team as well. Tears flowed freely on multiple occasions, and heavy-hearted interviews ended with the team hugging the interviewee one by one and thanking them for sharing their story.

Healing emerged through the pain, however. The process of reliving and celebrating Dunham’s story held enormous therapeutic value for some. Jason Sanders, one of the Marines with Dunham on his final patrol in Iraq, offers a profoundly insightful view during his interview in the film.

Sailors aboard the Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) on Dec. 2, 2018, while deployed in the Mediterranean Sea.

“It’s kind of hard to give up your stories to some­one who has never been involved in anything like that,” Sanders says. “It’s real hard to, because you’re sitting there wondering, I don’t think they’re really comprehending what the hell I’m saying, you know? And you can’t expect anybody else to know the feelings that you felt that day, because it’s not normal. You kind of have to let your guard down and let people help you.”

The difficulty of the interviews also played a role in naming the film. One of the cameramen working on the production team spent time as a combat photographer in Iraq, Afghanistan, and, most recently, Syria in 2018. The interviews with Dunham’s Marines brought back gruesome mem­ories of his time as a combat photographer and drove him to tears.

“You need to call this thing ‘The Gift,’” he told Kniess one day after an interview concluded. “What Jason did was a gift. You’ve got children being born, families being started, and people who were able to go on and do things with their lives because of this gift.” As Kniess expanded the interviews, more and more people referred to “the gift” that Dunham had given them. By the time filming was complete, there could be no other title.

Dunham is recognized today through many tributes. Most notably, the U.S. Navy named a guided missile destroyer in his honor, USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109). Even so, in the years since he became the first Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since Vietnam, Dunham’s story has been largely overshadowed by later recipients perhaps because a surprising number of Medal of Honor recipients from the global war on terrorism survived to receive their medals.

“The Gift” documentary succeeds in rejuvenat­ing Dunham’s story in a moving and relevant way. The Marines interviewed unanimously echo a resounding fact; Dunham’s sacrifice affects them more now than it did the day it happened. “There are two things I want people to get from this doc­umentary,” Kniess said. “The general public, I want them to gain a better understanding of what it’s like for Marines and Soldiers to go to war, what they experience, and how it affects them. Everyone in uniform these days has had the experience of someone coming up to them and saying, ‘Thank you for your service.’ I don’t think a lot of people who do that really understand what those words mean. I don’t blame them or fault them for that. I think it’s great they take the time to say it, but I hope people will watch this film so the next time they say it, they will better understand what those words mean.

“As for the veteran community, I know there are still guys out there struggling. There’s going to be someone out there watching this, and they’re going to learn about some of the guys we interviewed, the drug addiction, all the things they went through, and how they turned their lives around. I’m hoping that veterans like that will watch this and think, ‘Well, if they did it, why can’t I?’”

“The Gift” was produced by Three Branches Productions, LLC, a veteran-owned production company. The company was founded by three veterans: Kniess, who served in the Navy; Vincent Vargas, an Army Ranger; and Anthony Taylor, a Marine. The fourth member of the team, a civilian, is executive producer Chase Peel. “The Gift” won Best Documentary at the Utah Film Festival in January, has been invited to the GI Film Festival in San Diego, Calif., taking place this month. Kniess received the Santini Patriot Spirit Award at the Beaufort International Film Festival in February for his role as director, and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s Major Norman Hatch Award for best documentary feature. Three Branches produced two versions of the story, a two-hour feature length film, and a five-part series. “The Gift” will release on streaming media in spring 2023. Visit www.watchthegift.com for updated information about the release date.

The Long Road

Marines Walk from East Coast to West Coast To Raise Awareness, Money for MIA Recovery

Early in 2020, Sergeant Major Justin LeHew, USMC (Ret) had an idea. It was a big idea. For anyone who knows LeHew, that’s no surprise. He wanted to take a rather unique road trip with his close friend and fellow Marine, SgtMaj Coleman “Rocky” Kinzer, USMC (Ret). The plan was to take a trip across America. They would be cycling with some hiking mixed in. And along the way, they would visit tourist destinations to check some of the boxes that had been missed during their busy years on active duty. Slowly an idea began to take shape. Not only would they see America, but they planned to use the trip to raise awareness of Missing in Action (MIA) servicemembers and raise funds for History Flight, the nonprofit MIA recovery organization for which LeHew is the chief operations officer and Kinzer is the deputy operations officer.

Kinzer and LeHew started training for the journey, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to put their plans on hold—for two years. LeHew couldn’t let go of the idea, though, and in late spring 2022, he decided that it was now or never.

On June 6, 2022, LeHew and Kinzer finally took their first steps on a journey that took them from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. In an adventure that they dubbed, “The Long Road,” the two Marines walked from Boston, Mass., to Newport, Ore., along U.S. Route 20. It took more than six months for them to cover the 3,365 miles on foot, and they arrived in Oregwon on Dec. 17, 2022, where a crowd had gathered to cheer for LeHew, Kinzer and Ray Shinohara, a fellow Marine who joined his friends in Illinois.

Some of the specifics of the original plan changed—including the route and what “bucket list” items they would check off along the way—but perhaps the biggest change was the mode of trans­portation. They didn’t use bicycles; instead, they walked the entire coast to coast route.

U.S. Route 20 is the longest highway in the United States and goes through small towns and vast areas of farmland into the heart of America. Access to those small towns and farms is exactly why LeHew chose this route because one thing that didn’t change from his original vision is the two overarching themes that were guiding and motivating the Marines during their odyssey: raising funds for History Flight and raising awareness about the more than 80,000 servicemembers from throughout the nation still unaccounted for.

History Flight is a nonprofit MIA re­covery organization dedicated to locating and recovering U.S. military personnel previously deemed unrecoverable. LeHew has been with the organization since his 2018 retirement from the Marine Corps. Kinzer joined the group after he retired in 2019, and Shinohara will soon begin work as a History Flight team lead on Betio Island where recovery of Ma­rines who were killed in the Battle of Tarawa is ongoing. History Flight teams combine historical and archival infor­mation with tech­nolo­gies such as ground penetrating radar surveys, mag­netometry and forensic archaeology to conduct searches. They currently have a 93 percent success rate in locating the remains they have searched for.

LeHew, a recipient of the Navy Cross for his actions with Task Force Tarawa on March 23, 2003, in An Nasiriyah, Iraq, chose to depart on the anniversary of D-Day for a few reasons. He didn’t want to leave on Memorial Day so as not to detract from the solemnity of the day. “On Memorial Day there should be an attention on the people of this nation who gave everything … it shouldn’t be the kickoff date to highlight somebody else’s thing,” he said. “I want to spend that day in silent remembrance … thinking about my buddies,” added LeHew, who is the National Commander of the Legion of Valor organization.

LeHew also had a more personal reason for choosing D-Day to begin walking. He thought it would be a good way to honor the memory of his father who served in the Army during World War II and participated in the D-Day landings. “On 6 June 1944, my father was a PFC in the 29th Infantry that came out of the front end of an LCVP [Landing Craft, Vehicle Personnel] … and he managed to cross Omaha Beach … and survive,” LeHew said, adding that his father and the others of his generation “came home [after the war] and built these roads, worked in these towns, and made the America of today for all of us that are sitting here today.”

Kinzer and LeHew and their families spent a few days in the Boston area before kicking off the journey. Bright and early, on June 6, the two Marines went aboard USS Constitution and fired the deck gun for morning colors before they took their first steps on what would become the trip of a lifetime. They traveled through Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and part of Illinois before rendezvousing with Shinohara, west of Chicago in Elgin, Ill., in August.

Shinohara had some catching up to do. In the early days of the hike, Kinzer and LeHew had been through the breaking-in phase and had already worked out the kinks. They were averaging 20 miles per day, and they had a rhythm. But there was no way Kinzer and LeHew were going to leave Shinohara behind. Gradually, he became acclimated and fell in lockstep with “Team Long Road.” Soon after, he took up the job of monitoring the group’s social media in the evening and documenting the journey with photos and video he took using a small drone.

“There [were] definitely tough mo­ments, but I’m with a bunch of tough guys. We all supported each other and made sure that we were all moving forward and not backwards,” Shinohara said. “The first week that I was out there I had huge blisters the size of golf balls, my back was hurting, my hips were hurting—I wanted to quit. But I knew I started this, and you know as a Marine I can’t not finish it. That mentality that I got from being in the Marines and being with other Marines alongside me, it helped push me forward,” he added.

LeHew, Kinzer and Shinohara planned their route so they could go through small towns and talk to people. They wanted to reach as many people as possible to let them know about History Flight’s dedication to live up to America’s prom­ise to men and women in uniform that if they should fall in service to the nation, they would not be left behind and they would not be forgotten.

Early in the journey when they were close to Attica, N.Y., a retired Marine drove by and offered to give them a ride to a hotel in Attica, which is several miles off the path of the highway, but not before sharing a cold beer with them on the side of the road in the late afternoon summer heat. Before dropping them off at a hotel, the fellow Marine took Kinzer and LeHew to his American Legion post in town where they talked about their cross-country trek with the members who were there. According to LeHew, after hearing the reason behind the walk, the Legionnaires passed a hat and collected $1,500 to donate to History Flight. The next morning, LeHew and Kinzer were given a ride from the town back to Route 20 so they could continue westward.

And that kind of encounter happened all across the country. “I wasn’t prepared for ‘Iowa nice,’ ” said Kinzer, adding that the people who live in the towns they walked through in Iowa really supported them in any way they could to include having kids come out of school to line the streets and cheer as the Marines walked by.

As the walkers covered miles, those small-town Americans came together to form an unofficial support system for the men. And it was all done using modern technology but in a very grass roots way, through a Facebook group LeHew set up called “The Long Road.” The group grew in numbers, slowly at first, but the momentum picked up and the group swelled to more than 14,000 followers. Nearly every day, people would post messages in the group, not just to the walkers, but to each other. Posters would provide relevant information about road conditions, weather and lodging for areas LeHew, Kinzer and Shinohara were approaching. The Facebook group members would also coordinate with each other to give assistance to the men along the way.

And as the Facebook group grew, those early followers would answer questions asked by new followers. They also ex­citedly shared photos and details about meeting the men when they passed through their part of the United States. The Facebook page took on a life of its own according to LeHew. “This isn’t like every platform you find on the internet; this is a good one. There’s no finger point­ing, there’s no politics. It was a com­munity bulletin board that worked the way community bulletin boards are supposed to work,” he said.

The cross-country trek wasn’t without its complications. Early on in the journey, LeHew was infected with anaplasmosis from a tick’s bite. He had to leave the road for 10 days while he recovered. This was before Shinohara joined the group, so Kinzer had to power on by himself, which he said was more of a challenge than he had anticipated, adding that he was glad to have some temporary company as he was passing through one town when a resident came out and walked a few miles with him. “One thing I didn’t expect to happen to me was I did get lonely out there on the road. Obviously going with somebody makes it better,” Kinzer said.

Over the miles, they faced danger from drivers they shared the highway with. LeHew was quick to point out, however, that truck drivers on Route 20 were some of their biggest allies. “American truckers were the best people across 12 states,” he said, explaining that truck drivers would alert each other to be on the lookout for the walkers, while passing the word about their mission. The average automobile was more of a concern for Team Long Road. “When you walk a highway there’s not a time that you can take your eyes off the road for 3,365 miles … [just in case] you have to dive over a guard rail because somebody is texting,” said LeHew. He explained that it was draining to do that all day, and that he hadn’t really thought about that aspect of the trip when he was planning it. “You had to really learn, even though it’s not land nav, and ‘all I’ve got to do is follow the road,’ so many different things are happening on this road that you are mentally exhausted at the end of every day,” he said, adding that the hyper vigilance was similar to being on patrol nearly every day for 6 1/2 months.

There were times during the journey when no one else was around for miles and miles. (Photo by SgtMaj Justin Lehew, USMC (Ret))
There were plenty of light moments during the trek. In the middle of Iowa farm country, a turkey joined Team Long Road and according to Kinzer, pictured here with his walking poles, walked along with them for several miles.

There were some light and funny mo­ments on The Long Road. In September while they were walking by a cornfield in Iowa, a turkey accompanied them for 3 miles. In a video that LeHew posted in the Facebook group, the turkey can be seen trotting along with the hikers. “The Long Road is for everyone, friend and fowl,” quips LeHew in the video, which was viewed 63,000 times and garnered dozens of comments and reactions.

Shinohara said there were other funny animal encounters besides the turkey trot. On one stretch of road, he looked behind him to see two Great Pyrenees dogs running toward him at full speed. He prepared for what he was sure was going to be an attack, but the two large dogs only wanted to play and walked along with the trio for a while. Shinohara said they had to backtrack about a mile to return the dogs to their home out of concern that the exuberant animals might be hit by a car.

When they didn’t have animal com­panions to laugh at, Kinzer said that during those long days on the road they had some entertaining conversations with each other, and they kept each other laughing with funny stories.

They didn’t walk side by side all the time. Sometimes, they spread out along the road so they could watch each others’ backs. LeHew said he developed an appreciation for the alone time during those stretches. “Most people during, their day, they are moving so fast they don’t have the think space to be able to weigh …. what’s working, what’s not working,” he said. “It allows you to sit there when you don’t have the distractions and everything else to get a certain amount of clarity that isn’t afforded to you anywhere else so you are not making rash, emotional decisions,” he added.

Along the way they accomplished a few of the “bucket list” items that led to the idea of the trip. They walked through Yellowstone National Park and saw the geyser Old Faithful, and their stay in Chicago included taking in a White Sox baseball game with Kinzer delivering the ball to the pitcher’s mound so LeHew could throw out the first pitch. “It’s something I’ll never get to do in my life again,” Kinzer said. “They interviewed us on Sox radio … those are experiences some people never get in a lifetime, you know you can’t trade them for anything,” he added.

At night they slept in hotels or they camped. They ate in diners and small local restaurants and sometimes they cooked. LeHew noted that along the way, volunteer firefighters were incredibly accommodating, allowing the Marines to use the bathrooms, bunkrooms and kitchens in the fire stations. Perhaps their biggest game changer in terms of logistics happened in Moville, Iowa, when they welcomed a new member of The Long Road Team: a motorhome.

For the rest of the voyage, they took turns driving the 1985 Winnebago Chieftain that LeHew bought. It served as a forward operating base on wheels and provided them with the needed supplies when they traversed the more desolate stretches of the route. It also served as a source of shelter when no other accommodations were available.

All across the country, there were moments of absolute awe and wonder. “You’re standing in the middle of an American empty highway and you’re watching nature’s fireworks show go off at night and there’s no headlights that’s disrupting any of this … the whole sky looks like it’s on fire,” said LeHew. “But it looks like it’s on fire because as the sun’s going down and it’s uninterrupted by all of these other influences from headlights or anything else.” he added.

“Until you actually lay eyes on a high alpine lake that’s frozen over, surrounded by snow-capped mountains on all sides … a picture doesn’t do it any justice. Words don’t do it any justice. It’s one of those things where you have to be there, you have to see it,” said Kinzer. He said he made it a point to appreciate the natural beauty of every region they walked through but there was one place in particular that mesmerized him. “Really the place I think that got me the most was the western side of the Cascades … getting into that rainforest area on the western side of them as you drop down into the coastal area that was otherworldly,” he said.

The journey came to a close on Dec. 17, 2022, in Newport, Ore. A large crowd of people lined the streets to greet the walkers as they reached their destination—the end of the highway.

“For the last mile, where everybody started coming in, it was amazing,” Shinohara said. “The craziest thing was seeing people we met along the way. We posted when we were going to get to Newport and there were people that we met along the way on Route 20 that came to see us and … it made it more special because … someone would say, ‘hey, remember me from Iowa?’ It was just an amazing feeling.”

While Kinzer, LeHew and Shinohara have completed their journey on The Long Road, the intent behind their epic journey is still a driving force in their everyday lives. “This affects the living, not just the dead,” LeHew said, referencing the families of those fallen men who were never recovered and the sadness they live with.

With that in mind, History Flight con­tinues its work locating remains of Ameri­ca’s MIAs. Recovery operations on Betio, in the Philippines and in Europe are ongoing and are nearly back to pre-COVID-19 levels. And on this Memorial Day weekend, LeHew and his family will be doing what has become a tradition for them. They will be at Arlington National Cemetery visiting graves, including the grave of LeHew’s father, LeHew’s Marines who were killed in Iraq, and the servicemembers who were killed in World War II, but only recently were brought home through the work of History Flight.

Author’s note: To learn more about History Flight, read “Until They All Come Home” in the Leatherneck November 2020 issue. To donate, visit www.historyflight.com/donate.

When Team Long Road reached the end of the road, they gathered for a photo before celebrating with family and friends. Photo courtesy of SgtMaj Justin LeHew, USMC (Ret).

A Brother’s Journey: Five Decades to the Story of a Lifetime

On Saturday, Oct. 21, 1967, David Jensen was working at a caterer’s office in Hales Corners, Wis. As the 18-year-old prepared orders for the coming week, the office owner entered the room.

“Dave, you need to go home.”

His terseness caught David off guard. He appeared somber and was obviously not playing around.

“Well, no,” David replied. “I can finish up this order, at least.”

“No, Dave. You can’t linger. You need to go home, now.”

He gathered his things and returned to his parent’s house. The staff car from the local Marine Corps recruit­er’s office sat in the driveway. A re­cruiter’s presence was not unusual. David had known them since he was 12, the first time he entered their office with his older brother, Alan. Alan was a Marine, and David was determined to become one too.

David walked through the front door. A major and first sergeant in dress blues sat in the living room with David’s parents. A Bible lay open on the coffee table. Tears poured down his mother’s cheeks. His father approached him.

“David,” he faltered. “Alan is dead. He was killed.”

David moved toward the recruiters. His gut reaction came out as anger.

“You got proof? Where’s his dog tags?”

The Marines sat him down and described what they knew. Alan was killed in Vietnam on a recon patrol a few days earlier. Due to the intensity of the firefight, Alan’s body had to be left behind. Marines were still working to recover him.

The recruiters left after David settled down. He sat with his family in a group hug. What now? Nothing would ever be the same. His big brother was gone.

A Western Union telegram arrived the following day, officially confirming the news. One of Alan’s Marine buddies traveled to the Jensen home from Detroit. He stayed with them as they waited for further news, helping craft letters to Alan’s unit in Vietnam, and telling the family about Alan’s first combat deployment, where they served together in 1965. Finally, nearly a week later, more news arrived. Marines had recovered Alan’s body. He was coming home.

Alan’s remains arrived in Milwaukee, Wis., on Nov. 7. When his father arrived at the funeral home, the director informed him the funeral would require a closed casket. His father asked to see the body, but the director refused. His father in­sisted and witnessed firsthand the horrors of the war, and how unkind the enemy could be to an American body.

On Veterans Day, a police motorcade brought Alan to General Mitchell Field in Milwaukee to be transported to Arlington National Cemetery. The family flew to Washington, D.C., and prepared for his interment the following week. David watched his brother descend into the earth among the seemingly infinite rows of identical headstones. How could this be real? He reflected on his brother and decided, now more than ever, he wanted to follow in Alan’s footsteps.

David and Alan were the two boys in their family of six. Alan was the oldest child. David arrived seven years later, with a sister between them, and another sister after him. From his earliest memories, David always considered Alan his role model.

“We grew up hunting, fishing, trapping,” David remembered. “One of his friends told me once on a camping trip that Alan had berated him, telling him he didn’t even have what it took to be a Boy Scout. Even back then, Alan was a gung-ho kid, kicking ass and taking names. He taught me how to shoot, he taught me about girls. He was a Marine!”

When Alan decided to enlist, David begged to sign his name on the papers alongside him. The age gap between them, however, meant David would have to wait. Alan shipped out in 1961, serving initially as a machine-gunner with “Golf” Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. He worked his way up the ranks and became a section leader. He deployed to Vietnam where he transitioned to 3rd Recon Battalion and began running patrols behind enemy lines.

David received Alan’s letters and waited for his brother to come home. Alan finally returned during the sum­mer of 1965. He left active duty al­together when his contract ran out that August. David was elated. The brothers returned to their usual outdoor activities. Now 16 years old, David was thrilled to show his brother how much older he’d become and how much closer to be­ginning his own enlistment in the Corps. Alan encouraged the decision.

“I remember he told me if you were going to be a Boy Scout, you’d better be an Eagle Scout,” David said. “And if you’re going to join the military, you’d better be a Marine.”

Alan tried settling back into civilian life. He got a job and even purchased 16 acres in northern Wisconsin with one of his Marine buddies. Something was off, however. David recognized the change. Alan seemed angrier. Neither brother had ever been the holiest of kids, but now Alan’s fuse proved extra short. One day while driving down the road, the car in front of them stopped at an intersection. Alan’s temper exploded when the driver took too long to drive on. David watched in awe from the passenger seat as Alan exited their car in the middle of the road, walked up to the vehicle in front of them, and yanked the driver out onto the street to fight.

Finally, in early 1967, Alan decided he could not take the civilian life anymore. He told David and the rest of his family he had to go back in the Marines. He could not see a good future for himself without the Corps. Alan contacted another Marine he’d served with on his first tour, who was now a recruiter in Louisiana. The recruiter told Alan that he could get him back in, but he’d lose the rank he had when he was discharged. Without hesitation, Alan jumped in his car and drove south to sign the papers. As Alan headed off again, David’s father took him aside.

“I was pissed,” David remembered. “My brother had such a profound influence on me. My father told me, ‘This is what he has to do. A man has to do what a man has to do.’ I was disappointed, but I had to understand.”

Alan reenlisted in February, and by May was already back in Vietnam. Now with 1st Force Reconnaissance Company, Alan once again operated on clandestine patrols behind enemy lines. By the time of his death that October, Alan had achieved the rank of sergeant and was an assistant team leader in the company.

David carried on with his plan to follow in his brother’s footsteps. His parents held reservations about him enlisting and they worked with recruiters to guarantee David would not see combat. He enlisted in March 1968 and served with land and carrier-based maintenance squadrons servicing jet engines. He tried to go to Vietnam but was refused. The Corps decided one son was enough for the Jensen family. David left active duty after his initial contract ended, then returned to service later in the Marine Corps Reserve as a Huey maintenance technician. He exited the Marines altogether in 1977.

In 1982, David learned about the newly dedicated Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. He had visited Alan’s grave at Arlington several times but now hoped to make the journey again and visit “The Wall.” For years, life’s obligations delayed the trip. Regrettably, David’s father passed away in 1985 before he had the opportunity to visit the memorial. Finally, in 1987, David flew to Washington with his mother and sister.

David entered The Wall’s pathway near the Lincoln Memorial. The Wall grew beside him as he searched for panel 28E. The sea of names blurred together. Others walked the path beside him. Some wept as they placed flowers at the base of a panel. Some stood in silence with hands raised over a name on the wall. As The Wall began to shrink once more, 28E came into view. David traced his finger down the left side counting lines. When he reached 26, Alan’s name surprised him, first in that line at the left of the panel. David paused with his fingers touching the name above his head. Below Alan’s name, David’s reflection filled the polished granite. Names continued to infinity left and right. Other passing visitors moved as a blur through the reflection. In that moment, David felt his brother again, just the two of them, there on The Wall.

“Looking at the big picture of over 58,000 names on that wall, that meant there were a lot of other people who had to go through these things like my family had to go through,” David reflected. “I realized there were so many other brothers or sisters out there with someone’s name on the wall. I was not the only one.”

David flew home to his wife in Col­orado. Recounting the trip for her felt like reliving his brother’s death 20 years earlier. Memories of his parents’ house and the recruiters’ car in the driveway rushed back into his brain. They broke down his manly facade and forced him to confront a painful reality he’d long tried to ignore.

“I think I have more healing to do.”

David embarked on a journey to dis­cover what happened to Alan, and who he was as a Marine in combat. He reviewed letters his family had received 20 years earlier. Alan’s commanding officer, ex­ecutive officer, platoon commander, and other fellow Marines responded to the family’s requests for more information in the wake of Alan’s death. Their letters painted a basic picture of the patrol where Alan died. David progressed slowly at first as the Marines directly connected to Alan’s final patrol proved difficult to find.
He finally achieved a breakthrough in 1989. An ad appeared in Leatherneck Magazine for an upcoming Force Recon Association reunion in Dallas, Texas. David explained who he was to the con­tact listed and received an invitation to attend. When the time came, David traveled to Texas, eager to learn what questions might be answered.

David discovered how small a world the Force Recon community lived in. Virtually everyone at the reunion either knew of or served with his brother. Ma­rines who served with Alan on his first deployment in 3rd Recon Battalion told David of their shadowy missions in rubber boats off the Vietnamese coast in 1965. Many others told him stories from 1967, leading up to Alan’s death. David met Stan Chapman, a Navy corpsman. Chapman described his painful memories of caring for Alan’s remains once they were recovered, and his presence in the room when a group of Marines were summoned to positively identify him.

The patrol where Alan died was some­thing out of the ordinary for Force Recon. A team of 17 Marines, dubbed Recon Team Petrify, went into an area swarming with North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldiers. The enemy presence was normal. The size of the patrol was not. Petrify consisted of more than double the number of Marines on a standard mission. Every member of the team was wounded. One other Marine besides Alan was also killed. A company-size “Bald Eagle” reactionary force was called to rescue Team Petrify. Multiple helicopters were shot down trying to extract them.

David arrived back in Colorado armed with information and contacts he’d never dreamed of making. Several weeks later, David found a package on his front doorstep. He cut open the box and remo­ved an unlabeled cassette. A small note accompanied the tape, penned by one of the men he met in Dallas.

“David, I think you’ll find this interesting.”

He hustled to a cassette player and inserted the tape. The speaker crackled to life with pops and static as it turned from reel to reel. A grainy, scripted voice broke through in a southern accent.

“These interviews are narratives of a recon patrol originally inserted to set up an observation post in Elephant Valley northwest of Da Nang. The location is the Command Post, 1st Force Recon Company, 1st Marine Division, Quang Nam Province, Da Nang TAOR, Republic of Vietnam. The day is 23 October 1967. The subject is Recon Patrol Petrify. The classification of these interviews is secret until downgraded by proper authority.”

Different voices followed each other in succession. The interviews had been done in Vietnam mere days after Petrify returned to base. When they were re­corded, David’s family had only recently been told of Alan’s death, and his body had still not yet been recovered. The tape played through interviews of four patrol members, all describing every detail they could remember surrounding the patrol, Alan’s death, and their terrifying extrac­tion. David rewound the cassette and played it again. He still could not believe what he was hearing. Two years into his search, Alan’s story was finally coming into focus.

On Oct. 14, 1967, leaders from 1st Force called for volunteers to go out on a special mission. Another Recon team had inserted on a hill called Dong Top Mountain. In less than 24 hours, the Ma­rines faced continuous enemy contact, taking a severe beating. First Force was tasked with relieving the team and con­tinuing the patrol where they left off. Due to the known enemy presence, officers wanted a larger team and asked for volun­teers. Seventeen Marines were thrown together into Team Petrify. Alan volun­teered for the mission and acted as one of the senior members.

Petrify inserted the following day, pick­ing up where the previous team left off. For over 24 hours they moved through the jungle around Dong Top without contact. Signs of the enemy, however, were omnipresent. In the afternoon of patrol’s second day, the team’s machine-gun crew opened fire when NVA soldiers rounded a bend in a trail. One soldier dropped dead, and a second enemy fell wounded. The two Marines advanced toward them. Grenade rounds launched from a M-79 grenade launcher suddenly exploded near them, driving them back.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Alan came sprinting through the underbrush. Scream­ing and hollering and firing his rifle, he drew enemy attention off the machine-gun team, allowing them to move to cover. When the M-79 rounds ceased, Alan ran forward to collect anything he could find. Blood and body parts covered the trail, but both NVA were gone. Alan and the gun team re­joined the main group. Alan exposed himself to more enemy fire to help the rest of the team break contact. The team harbored in the thickest brush they could find. Dusk settled into the defense with the Marines, and the last rays of sun faded to black. The night passed at an excruciat­ing pace. Small arms fire punctuated the silence in all directions as the NVA scoured the mountainside.

Dawn of Oct. 17 brought little relief. At noon, the team decided they had to move. They located an area filled with huge rocks and set up their defense once more. The position offered ample cover and concealment. Unknown to the Marines, however, the NVA occupied a ridge above them. Rustling voices increased in all directions around Petrify. Suddenly, around 4 p.m., machine-gun fire raked the position and grenades rained down.
The opening enemy barrage devastated the Marines. Within seconds, Alan was dead. Two bullets ripped through his chest, and grenade fragments hit his head. LCpl Jerry DeGray fell also, shot twice in the head. Several other Marines were seriously wounded, and every member of the patrol suffered at least minor shrapnel wounds. Despite the damage inflicted, every surviving Marine returned fire. A ferocious roar enveloped the mountain as the Recon team battled with NVA surrounding them.

Huey gunships arrived on scene within 30 minutes. They worked over the ridge and surrounding jungle. An observation plane arrived, armed with an assortment of jets behind him. As the first flight of gunships expended their ordnance, jets took turns racing in with bombs. A second flight of Hueys arrived, pumping rockets and machine-gun fire into the jungle. A CH-46 approached at dusk to attempt an emergency medevac but was shot out of the zone. All the air support available seemed only to kick the hornet’s nest harder. Seeing the team’s predica­ment, officers called for a reaction force to get Petrify out. A company of grunts deployed to the base of Dong Top at dusk and began the long trek up the hill.

Helicopters arrived back over the team shortly after 7 a.m. the next morning. Hueys once again pounded the ridge and jungle floor. Even as more gunships and jets expended their ordnance, enemy fire struck three choppers attempting another extraction and forced them out of the zone.

Finally, around 9 a.m., the reaction force arrived on the hill. The grunts established their defense and worked toward the Recon team. A single squad finally battled through to reach them two hours later. Because of the amount of gear and wounded to get out, they split the patrol in half. The first group, with the most seriously wounded and the body of LCpl DeGray, moved out with the infantry squad. Nine Recon Marines remained behind with Alan’s body.

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Alan Jensen, left, sitting with friend and fellow Recon Marine, Sgt James E. Huff, in early October 1967. Only 10 days after Alan was killed, Huff drowned on a mission in the same area on Oct. 27, 1967. Courtesy of David Jensen.

The firefight swelled as the morning wore on. NVA soldiers appeared from every direction with grenades, mortars and machine guns, hell bent on stopping the grunts and wiping out Petrify. After several hours, the remainder of the team still among the rocks decided their position was untenable. The grunts would not make it back. The team would have to make it to them.

They placed Alan’s body on a stretcher and moved out along a trail. The battle raging between the reaction force and NVA increased in ferocity as they neared the grunts’ position. A fever pitch of explosions roared through the jungle. Suddenly, tracer rounds crisscrossed the trail all around and among them. The Marines carrying Alan’s stretcher dropped his body and brought up their rifles. On one side of the trail, less than 20 meters away, a group of NVA fired machine guns and mortars. On the other side of the trail the same distance away, grunts fought back. The recon team hit the deck, trapped in the crossfire between the opposing forces. NVA grenades soared over and landed amongst the team. Marines scattered in all directions searching for cover, while Alan’s body remained unmoved on the stretcher. He lay less than 15 feet away from the rest of the team, but the enemy fire was so intense they could not move back to him.

The grunts advanced far enough to reach the team. They worked together to suppress the NVA, now mere feet away. One infantry Marine was killed in the fight and fell ahead of the rest, a stone’s throw away from Alan’s body. Two squads made multiple attempts to recover Alan and their own casualty but failed. Finally, the commanding officer on the hill directed all Marines to get back to the main line. They had to move off the mountain before the NVA overran their position.

A second reaction force arrived to relieve the first one and evacuate Dong Top. The going was incredibly slow as Marines worked down the steep terrain. They reached the bottom of the hill at dawn the following morning where everyone moved back to Da Nang. Two Marine infantry companies plus the heavy recon team lacked the numbers and firepower to overcome the NVA on Dong Top Mountain.

The contents of the cassette tape painted a vivid picture of the events surrounding Alan’s death, but for David, it was still incomplete. The interviews took place before his brother’s body was recovered. He remembered the funeral director refusing to open the casket at Alan’s funeral, and his father’s face after he’d seen the body. He remembered the words of the corpsman he’d met at the reunion when David insisted he tell him the details of what the NVA did to Alan’s body. The old Doc described the terrifying details of Alan’s mutilated corpse, and his disgust for the bastards who could do such things.

Over the next few years, David filled in Alan’s story. He attended two more Force Recon reunions. At one point, he met in person with a member of Team Petrify who was one of the seriously wounded on the patrol. David gave him copies of the cassette tape interviews, which the Marine never knew existed. David realized that because of his research, he actually knew more of the big picture surrounding the patrol than someone who was there on the ground. In less than five years following his visit to The Wall, David felt he’d accomplished his mission. His brother’s loss still tore at his heart. In some ways, even more so now than before, given the tragic details. Pride, however, overcame the grief. Alan was a loved and respected teammate within the recon community. For his actions on the patrol, Alan posthumously received a Bronze Star Medal with Valor device. As David closed the book on his research, he knew his brother’s death was not in vain and was remembered by more than just him.

Nearly three decades passed before David reopened the book, beginning a second chapter on his brother’s death. In 2018, David learned the name of the reaction force grunt killed in the same place as Alan. Lance Corporal Howard Ogden went down on Dong Top Mountain less than 50 feet from where Alan’s body was left. Though Alan even­tually returned home, Ogden’s body disappeared. His status was officially listed as Killed in Action/Body Not Re­covered. He posthumously received a Silver Star for his role in the battle.

David located Ogden’s memorial page on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Wall of Faces.

“Thank you, Marine,” he wrote in the comments. “You sacrificed your life in recovering my brother’s body. Sgt Alan T. Jensen, who in his first enlistment was also in 2/7. God Bless you.”

David received a surprising response from a lady named Maggie Ardery. Maggie was Ogden’s older sister. Just like David, Maggie devoted considerable effort to discovering what had happened to her brother on Dong Top. Maggie’s journey, however, continued to the pres­ent, as Ogden’s case remained active at the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing In Action Accounting Agency (DPAA).

David called Maggie and learned of her quest to see her brother return home. He sympathized and understood her pain in ways most people never could. He committed to help Maggie with her efforts and resumed his own journey from a different perspective.
David learned of the Virtual Viet­nam Archive, hosted by Texas Tech Uni­versity, where he located the com­mand chronologies of other units involved in Team Petrify’s extraction. The documents revealed a broader picture and told the story of Alan’s recovery a week later.

Marine Observation Squadron (VMO) 2 and Marine Medium Helicopter Squad­ron (HMM) 265 provided the helicopters that forced the enemy back and attempted the emergency medevacs of Team Petrify. Their efforts came at a cost. Enemy fire shot up one CH-46 so badly it was forced to crash land at the base of Dong Top. Another Huey gunship suffered similar damage and crashed nearby. Part of the reaction force sent to the mountain peeled off to secure the area around the downed aircraft. Despite the crashed choppers and enemy mortar fire into the crash site, no Marines were injured.

The first helicopter from HMM-265 attempting a medevac of Petrify’s wounded on Oct. 17, however, did not fare so lucky. When the CH-46 arrived at dusk, Cpl Howard Morse lay on his stomach peering down through the “hell hole” in the center of the bird’s belly as a hoist lowered painfully slowly to the ground. NVA on the ridge opened fire. Bullets passed through the thin aluminum skin of the helicopter. One found its mark and entered Morse’s abdomen below his body armor. The pilot aborted the extrac­tion, but it was already too late. Morse died in the hospital eight days later. To quantify the air wing’s efforts over the two-day period of Petrify’s extraction, VMO-2 reported that their Hueys fired 446 rockets and 54,500 rounds of ma­chine-gun ammo.

Golf Co, 2/7, formed the initial reaction force to rescue Petrify. The battalion also provided a reaction force to rescue the recon team that Petrify was assembled to relieve. On the same day Alan was killed, in a separate area of Dong Top Mountain, another company from 7th Marines de­ployed to rescue a third surrounded recon team. In the end, the jungle into which Team Petrify walked swarmed with an estimated 800 NVA, and a full battalion of Marines was needed to get all the recon teams out.

Several days later, 2/7 returned to Dong Top to search for Alan and Howard Ogden. The battalion’s casualties mounted once again as grunts spread across the hill. On Oct. 24, Golf Co reached the area where the Marines went missing. Through the jungle, they saw a desecrated body tied to a tree. Mortars, grenades, and machine-gun fire greeted them as they moved to recover the body. The grunts withdrew, unable to force their way through. A squad returned the fol­lowing morning to find the NVA moved out of the area overnight. They cut the binds from the tree and moved the body back to the command post. They im­me­diately identified the remains as a recon Marine. Ogden was nowhere to be found.
David worked with Maggie to locate Marines who served with her brother, the same way others had helped him locate recon Marines who served with Alan. They contacted veterans from 2/7 and spoke with Marines who fought on Dong Top alongside Alan and Ogden. Maggie included David on all her cor­respondence with the DPAA. In July 2019, a DPAA team went to Dong Top Mountain look­ing for information on Ogden and other missing Americans. They searched the area, but did not ex­cavate, planning to begin those efforts at a later date. Regrettably, all DPAA field activities abruptly halted with the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. As of this writing, the excavation on Dong Top has still not been rescheduled.

In September 2020, David and Maggie met in person at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Angel Fire, N.M. Though they had been acquainted barely more than a year, they regarded each other as adopted siblings and embraced as if they were reuniting with a beloved old friend. They purchased memorial bricks engraved with the names of their brothers to be included in the memorial walkway. As Alan’s brick was lain down along the sidewalk, memories flooded David’s consciousness. His father’s face appeared as he told David of Alan’s death at their childhood home. David’s own face ap­peared, reflected in the memorial wall in D.C., as he determined to begin his journey. Over five decades of discovery led him here. He met many people who helped him along the way. He gained a new sister, one of those other siblings like him that he’d reflected on at the wall years before. He’d never imagine someone else out there might be enduring the same grief as he, losing their brother on the same mission and in the exact same place as his own.

David learned the man he knew as his big brother was no different to the Marines he served with; still a role model, a leader, and a friend. The time had still not come to close the book on the story of Team Petrify and Dong Top Mountain, only another chapter was set to close. Howard Ogden still needed to come home. Maggie’s family deserved the closure. As for Alan’s story, David felt whole. The healing he sought was finally found.

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Maggie Ardery and David Jensen met in person for the first time at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Angel Fire, N.M. From the left: Maggie’s daughter, Carla; Maggie Ardery; and David Jensen. Courtesy of David Jensen.

Author’s note: David’s journey, and this story, could not have happened without the help of many people over the five decades since David set out to learn what happened to his brother. David would like to recognize the following individuals. Semper Fi, and thank you!

Maj Charles Wilkins, USMC (Ret), who was a corporal on Team Petrify with Alan. Wilkins was one of the Marines recorded on the original cassette tape, and David finally connected with him over 50 years later in 2020.
Sgt Dave Thompson, USMC, who served with First Force Recon in 1968 and 1969. Thompson was featured in another story I wrote, “The Flying Ladder.” Thompson maintains his own website, containing a wealth of history on Force Recon in Vietnam. Thompson aided David in locating Maj Wilkins and orchestrated the call between them.
Maj Bill Picking, U.S. Army (Ret), and SgtMaj Jack Parsons, USMC (Ret), both of whom were enlisted Marines with the reaction force from Golf Co, 2/7, who battled the NVA on Dong Top Mountain and witnessed the events surrounding Alan and Howard Ogden’s deaths. David just connected with them in 2022.

Last Line of Defense: A History of the Beretta M9

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Capt Jeremy Nelson fires the Beretta M9 during a weapons marksmanship course at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, Oct. 4, 2013. (Photo by Sgt Bobby J. Yarbrough, USMC)Carried by many but seldom fired at the enemy, handguns fill a somewhat strange niche in the Marine Corps’ arsenal. Because they are mainly issued to personnel who are not expected to need them, their importance is often overlooked; those who carry handguns, however, rely on them as a weapon of last re­sort in case all else should fail. As it is finally replaced by the M17 and M18 Modular Handgun System (MHS) after 32 years in U.S. military service, the Beretta M9 leaves behind a mixed legacy. Those who trained on it alternately praise and criticize the pistol’s attributes. Depending on who’s talking, the M9 is either one of the finest service pistols of its time or an inherently flawed design totally unsuited for military use. To uncover the truth behind these claims, one must understand the history behind them. The story of the Beretta M9 is a complicated one, poorly documented and fraught with political scandal, public controversy, and inter-service rivalry from the very beginning.

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A cutaway model of a Beretta 92SB-F 9 mm semiautomatic pistol show­ing some of its internal mechanisms for demonstration purposes, 1986. John Yoder

Marines who favor the classic M1911A1 over the M9 platform will rejoice to know that they can blame the Army and Air Force for causing the beloved .45 to be replaced. When the Air Force became an independent branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, it took with it whatever small arms it had in inventory as part of the Army. As the service rapidly expanded through the 1950s and ’60s, its security forces needed to expand their arsenal. Because the last M1911A1s were manufactured in 1945 and the Department of Defense would not authorize further orders, the Air Force had instead relied on the smaller and lighter .38-caliber M15 re­volver to arm its security forces since at least the early 1960s. Beginning in the 1970s, however, the Air Force began to encounter problems, mainly squib loads, with their M41 ball service ammunition. Each time a defective round created a catastrophic failure, the entire lot of ammunition had to be marked as unsafe and removed from stockpiles; the Air Force found itself facing a shortage of .38 Special ammunition its airmen could trust to function.

The story of the M9 begins in 1977 with a seemingly innocuous request by the Air Force for the authority and funding to develop new ammunition for their Smith & Wesson M15s. When the request made it to Congress, it ignited a minor controversy in the House Ap­propriations Committee, which imme­diately commissioned a study to ascertain the state of the Armed Forces’ handgun and handgun ammunition supplies. What they discovered was nothing short of a mess; whereas the Colt M1911A1 was supposed to be standard issue across all the services, the study found that the U.S. military had more than 25 different makes and models of handguns and more than 100 different types of handgun ammunition in inventory. Congress balked at the Air Force’s request and demanded that all the branches standard­ize on one handgun.
To investigate possible new service handguns, the Department of Defense formed the Joint Service Small Arms Program, led by the Army. Because the Air Force was the service that apparently had the most urgent need, the handgun program fell on the Air Force Armament Laboratory (AFAL), which issued a set of requirements. Of particular note, they specified the need for a pistol chambered in 9×19 mm for standardization with the rest of NATO, with a magazine ca­pacity of at least 13 rounds and a double-action/single-action trigger system. For com­parison, the M1911A1 has a standard magazine capacity of seven rounds of .45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) with a single-action-only trigger. The require­ments also specified an ambidextrous combination safety/decocker with a firing pin block so that the pistol could be carried safely with the hammer down.
AFAL began testing 10 examples each of nine different pistol designs, but quickly down-selected to six: two from Fabrique Nationale (FN) by way of Browning, one from Colt, one from Smith & Wesson, and one each from foreign brands Star and Beretta. Browning sub­mitted two variants of the famous Hi-Power, designed for FN by John Browning himself in the early 1930s and used by many world militaries into the 2010s. Colt’s entry was their new SSP (“Stainless Steel Pistol”), cosmetically similar to an M1911 but mechanically akin to the French military’s Modèle 1935A. Smith & Wesson, the dominant player in the law enforcement market, submitted their new Model 459, an updated version of the Model 59. Spanish manufacturer Star sent examples of their Model 28, one of their first designs not based on the M1911 platform. Finally, Italian gunmaker Beretta, the oldest firearm manufacturer in the world but a relative unknown in North America, submitted the 92SB-1. As a control, the AFAL tests also included 10 each of the M1911A1 pistol and M15 service revolver the new weapon would replace.
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LCpl Zackary A. Celaya, a machine-gunner with “Echo” Co, Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Bn, 1st Marines, practices drawing an M9 9 mm service pistol during small arms qualification aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD-1), underway in the Philippine Sea, June 12, 2019. LCpl Brennan Priest, USMC

 

The M1911A1 .45-caliber pistol, left, was first used for military service in 1911. It was replaced in 1985 when the 9 mm Beretta M9 pistol was selected as the standard handgun of the U.S. Armed Forces. Robert D. Ward.

The pistols were run through a battery of tests from 1977 to 1980, analyzing their performance in everything from accuracy and ergonomics to reliability in extreme conditions. Most of the pistols suffered from frequent malfunctions or parts breakage, with some even having their front sights fall out on the range. Only two designs survived to the end: the Smith & Wesson 459 and the Beretta 92SB-1. Military small arms requirements quote reliability in “mean rounds between failure” (MRBF), calculated by simply dividing the number of rounds fired by the number of any type of stoppages ex­perienced. The Beretta proved to be the most reliable of the bunch; whereas the original requirements demanded at least 625 MRBF, it achieved a whopping 2,000. Furthermore, it proved to be easier to shoot accurately than either the M1911A1 or the M15, especially for less experienced shooters. Declaring the Italian pistol as the winner, the Air Force concluded its testing and prepared to sign a contract for 100,000 pistols in early 1982.

Before that could happen, however, the Army raised a complaint on the basis that the testing had not been sufficiently scientifically rigorous. They specifically cited the mud and extreme temperature testing as not replicable and complained that the M1911A1s in the control group were issued weapons and not factory-new examples procured specifically for the trials. Furthermore, because the Army uses more handguns than any other branch of the U.S. military and has its own very robust procurement system, they insisted that the responsibility to adopt the new service handgun should fall on them. Army Ordnance leadership dis­carded the AFAL’s results entirely and decided to conduct their own testing to select a new pistol, now dubbed “XM9.”

The Army issued a set of requirements in 1981 and received samples from four manufacturers but terminated the pro­gram the next February on the basis that none of the pistols met their requirements. Allegedly, none of them achieved any more than 600 MRBF. Due to increased scrutiny from Congress and the media, the Army withheld as much information as possible; to this day, very little is known about the 1981 trials. The original requirements and results are either not publicly available or have been lost to time. It is possible that the testing was ma­nipulated so as to defeat foreign manu­facturers’ designs or even sabotage the XM9 program as a whole in favor of keeping the M1911 in service. It is known that the Army was interested in the pos­sibility of converting its existing pistols to 9 mm for NATO standardization in­stead of buying a new design, and that a significant contingent in the military and in Congress supported this idea. What­ever the case may be, widespread accusa­tions of fraud convinced the Army to discard the results of its own “secret” trials and start over from scratch.

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A close-up view of a Beretta M9 pistol field-stripped to show its major components. From top left to bottom right: slide, barrel, guide rod, recoil spring, 15-round magazine, and frame. on display at the United States Army Armor Center, Oct. 20, 1987. (Photo by SPC Harry Cecan, USA)
In late 1983, the Army solicited sub­mis­­sions of pistols meeting an exhaustive list of both mandatory and preferred features. While there were some slight changes (for example, minimum mag­azine capacity was reduced from 13 to 10), the Army’s requirements were mostly in line with what the Air Force had defined six years previously. More importantly, the requirements were for­mulated to be as objective as possible and specified relative to the known characteristics of the M1911A1 so the new XM9 would be provably superior. The trials would be open to manufacturers from the U.S. and abroad, with an em­phasis on commercially available designs that could quickly be purchased in large quantities without the military having to wait on new production facilities. To this end, the Army requested 30 examples of each pistol along with the highly unusual requirement for replacement parts upfront. Testing began early in the next calendar year.
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Armed with an M9, 1stLt Chris Neidziocha, left, and Cpl Curtis Spivey, who is carrying an M16A4 rifle, clear the area after a firefight with Taliban insurgents near the village of Saraw, Afghanistan, June 27, 2004. Both Marines were assigned to the Battalion Landing Team, 1st Bn, 6th Marines, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Operations Capable. GySgt Keith Milks, USMC.

A total of eight manufacturers chose to compete; Beretta and Smith & Wesson both submitted virtually the same pistols they had sent to the AFAL trials. Famed German gunmakers Hecker & Koch and Carl Walther Waffenfabrik put forth their P7M13 and P88, respectively, and Steyr-Daimler-Puch out of Austria sent the model GB. Back from the AFAL trials were the Colt SSP and FN BDA despite their previous lackluster performance. Swiss company SIG had recently formed a conglomerate with a factory in Germany and offices in the United States; they submitted the P226, a derivative of their own highly innovative P220.

The Steyr GB was the first to fall, eliminated in May of 1984 for failing in reliability testing. It was an innovative and well-made pistol from Austria but never achieved success in the military, law enforcement, or civilian markets. Fabrique Nationale voluntarily withdrew its BDA soon after—not a debilitating loss, as they already held contracts for the M2 and M240 machine guns and would soon get one for the M249. Colt had suffered from issues with its SSP for years and unceremoniously withdrew the weapon in June; it would never see a full production run. Testing continued through the summer and was nearly finished by September. That month saw the rejection of the Walther P88, HK P7M13, and Smith & Wesson Model 459M, each for multiple reasons.

That left just two models still standing to compete head-to-head in the final phase of testing: the SIG Sauer P226 and Beretta’s current model, the 92F. Both achieved excellent reliability, 2,877 and 1,750 MRBF respectively, with a large advantage to the latter in dry conditions. Both pistols passed with flying colors and were deemed technically acceptable. Preference would be given to whichever manufacturer offered a better price on the total system package, including a set list of replacement parts, not just the unit price for the pistols. Bidding was aggressive, but Beretta gave the government a better deal. On Feb. 14, 1985, the U.S. Army officially adopted the Beretta 92F as the M9 pistol.

Despite the Army coming to the same conclusion as the Air Force had years before, the service pistol controversy only intensified. As soon as the Army made its announcement, competing manu­facturers raised legal challenges to the decision. While the Army began purchasing shiny new M9s, the other manufacturers went to court, and the General Accounting Office launched an investigation into their allegations.

Smith & Wesson argued that the rejec­tion of their 459 for failing firing pin energy and service life requirements had been unfair. In the interest of guar­antee­ing reliable ignition with the hard primers found on some military ammu­nition, the pistols were expected to meet NATO standards for the kinetic energy of the firing pin on impact. In converting from metric to U.S. im­perial units, how­ever, the Army had rounded their num­bers up enough that the Smith & Wesson pistols were no longer deemed acceptable. Regarding service life, the published requirement was for the pistol to survive 5,000 rounds on average. In testing, the Army treated this as a minimum require­ment rather than an average and rejected the 459M in part because one example out of three began to suffer cracks in its frame between 4,500 and 5,000 rounds.

SIG Sauer, represented in the United States by SACO Defense, complained that the pricing model the Army had used to make its decision was unfair. The Army’s solicitation required four magazines per pistol and one full set of spare parts for every 10 pistols. Beretta’s significantly lower prices played into their pistol’s selection as the M9, but SACO’s legal challenge suggested that their P226 required fewer replacement parts than the Beretta 92F and alleged that the listed spare parts had been counted incorrectly.

Part of the GAO’s investigation into the recently concluded pistol trials sought to address accusations of outright cor­ruption. According to some people, the U.S. government had made a secret deal with the Italian government to adopt Beretta pistols for the military and the entire trials process had been a cover operation. According to others, the Army had conducted some of its testing in secret and leaked other competitors’ pric­ing data to Beretta to give them a com­petitive edge in the final bidding.

In the world of government contracts and especially military acquisitions, many safeguards exist to ensure free and fair competition. Unfortunately, bad actors can abuse those same legal mech­anisms to waste taxpayer money by filing protests they know will not hold up in court. None of the legal challenges re­garding the XM9 trials were deemed to have sufficient merit and were promptly thrown out, but the GAO continued to investigate at Congress’ behest until every allegation had been put to rest. The GAO’s independent investigation found no evidence of corruption or conspiracy surrounding the XM9 program and noted that SACO’s claims about spare parts were inaccurate at best, disingenuous at worst. They did find that Smith & Wesson had been eliminated unfairly; to put the whole matter to rest, the Army agreed to test the Smith & Wesson pistols again. After the manufacturer declined to participate, the final obstacles to full adoption of the M9 seemed to be gone.

Marines who served during the late 1980s will remember another controversy surrounding the M9 which arose soon after it entered service. Some pistols in Army and Navy service began suffering from excessive wear; frames developed cracks and a few slides even broke in half and caused minor injuries. The spectacular slide failures prompted an immediate response: until the problem was identified and solved, pistols were to be thoroughly inspected and have their slides replaced every 1,000 rounds. The government publicly accused Beretta of shoddy manufacturing and demanded they redesign the M9 to rectify the issue as soon as possible, lest the whole $75 million contract be thrown out. Such accusations dealt significant damage to the reputation of the pistol and the company itself.

By that time, the Beretta 92 had been in production for well over a decade with no such problems surfacing until now, so the company quickly recalled the failed slides to its factory in Italy to find out what was going wrong. The slides had already passed high-pressure proof testing and magnetic particle inspection when they were made, and metallurgical analysis showed that they had indeed been made to the proper specification. What Beretta found was that the slides had failed due to repeated firing with overpressure ammunition far outside the NATO specification, which would also account for the cracked frames.

The U.S. government then turned its attention to the ammunition manufactur­ers. Olin Winchester and Federal Car­tridge Corporation had been awarded contracts to produce NATO-compliant M882 ball ammunition for the M9, but without any history of manufacturing NATO ammunition, Olin Winchester simply took civilian load data and reused it for military production. NATO car­tridge cases, however, are not the same as civilian ones—while visually indis­tinguishable, the smaller internal volume meant that the same charge of gunpowder would produce much greater pressures. The result of the ammunition manufac­turer not taking the time to recalculate its powder charge was that the pistols were subjected to mechanical stresses far greater than what they had been designed or built to handle. Given such defective ammunition, the real surprise is not that the pistols failed, but that it took multiple years for that to happen. Even after the problem was fixed, USSOCOM was still wary of the M9 and opted to purchase P226s instead, type designated MK25 Mod 0.

Understandably upset that the U.S. gov­ernment had so publicly denigrated their pistol over failures caused by faulty ammunition, Beretta filed suit for def­ama­tion and won. Furthermore, the de­sign changes and modifications to exist­ing pistols were done at the government’s expense. All military M9s and civilian Beretta 92s produced since 1988 have a hammer pin with an enlarged end and a corresponding groove inside the slide. With this modification, even if early, defective Winchester M882 ammunition is used, it will physically block the slide from traveling far enough back to exit the frame. The civilian model’s designa­tion was changed from 92F to 92FS to reflect this change; the same pistol is still in production and available on the civilian market to this day.

Ever since the technical data pack­age was updated to reflect those safety modifications, every M9 pistol purchased by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force has been identical. Apart from serial num­bers and other manufacturer mark­ings, any M9 part made in the late 1980s should be identical to the corresponding part made in the 2010s. On the civilian side, however, Beretta continued to refine and update the design throughout the next several decades. The beginning of the Global War on Terror sent thousands of M9s into combat for prolonged periods, and with that trial by fire, Marines be­gan to recognize some of the pistol’s short­comings. In 2003, the Marine Corps ex­pressed interest in certain improvements made to civilian variants of the pistol but that were not available to the military. Because the Marine Corps lacks the same kind of resources and acquisitions system the Army has, it was not allowed to bring new M9s into the inventory that did not comply with the old specifications from the 1980s. It could, however, use its dis­cretionary powers to purchase new pistols in a commercial off-the-shelf configura­tion (COTS) with the features they desired.

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Marine Corps 1stLt Christina M. Nymeyer, Combat Logistics Bn 31, 31st MEU, reloads an M9 service pistol during a live-fire exercise on the flight desk of USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) at sea, Feb. 13, 2015. The Marines conducted the training in order to maintain their marksmanship skills while on their spring patrol of the Asia-Pacific region. GySgt Ismael Pena, USMC.
The COTS pistol, designated the M9A1, entered Marine Corps service in 2005. It is very similar to the original M9 and shares most parts except for a new, strengthened locking block designed for better longevity. Externally, the M9A1 is easy to distinguish because of its three-dot sights, railed dust cover, and thicker trigger guard. The MIL-STD-1913 rail (often incorrectly referred to as “Pica­tinny rail”) is the most notable functional improvement as it allows the pistol to easily accept a visible or infrared weapon light for night combat. M9A1s were issued with new sand-resistant magazines for better performance in the arid en­viron­ments of Afghanistan and Iraq. The sand-resistant magazine has a nickel plating to reduce friction and prevent sand and dust from adhering to its sur­face. M9 and M9A1 magazines are other­wise identical and completely inter­changeable between the two variants.

Marines have carried pistols from the M9 family from Operation Just Cause to the war in Afghanistan and every de­ployment in between. The weapon has served the Marine Corps for more than three decades and on six continents. While fired relatively little in combat, the M9 saw extensive use among Marines in more specialized roles, such as MPs and Personal Security Details. It was also relied upon by some machine gunners and radio operators, among others, as a last line of defense against enemy com­batants should all else fail.

Throughout its service history, the M9 garnered a controversial reputation. Some hailed it as a highly accurate and reliable handgun, while others complained about its perceived lack of lethality. It is usually compared to its long-lived predecessor, the iconic and heavily romanticized M1911. “Every time you get rid of some weapon, there is a lot of nostalgia,” said Colonel Tim Mundy, a retired Marine infantry officer. “People always act like the sky is falling.”

Some older Marines initially viewed the M9—a new Italian pistol firing a smaller German round—with some skepticism, but according to Mundy, whose assignments included a tour as commanding officer of the School of Infantry-East, “A few would admit that the 1911s were loose, inaccurate, and worn down.” Despite the older pistol’s legendary reputation, it was clearly anti­quated and most of the examples in inventory had long outlived their usefulness. Colonel Chris Woodbridge, USMC (Ret), who also served as an in­fantry officer, agreed with that assess­ment. “You’d still see them [M1911s] in the armory in the late 1980s,” he recalled. “They were like maracas, they were so loose. The parts were so worn that they were really loose-fitting and consequently they could be unsafe.” Mundy and Woodbridge, both of whom commanded infantry Marines in combat, said that the new pistols were a welcome replacement.

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LtCol Eric C. Malinowski, CO, Combat Logistics Bn 31, 31st MEU, fires an M9 service pistol during a live fire exercise on the flight deck of USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) while the ship was underway, Feb. 13, 2015. (Photo by GySgt Ismael Pena, USMC)
Some of the skepticism toward the M9 arises from its smaller 9 mm NATO chambering as compared to the M1911’s larger and heavier .45 ACP. “The debate,” Woodbridge said, “primarily centers over the ‘stopping power’ of an individual round … and the permanent cavitation that a round produces.” While a larger and heavier .45 bullet can produce a larger wound cavity, the M9’s 9 mm gives it a softer recoil impulse and more than double the magazine capacity. These positive attributes allow a shooter to fire the Beretta faster and more accurately, landing more shots on target. Compared to the .45, in Woodbridge’s opinion, “the trade-offs are worth it.”

Although the M9 proved easier to shoot than its predecessor, some safety prob­lems sprung up as a result of user error. Marines in combat arms military occu­pational specialties, such as gunners and mortarmen, had ample opportunity to train with the pistol, but many staff offi­cers and senior NCOs usually only fired their service weapons once a year for qualification. Good safety habits, there­fore, weren’t always retained. As re­quested by the military and produced by Beretta, the M9 by itself is an exception­ally safe pistol, with multiple mechanical interlocks to prevent it from firing unless the trigger is physically pulled all the way to the rear with the external safety disengaged. No mechanical safety, however, can completely prevent acci­dents that arise from mishandling. Neg­ligent discharges occasionally occurred at the clearing barrel when a Marine pulled the trigger without clearing the pistol properly. Mundy and Woodbridge both said that this was mostly a problem early on in the M9’s service history, particularly in the summer of 1990 during the large mobilization at the outset of Operation Desert Shield. Marine Corps leadership decreased the spate of neg­ligent discharges by increasing safety training and punishing those who caused them.

As for reliability in combat environ­ments, opinions on the M9 differ. In retired Major Vic Ruble’s experience, it was “totally luck of the draw who gets what,” adding that some of the pistols worked well, while others did not. The poor reliability was primarily due to lack of maintenance, according to those with firsthand experience, including Ruble, who made numerous combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Beretta 92 series was already a mature and refined service pistol by the time the U.S. mil­itary adopted it; the Marines interviewed for this article all said that while no firearm is perfectly reliable, the M9 typically ran well when properly main­tained. During the Global War on Terror, however, M9s in service began to suffer from serious mechanical problems and even parts breakage issues. Small arms expert Christopher R. Bartocci worked as a consultant for the Department of Defense investigating failures in service weapons during that time; he noted that every broken part that he found had either not been replaced at the proper time or had been manufactured incorrectly to begin with. He determined that armorers had either not been trained properly on the required maintenance and parts replacement schedules or were simply not paying enough attention to notice signs of excessive wear in critical areas. The M9’s recoil spring and locking block are two of the most critical components to replace with expected service lives of approximately 5,000 and 10,000 rounds, respectively. If either of these components are not replaced on time, the pistol will begin to malfunction and will eventually jam up completely when the locking block breaks.

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A Marine with 8th Engineer Sup­port Bn disassembles and reassembles an M9 pistol as part of an exercise dur­ing a squad competition at Canon Air De­fense Complex, in Yuma, Ariz., on Oct. 24, 2016. Cpl Summer Romero, USMC.
According to Bartocci, many of the M9s he inspected in Afghanistan in­cluded substandard parts made by third-party manufacturers. Based on his exper­ience, a properly maintained Beretta 92 or M9 is one of the most reliable pistols available; problems arise when parts aren’t replaced on time. “The big­gest problem with any of the weapons we have in this country,” he said in a recent inter­view with Leatherneck, “are logistics and maintenance.” It seems likely that the M9 would have earned a much better reputation among Marines who carried it if lack of maintenance hadn’t held back its reliability.
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Cpl Ross D. Raper, an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank gunner assigned to Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Bn, 2nd Marines, 24th MEU SOC, practices engaging targets with his M9 service pistol on a live fire range in the Central Command AOR in 2003. (Photo by Sgt Bryan Reed, USMC)

In recent years, M9 and M9A1 pistols in U.S. military service have begun to show their age. Decades spent in harsh conditions combined with poor main­tenance and infrequent parts replacement have taken their toll, and advances in technology have made the core design appear relatively dated. While the mil­itary originally sought out the Beretta 92 for its double-action/single-action trigger system in the interest of safety, modern striker-fired pistols offer a more consistent trigger pull and less complex control scheme. The M9’s aluminum al­loy frame made it relatively lightweight for its time but relatively heavy compared to modern polymer-framed pistols. Due to these and other reasons, every branch of the military has moved toward the new M17 and M18 pistols, which began to replace M9s and M9A1s in 2017; the last of the legacy pistols have already left Marine Corps service.

Between its introduction in the 1980s and its replacement in recent years, the M9 was fielded in large numbers and served the Marine Corps in conflict zones all over the world. Ruble said he is still glad he carried it in Iraq and Afghanistan as it demonstrated its value on several occasions. Inside buildings and vehicles too cramped for the M16 to be useful, he took advantage of the M9’s greater maneuverability.

Even beyond its utility in combat, it was a valuable tool for self-defense and deterrence. Handguns are still seen as a status symbol in many parts of the world. As chance would have it, officials in Saddam Hussein’s government had favored older Beretta designs before the invasion; the Italian pistol’s familiar lines made a significant impression on locals who saw it. “A pistol was a big deal, so you needed to know that going in,” Ruble recalled. “If you pull it, they expect you to use it, and they’re … terrified of that.” Over in Afghanistan, with the pre­ponderance of green-on-blue attacks, Ruble said he depended on his pistol even more when working with the Afghan military and police.

Even when he and other Marines didn’t know if they could trust the locals, they trusted the pistol as a symbol of authority, a deterrent, and a last line of defense. In that respect, though held back by lack of maintenance, the M9 served the Marine Corps admirably for more than three decades in every clime and place.

Author’s note: The author would like to give special thanks to Christopher R. Bartocci and David J. Schneider.

Author’s bio: Sam Lichtman is a free­lance writer who specializes in small-arms technology and military history. He has a weekly segment on Gun Owners Radio. He is a licensed pilot who lives in Virginia.

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Marines assigned to Headquarters Bat­tery 12 fire Beretta M9 pistols during the joint Korean-U.S. exercise Bear Hunt 88, Oct. 17, 1988, in South Korea. Cpl Bateman, USMC.

From the Archives: Guerrilla

Somewhere out in the Pacific is a young Marine who need not be there. He could have been home for Christmas, the next, and the next—if he wanted to. But he chose to go back.

This was no surprise to those Marines who knew Reid Carlos Chamberlain, 25, of El Cajon, Calif. Nor to his mother, Mrs. Ettie Chamberlain, a frail, semi-invalid whose pride in the Marine Corps is matched only by her pride for her son. It had to be that way.

Mrs. Chamberlain has had considerable correspondence with the Corps ever since 1938, when young Reid, at the end of his fourth year of high school, first enlisted. She and her husband, Donald Chamberlain, fully approved. But in April 1939, Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain had to ask for their son’s release. The father was already in the throes of his last illness; the mother was not strong enough to work.

Young Reid, with serious blue eyes, wavy brown hair and a tanned ruddiness fresh from San Diego, got an honorable discharge to become the family bread­winner. He was still determined to make the Marine Corps his career (he enlisted in the Reserve the day of his discharge), but for the moment, other duties were more pressing. He went to trade school and became a riveter in an aircraft plant.

He was doing better than all right, and the aircraft company, reading the signs of the times, sought to get him discharged from the Reserve. But this required an application from Private First Class Chamberlain, and he never submitted it. On June 26, 1941, he returned to active duty.

On Aug. 2 of that fateful year, he vol­untarily extended his four-year enlistment to five years. Later that month he sailed from Mare Island to serve with the 4th Marines in Shanghai.

He wrote his widowed mother faithfully once a week describing the exotic life of the Paris of the Orient and the near-clashes with the arrogant Japanese. He could say little about the growing conviction among the Marines there that war was just around the corner. When the Marines pulled out of Shanghai and his letters began arriving from Marine Barracks, Navy Yard, Cavite, P.I., Mrs. Chamberlain was not too surprised.

Things happened rapidly then. The last letter she received from the Philippines was dated Nov. 26, 1941. There were no more letters after Pearl Harbor. The Marine Corps sent a sympathetic note, promising news when it could get it. In February, at last, a cheerful note from PFC Chamberlain himself. Then the sur­render of Corregidor. The Commandant wrote, with deep regret, that Reid would be carried as “missing in action.”

Long, long months later, the widow back home in El Cajon got the terrible news from Headquarters Marine Corps beginning: “Deeply regret to inform you cablegram from International Red Cross Tokyo Japan reports that your son … now reported to have died in the Philippines … Your son’s splendid record in the service …. nobly gave his life in the performance of his duty.”

The grieving, ailing mother wrote back with simple eloquence:

“I am more than grateful,” she wrote to the Commandant, “for your words of comfort … I am sure he did all he could to the last … But it’s hard to believe he’s gone … yet I am sure he would rather have gone in battle than to have been a prisoner … In his last letter to me, written Feb. 4, 1942, he said he had some close calls but nothing to worry about, and he would keep pitching … I do not regret that I let him go. It was his wish. I was and am proud of him. He was fine and unassuming. I know of no better way to go than in the service of our country…”

These words were written in March 1943. How right she was in her judgment of her son’s unwillingness to be taken prisoner, Mrs. Chamberlain was not to know for long months to come. She settled Reid’s affairs and mourned his death.

Back in the Philippines, young Chamber­lain was very much alive, begin­ning an epic series of adventures seldom equaled in the history of the Corps.

At war’s outbreak he was serving with Company C, 1st Separate Marine Battalion, on Cavite. In those first hot days, the Marines fought back with rifle fire to aid the ack-ack guns in repelling the heavy Japanese air onslaught. Three days after Pearl Harbor, Reid sustained his first injury—a cracked right ear drum due to heavy detonations while the Americans were repelling Japanese planes bombing the Navy Yard.

Then the Marines and the Sailors were pulled out of Cavite to Bataan to guard that peninsula stronghold until the armies of Wainwright and MacArthur could fight their way to that locale for their last stand.

The Japanese knew that battle plan as well as the Americans. The handful of Marines and the shipless and plane-less Sailors, rapidly converted into Marine-trained infantry battalions, had a tough and little-publicized assignment from the very beginning. The Japanese launched attack after attack from the ocean and the bay, seeking to capture Bataan before the Army could reach it in force. They were repelled and repelled again and again. It was in one of these actions that Reid was wounded. Fighting as an infantry­man with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, he stopped a Japanese machine-gun slug with his right forearm. A corpsman treated the wound, and Reid remained in action.

Eleven days later, on March 10, 1941, he was promoted to corporal.

Before Bataan fell to the Japanese, the Marines moved again, this time to Corregidor. The gallant stand there was almost finished when, on the morning of May 6, 1942, news of the impending surrender was announced.

Corporal Chamberlain was in no mood to surrender. He knew of a motor launch he could use, and, with several Marine and Army companions, he did a dis­appear­ing act beneath the very noses of the conquering Japanese.

They had to avoid Japanese shipping, Japanese planes, and Japanese land patrols. They held their breath, and they made it to a point where friendly Filipinos guided them and hid them. How they got from island to island, where and how they served with various guerrilla bands, in those last long months of 1942, still may not be told. But the familiar pattern of substantial inroads on the enemy was continued.

Near the end of the year, they acquired a 45-foot diesel-engined launch and set out for the coast of China. Reid had heard much about the effective work of the Chinese guerrillas while serving in Shanghai and had Chinese friends. He was bent on joining the Chinese guerrillas and “working his way” up to Chungking and the American forces.

Their engine failed some 70 miles out at sea. A makeshift sail proved too small to be effective, and they drifted for 28 bitter days before landing again in the Philippines. On this heartbreaking trip there were 10 desperate men—five Filipinos and five Americans. Dodging Japanese planes and ships was a minor part of their bleak voyage. They suffered an acute shortage of water and had no food the last few days.

Weak, but not despondent, they made an unwanted Philippine shore again. The party split up to ensure greater security. Fed and cared for by friendly natives, Corporal Chamberlain regained his strength. With another American and two Filipinos he finally acquired a native sailboat and this time set sail for Australia. The corporal was still in there, pitching.

They reached another island “outside the Philippines,” and what he heard caused Chamberlain to change his mind. He bade his friends, “Godspeed.” For himself, he was going back. To date, he had been only with small, scarcely or­ganized bands of guerrillas. Now he had word of an organization on a really large scale, and he saw genuine opportunity ahead.

The friendly inter-islanders sailed him back to the Philippines, and as promised, delivered him to a tough young colonel in the Philippine Army. The Filipino, in turn, took him to another leader, a colonel in the U.S. Army, to whom Corporal Chamberlain reported “for duty.”

Colonel “X” sized up the slender, hard-eyed young Marine then asked him a few questions. Then he gave him a “guerrilla-field” commission on the spot. It was now Second Lieutenant Reid C. Chamberlain, and he became an aide to Colonel “X.”

The colonel had a great organization—soldiers, sailors, Marines, Filipinos, both the famous Scouts and the ill-trained but enthusiastic and effective volunteers. The Japanese held the Philippines, but the underground was swallowing many a Japanese soldier in most mysterious fashion. Just how this organization functioned may not be told but published accounts of guerrilla warfare elsewhere in the Philippines give an idea—the ambush of Japanese patrols in the jungle, the sudden raid on ammunition dumps and supply stocks, the quiet bow-and-arrow death of any Japanese soldier who strayed too far from his garrison strong­hold, the invaluable communication with MacArthur’s forces and the Navy “outside.”

One of Chamberlain’s exploits can be told. The colonel sent him “outside the Philippines” on a smuggling job. Wherever it was he went, the doughty lieutenant returned with badly needed guns, gasoline, some powder, some lead—good enough material for the behind-the-lines jungle “munitions factories” equipping those guerrillas who as yet had not captured better stuff from the Japanese.

And whatever else he did, Lieutenant Chamberlain was OK by the colonel, who advanced him to first lieutenant some eight months after his commissioning. The colonel also sent back a report that was to do young Chamberlain no harm.

After a full two years in the Philip­pines, First Lieutenant Reid C. Chamber­­lain, USA, finally came back to America. With him came other Army, Marine, Navy personnel, some of whom, with the guerrillas’ aid, had escaped from Japanese prison camps. Certain members of the organization stayed on.
Army Lieutenant Chamberlain was ready to get back into the Marine Corps again. Despite several bouts of malaria, his iron-man constitution had stood him in good stead; he was again a rugged 150-pounder; the doctors said he was in reasonably good shape, and he thought he could make it.

In Washington, the paper confusion was great, but the lieutenant waded through it. The Marines gave him a neces­­sarily tardy honorable discharge, retroactive to the day before he accepted the Army commission (Jan. 15, 1943). The Army permitted him to resign his commission and, in turn, gave him an honorable discharge.

Then the hardy youth re-enlisted in the Marine Corps. He was given im­mediate­ly his old rating of corporal and appointment to the officer candidates’ class at Quantico.

First, however, Chamberlain had less vigorous business to attend to. Lieutenant General Alexander A. Vandegrift, Com­mandant of the Ma­rine Corps, presented him with the Distinguished Service Cross awarded by General MacArthur for “extraordinary heroism in action,” and arranged a rare thing in the service—a 60-day furlough.

A few months earlier, the Marine Corps, on the basis of “official and reliable” information, had been able to reveal to Mrs. Chamberlain that her son was indeed alive, but had to enjoin her to joyous secrecy. Not even the insurance company could be told until Reid’s actual arrival home!

Sixty days with his mother and old friends in El Cajon were not enough, Corporal Chamberlain found, to adjust himself to the bright new world of Ameri­ca after his dark two years abroad. He went to Quantico, he had he spent only four days at that rigorous, fast-moving school, when he applied for transfer.

The corporal thought that if he could serve at San Diego and see more of his family and friends for “a few months,” he might complete his adjustment.

It was an unusual request, but no more unusual than the corporal. His com­mand­­ing officer, noting that Corporal Chamber­lain was “extremely anxious for combat duty,” approved. And it turned out that an old friend from Bataan, Colonel (now Brigadier General) W.T. Clement, was the commandant of Marine Corps Schools, Quantico. Colonel Clement “strongly recom­mended” that the corporal’s request be granted.

Without prejudice to his record, Cor­poral Chamberlain was discharged from candidates’ class. He got his transfer to Base Guard Company, MCB, San Diego. His orders stipulated he could not be transferred again without the express approval of Marine Corps Headquarters. He had a good stateside job. He was “stuck for the duration.”

It was March 22, 1944, when he left Quantico for San Diego. Soon, by direc­tion of the Secretary of the Navy, he was presented the Purple Heart with Gold Star for those wounds of 1942. (The Marine Corps had already ruled that his mother could keep the Purple Heart sent her after the official an­nouncement of his “death.”)

By his own terms, the corporal had before him several months for “re­adjust­ment.” But two weeks of his safe job in San Diego were enough. On April 14, he wrote to the Commandant: “I respectfully request that I be assigned to duty in a combat area … ”

The corporal insisted that his malaria had been quiet for a long time. His com­manding officer, ap­prov­ing, wrote that the Californian, among other assets, had “a valuable temperament for combat.”

General Vandegrift agreed. Chambe­r­­lain, by this time a sergeant of two weeks’ standing, was on his way to fight the Japanese again.

Mrs. Chamberlain wasn’t surprised. She’d known all along it’d have to be that way.

Editor’s note: Sgt Reid C. Chamberlain was killed in action on Iwo Jima on March 1, 1945, only two months after this article was originally published in Leatherneck. His remains are listed as unaccounted for.

 

The Spirit of Basilone

 

 

 

 

 

True disciples, spreading the belt-fed gospel with the enemy. (USMC photos)

In September of 2017, Adam Krick opened Instagram on his phone and created a new account. An idea had brewed inside his head for months. Too many accounts on Facebook or Instagram swooned over Special Forces, Special Operations, or any other “special” unit ad nauseam. Krick hoped to create a forum where he could recognize a tight-knit and motivated community that held a special place in his heart, the brotherhood of Marine machine-gunners.

From its humble origins, “Goons Up” rapidly evolved. Krick started by finding and following machine gunners with private accounts. Whenever they posted an inspiring photo or video, Krick asked if he could share it on Goons Up. The strategy worked brilliantly, and machine gunners across Instagram adopted “Goons Up” into the common language of the community. The account quickly became the online space where 0331s connected and celebrated their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS).

Krick tapped into a heritage and religion born long ago. His creation of Goons Up did not initiate this high level of enthusiasm for his beloved belt-feds. He simply gave it a modern place to focus its energy. Something has always been different about machine-gunners. All Marines take pride over other branches of the armed services because of, well, everything. The infantry pushes this further, understanding they represent the backbone of the Corps. Machine-gunners, though, adhere to a cult within a cult that takes it to the extreme. For many, this “loud and proud” sense of belonging is not just obnoxious words or behavior. It represents a way of life. It reflects a calling, where tactical and technical proficiency trump all the “oorah” chest beating and “Animal Mother” tattoos.

“When I came up through Infantry Training Battalion (ITB), I had no idea I’d become a machine gunner,” remembered Sergeant Race Kilburn, an 0331 currently serving as a Combat Instructor at School of Infantry-West. “I thought I would become a rifleman and be part of that main effort.”

When he came to the split in training where each student received their MOS, the ITB staff gathered the student body together. A Marine from each 03 MOS went on stage before them and gave a two-minute presentation covering their job and why all the students should want to be part of it.
Kilburn remembers the scene vividly.

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Machine-gunners from “Golf” Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines submitted their flag photo to Goons Up all the way from the Philippines during Exercise KAMANDAG in October 2022. Courtesy AUSTIN WILSON.

“They had the rifleman come up and he says, ‘We’re the boots on the ground. We’re ready to put shit down. We are the main effort. Everyone else standing beside me right now is a support element.’ He went on and got the students all riled up. We all thought, ‘Oh man, here we go.’ Next, the mortarman comes up and he’s like, ‘We drop bombs from far away. Nobody can move without us.’ We were all like, ‘pffft, whatever.’ Then the assaultman comes up and says his piece and we all thought it sounded pretty cool. All these guys spent their whole two minutes talking about how cool their MOS was and building it up.”

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One of many original designs available on the Goons Up website pays homage to machine gunners who have gone before. COURTESY OF GOONS UP.
Machine-gunners from “Golf” Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines submitted their flag photo to Goons Up all the way from the Philippines during Exercise KAMANDAG in October 2022. Courtesy AUSTIN WILSON.

“Then the machine-gunner came up to say his part. I still remember this guy. He came up to the stage and says, ‘Machine-gunners blow shit away, then the riflemen walk in to see everything dead. If you want to be a f—king machine gunner, you better be strong, you better be tall, and you better be tough.’ That’s all he said, then walked away. From that day on, I wanted to shoot belt-fed.”

These disciples of the belt-fed gospel extend through history, reaching back to the machine gun’s inception and im­plementation. Major Edward B. Cole served as the original prophet, authoring the Corps’ first “Field Book for Machine Gunners” in 1917. Cole became a martyr for the religion, dying a hero’s death in battle at Belleau Wood. Marines like John Basilone and Mitchell Paige arose as demigods in the eyes of future gen­erations. Their grit and super-human feats of endurance formed the genesis of a holy spirit that all 0331s prayed might dwell within them. The award citations of dead machine-gunners long since passed wrote the gospel pages, setting high the standards for what was expected of anyone who believed they could carry the gun.

The success of Goons Up stemmed not just from the avid engagement of its followers, but also from the passion of its creator. Krick learned to eat, breathe, live and die by the gun through multiple combat tours as an 0331. The forefathers of his MOS inspired him to uphold their legacy. He took the machine-gunner’s creed to heart:

“We will cut our enemies down in droves. Our fires will be the substance of their nightmares. We will protect our brothers. The fields of the dead shall serve as evidence of our passing.”

Krick enlisted out of high school in April 2003 after watching the initial invasion of Iraq on TV. He joined 1st Bn, 2nd Marines at Camp Lejeune and de­ployed to Iraq for the first time in summer 2004. He returned to Iraq a second time in 2006 and a third time in March 2007, where he reenlisted. He spent three years of his second enlistment on Inspector-Instructor duty before ending his last year on active duty once more at Lejeune with 1st Battalion, 6th Marines.

Krick entered the civilian world as a forklift mechanic in 2011. He waited six years to create Goons Up and work towards his goal of establishing an 0331 community. As a husband, father, and full-time employee, Krick sacrificed sleep and other personal ambitions to create a brand worthy of the heritage it represented. He entered the realm of an aspiring entrepreneur only after the community took off. The success of his e-commerce store mirrored the success of his Instagram account, becoming profitable enough to support Krick’s wife and six children. In December 2020, barely more than three years after making his first post, Krick quit his civilian job to run his business full-time.

Today, Krick operates Goons Up from his home in Pennsylvania. With nearly 10,000 posts, a thriving e-commerce store, and incredible numbers of likes, shares, and follows, “successful” fails to adequately describe the business’s meteoric rise. Krick posts every day, often multiple times a day. He mixes in history and humor, while focusing the account on his original founding purpose to highlight machine gunners and the weapons they love so much. Krick no longer needs to solicit individuals for content to share. Marines and soldiers around the world send him their photos and videos, often posing with one of the numerous flags sold on his store.

The holy trinity of Marine Corps machine-gunners: Col Mitchell Paige,
Maj Edward B. Cole, and GySgt John F. Basilone. USMC Photos.

 

 

Even as Goons Up fulfilled its mission to connect and recognize the infantry, Krick desired to do more. He wanted a way to formally recognize machine-gun­ners, beyond an “attaboy” post or a pat on the back. What if he could give them an award? Without something to physical­ly hand out, the award would be nothing more than another post on Instagram. He considered small trophies and statues. Finally, Krick stumbled across another Marine veteran-owned business called Blue Falcon Awards.

Blue Falcon perfected the art of satire and mock representations of true military items. The business churns out rank in­signia, badges, and challenge coins, all intended to look real until closer inspec­tion reveals a gag alteration. Krick ended his search for the right type of award when he discovered Blue Falcon produced uniform medals, complete with custom ribbon colors and engraved images. With Blue Falcon providing his blank slate, Krick needed only to design and name the medal.

Naming his medal proved easy. For a United States Marine Corps machine- gunner, for anyone who knew anything about our Corps’ beloved history and the heroes associated with it, there could be only one namesake: Basilone.

Every Marine of every MOS learned the name in boot camp. Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone inspired generations of warriors through his heroics in combat. He was the quintessential Marine Corps machine gunner and remains the Great Section Leader in the sky.

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Sgt Taylor Mathis, center, the most recent recipient of the Spirit of Basilone medal. After 11 years in the Marines, Mathis said he values the award from Goons Up more than any other medal he has earned. COURTESY OF TAYLOR MATHIS.

On Guadalcanal, Basilone and his few remaining Marines fought tenaciously to hold off wave after wave of Japanese attackers. Basilone moved from position to position with desperately needed ammo, repairing machine guns in the dark, and firing a heavy machine gun from the hip with his bare hands. At least 38 enemy dead were credited to him before the night was out, and hundreds more to his Marines.

For his actions, Basilone received the Medal of Honor. His heroism, of course, proved only the beginning. His attitude was equally endearing. Basilone turned down a Presidential award ceremony, opting instead to receive the medal in the field, closer to his Marines. Next, he refused an officer’s commission and desk job in Washington, insisting he return to combat in the Pacific. (Editor’s note: See “I’m Glad to Get Overseas Duty” in the February 2022 issue of Leatherneck to read an essay written by Basilone about how he was eager to get back to the fight.) His further heroism and death in battle on Iwo Jima made him the only Marine of WW II to receive the Medal of Honor and Navy Cross and become one of the most iconic personalities in the history of the Corps. Other Marines before or since may have earned more medals, seen more combat, or done more for the image of our Corps. Even so, the legend of Basilone endures like Babe Ruth or Elvis. There simply can never be another Basilone.

Unlike other medals or trophies, the Goons Up medal was not merely named the “Basilone award,” in honor or remem­brance of its namesake. Krick added an additional descriptor that would drive home his intent; the “Spirit of Basilone” award. Though the man is gone and con­fined to photographs or stories told countless times, his spirit lives on today, thriving within the 0331 community.

Several years after hearing the compet­ing MOS pitches at ITB, Race Kilburn served as a machine gun section leader with “Kilo” Company, 3rd Bn, 5th Ma­rines. In March 2020, he became the first recipient of the Spirit of Basilone award. Krick worked behind the scenes to confirm Kilburn truly embodied the life as a disciple of the belt-fed gospel. As a six-time recipient of the “Gung Ho” award from each of the formal schools he’d attended, and after being meritoriously promoted to Sergeant, Kilburn certainly fit the bill. Once confirmed, Krick drafted an award citation and mailed his newly designed medal to a common friend he shared with Kilburn. The friend invited Kilburn to a bar after work one Friday night where a small, informal gathering of machine-gunners surprised him and presented him with the medal.

Kilburn had followed Goons Up since its inception but had never heard of the Spirit of Basilone award. He studied the medal, seeming just as real as any other he might wear on his Blues. The words “Spirit of Basilone” arched in a semi-circle above a silhouette of the legend himself, engraved on a gold medallion. A golden M1917 heavy machine gun, like what Basilone used in combat, hung beneath a brown and green ribbon, connecting the pieces together.

“What the heck is this?” Kilburn asked.

The gathered Marines explained it was a new award created by Goons Up, pre­sented to him, complete with individual citation.

“When I became the first recipient, I thought it was cool, but I didn’t know if people would take it seriously, or if it would just put a target on my back as the guy who was receiving recognition for something not valuable,” Kilburn recalled. “I didn’t realize how much it would blow up.”

Krick posted photos and information about his first recipient and how the medal would be given out moving for­ward. He began receiving nominations from different units around the Corps. Even Army units nominated soldiers for the award.

“I wanted to make something that went a little further in helping to instill that machine gun pride that we’re so known for,” Krick stated in each post covering a recipient of the award. “It’s nothing official, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful, at least not to me. The Spirit of Basilone medal is not for sale. If you want it, earn it. If you think you know someone who rates it, let me know!”

Krick started presenting the award once a quarter. Since its creation, the medal has been presented 10 times. One of these awards went to a soldier, Staff Sergeant William Hendry, a weapons squad leader in Red Platoon, Fox Troop, 2d Squadron, 3d Cavalry. The method of delivery evolved as well, growing in formality and scale since Sgt Kilburn received his medal in a bar. Many recipients received the medal in a formal ceremony conducted by their platoon, with their platoon commander and platoon sergeant pinning the medal on their blouses. On at least one occasion, the recipient’s battalion commander got involved and presented the medal in a formal ceremony just like any other “real” award would be given out.

As of this writing, Sgt Taylor Mathis is the most recent recipient of the award. Mathis is an 11-year veteran of the Corps, currently serving as a machine-gun section leader with “Graybeard” Guns, Lima Company, 3rd Bn, 7th Marines. The Marines surprised Mathis with the award shortly after the unit returned home from their most recent deployment. With over a decade’s worth of ribbons and medals on his dress blues, Mathis still values the Spirit of Basilone award over anything else.

“Personally, I think this is the greatest award I’ve received,” said Mathis. “One, because my guys thought I was worthy of it, and two, having something named after Basilone, he is our legacy as ma­chine gunners. I can’t really wear it on my uniform, but it’s something I can carry on forever. It’s probably the most humbling thing I’ve gotten so far.”

This sentiment proves true for many Spirit of Basilone recipients. Sgt Anthony Wendlandt received his medal in a sur­prise ceremony on a Friday morning in June 2022. It was already going to be a big day for Wendlandt. That same afternoon, after five years as a machine gunner with 1st Bn, 4th Marines, he picked up his DD-214 and left active duty. Receiving the medal on his last day in uniform held special meaning.

“I had gotten a Navy Achievement Medal earlier that year after our second deployment, which I’m proud of because it is a recognition that I actually did my job well. But the Spirit of Basilone award, to me, meant more that I had left an im­pression on the guys that came after me. It isn’t like you just met some certain criteria and get a medal for it. You don’t get it just because you did something and looked good in front of higher. You earn it by being a good Marine, a good ma­chine gunner, and a leader.”
Wendlandt embarked from Camp Pendleton on a cross-country road trip. He stopped by Goons Up headquarters in Pennsylvania to meet Krick in person before continuing east. The journey be­came a pilgrimage of sorts, paying homage to the 0331 community, the legacy of John Basilone, and Wendlandt’s own good fortune, having had the priv­ilege to be part of it all. He traveled to Basilone’s hometown of Raritan, N.J., where he visited the Basilone Statue and Veterans Park. The final leg of his journey brought him to Arlington National Cem­etery. Wendlandt walked a quarter mile off the typically trodden pathways to section 12. There, below the Memorial Amphitheater and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Wendlandt kept vigil over the grave of his medal’s namesake.

“To me it was very symbolic, bringing the award from California back to Basilone’s grave in Arlington. I didn’t even know he existed before I joined, other than watching “The Pacific” in high school. I thought the least I could do was to bring the award there and kind of have it come full circle. I still want to be what this award means; someone who gives a shit about being a machine gunner, is proud of being a machine-gunner, and did their job to the best of their ability every single day. I still have that spirit. I still have that pride, even post-military.”

Since the creation of the Spirit of Basilone award, other social media ac­counts affiliated with Goons Up have followed suit. “Tubes Up,” an account dedicated to mortarmen, drew inspiration from famed Marine and author Eugene B. Sledge, best known for his epic memoir, “With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa.” The “Spirit of Sledge” award recognizes mortarmen today who em­body his spirit. Another account, “Corps­man Up,” quarterly presents the “Spirit of Ingram” award to U.S. Navy docs serving with Marines. Their medal is named in honor of Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Robert Ingram, a Vietnam War veteran and recipient of the Medal of Honor and the Silver Star. As “unofficial” awards such as these con­tinue gaining recognition, only time will tell how they will evolve and the impact they will make.

For some Marines, hitting the fleet out of basic training is a stark reality check. It’s one thing to toil and sweat with your squad through training, fir­ing your weapon and training to be a killer. It’s quite another thing to spend your boot year in the fleet hating life, cleaning the first sergeant’s office every day and police calling around the barracks. Some Ma­rines lose the sense of pride they felt on graduation day. In the extreme, it even becomes cool to be the “shit bag” who bucks the system and takes pride in how much he doesn’t care. Adam Krick has made it his mission to combat that men­tality. Goons Up shows infantry Marines their job is really, truly awesome, and recognizes them amongst their peers for working hard. It encourages Marines to perfect their craft. It provides NCOs with current and relevant material happening around the Marine Corps that they can use to train and motivate their junior Marines.

In an online world of slander, negativity and pointless memes, Goons Up serves as a beacon of hope for what social media can and should be. The community recognizes people who care about their job. It encourages Marines to consider why they joined in the first place, and what they can do to make their MOS better.

“I give all the credit to Adam for start­ing the ripple, that turned into a wave, and into a tsunami of a community through social media that is 100 percent backing the Marines who want to do good in the Marine Corps,” said Sgt Kilburn. “How many meme pages are out there, or how many pages complaining about how dumb things are, or how our commanders are not smart and don’t know what we should know? With all of that going around, I think it’s good to see we are winning the fight on social media of give a shit about your job and it will give back.”

Goons Up served as the catalyst for other unofficial awards, such as the “Spirit of Sledge” (above) and the “Spirit of Ingram” (next) medals, now being presented by other Instagram accounts affiliated with Goons Up.

“Go Down Like Marines”: The Ill-Fated Voyage of SS Henry R. Mallory

Private Marvin Elmer Muehl leaned against the steel bulkhead, feeling a shudder of relief as the metal chilled the sweat running down his back. Creature comforts were hard to come by in Hold No. 3, a space he shared with about 60 other Marines. The muggy air was rank with body odor, cigarette smoke, and the inescapable smell of seasickness. In other holds, hundreds of other men—soldiers, Sailors, and merchant mariners—were grimly suffering. The North Atlantic was angry this time of year; bad weather and blackout conditions kept most hands below deck as the SS Henry R. Mallory churned steadily eastward. Undercutting the boredom was an electric thread of tension: the ever-present threat of German submarines.

Muehl chatted with some buddies near the stairwell to the hold. Although almost 4 a.m. time, several Marines were too nervous to sleep. They had seen other ships in Convoy SC-118 erupt in balls of flame, and a midnight alert sent everyone scrambling to their lifeboat stations, wrapped up and shivering in the cold night air. In the close confines of Hold 3, stripped to their skivvies, the young men passed the last few hours of darkness speculating about what awaited them in Iceland.

The explosion lifted Muehl off his feet. “I was floating through the air,” he later recalled, “and then, for quite some time, everything was quiet. I realized that I was flat on my back lying next to the people I had been talking to and was being trampled on by people trying to get on deck through the opening where the stairwell had been.” He heard running water, smelled something burning, and saw his trousers soaked with blood. Muehl’s right leg would not bear his weight, but he dragged himself to the jagged hole through which his buddies escaped. A light shone down from above. Muehl hollered, and two men pulled him out of Hold 3.

“You’re on your own,” they said. “She’s going down fast.”

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A frozen and exhausted survivor being lifted aboard USCGC Bibb (WPG-31). USCG.

The sinking of the liner-turned-transport Henry R. Mallory on Feb. 7, 1943, was a tragic event in the convoy battles of the North Atlantic. Built in Newport News, Va., in 1916, Mallory was quickly pressed into service as an Army transport and spent two years carrying troops to and from French ports. Returned to the Clyde-Mallory line in 1919, she sailed between New York and New Orleans in civilian livery for more than 20 years. In 1942, Mallory was again requisitioned for convoy duty. She completed one round trip from New York to Reykjavik before her fatal encounter with Kapitänleutnant Siegfried von Forstner’s U-402. On her last voyage, Mallory carried a valuable cargo of tanks, clothing, cigarettes, and ammunition bound for Iceland; aboard were nearly 500 passengers and crew, 272 of whom perished at sea. Thirty of the dead were United States Marines—the only ones lost in the Atlantic convoys.

The Marine Corps had maintained a force in Iceland since the summer of 1941 when the 1st Marine Brigade (Provisional) was assembled for “temporary duty beyond the seas.” British troops on garrison duty were urgently needed to defend the Home Islands; the U.S. Army could not send draftees overseas in peacetime, so the Marines drew the job. While America and Germany were not formally at war, the threat was ever present. Iceland veteran Clifton J. Cormier, then a sergeant with “Fox” Battery, 10th Marines, noted that “only 700 miles across the North Sea in Norway were three German divisions. German reconnaissance planes occasionally flew over, drawing desultory antiaircraft fire” from British gunners. Despite the proximity to an armed enemy—and a few Nazi sympathizers among the younger civilians—Marines found Icelandic duty rather stultifying. Daily duties consisted of standing guard, unloading ships, and building huts with “only four hours of a sort of hazy daylight” to accomplish anything outside. Liberty options were limited to a handful of overcrowded restaurants and movie houses. The young ladies were “quite pretty,” but hopeful Americans had to contend with a language barrier, Icelandic customs, and a governmental policy forbidding any fraternization contrary to public morals. The Brigade’s morale, readiness, and discipline suffered from Arctic ennui.

Cormier recalled that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a “morale booster” because “the Marines would be heading for the Pacific where they belonged.” The Department of the Navy made preparations to redeploy the Brigade in early 1942; an Army garrison would take over their camps and installations. An allocation was also made for a small Marine unit to serve at the proposed Naval Operating Base Iceland (NOBI). The first Marine detachment, approximately 30 men led by First Sergeant Harry Fluharty, was organized overseas on Feb. 22, 1942. One month later, the last elements of the 1st Marine Brigade returned to New York, trading in their distinctive polar bear insignia for new assignments.

With the United States officially on a wartime footing, the construction of NOBI (formally Camp Knox, established May 16, 1942, on the outskirts of Reykjavik) progressed quickly. Soon, the base supported convoy shipping sailing between North America, Great Britain, and northern Russia. Seabees arrived in August to build a hospital, salvage facilities, an ammunition depot at Hvalfjordhur, a “tank farm” (fuel depot) at Falcon Point, and a Fleet Air Base at Skerjafjörður. A larger base required more guards, and by October 1942, the Marine Detachment numbered 121 officers and men. Although the new construction included recreational facilities at Falcon Camp, duty was scarcely more exciting than it had been for the 1st Marine Brigade, and “Ho-ho-hum, Iceland here we come” was sung loudly on liberty or under one’s breath while on duty. A tour lasted from 12 to 18 months; for the hard chargers and the homesick, the time passed slowly.

In January 1943, the next Icelandic detachment formed at the New York Navy Yard. A quartet of second lieutenants led the group; the senior pair, Henry Mears Hobbins and Paul Wilson Wolfe, were six months into their commission. Sergeant George Andrew Yanek, whose 23 years of age included five in the Corps, assisted as the senior enlisted man. The balance included two corporals, five privates first class, and 52 privates. Just two weeks before, most of the junior Marines were Parris Island boots; they came north via Quantico, where they were selected for Iceland by some forgotten criteria. “I was sent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for assignment, although it had already been decided what my assignment would be,” recalled Private Joseph “Mickey” McMillen. The Canonsburg, Pa., youth enlisted on Nov. 7, 1942; now he was preparing to sail to a foreign land.

Once aboard, the Marines stowed their belongings in Hold 3 and made the most of their dwindling free time as Mallory took on cargo and passengers. Detroit-born Marvin Muehl could not get enough of Times Square, while Private John Edward Stott made the 200-mile round trip from Brooklyn to Norristown, Pa., on three consecutive nights. Stott, just 17 years old, was “very low in spirits” during these visits and “a little depressed” about the prospect of going overseas.

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Pvt Edward Stott. USMC.

 

USCGC Ingham (WPG-35) as seen from the Bibb during SC-118. High seas made search and rescue efforts extremely hazardous. (USCG photo)
Together on liberty or stuffed into their triple-decker racks in Hold 3, the Marines got acquainted and formed new friendships. Pennsylvania was heavily represented, especially Pittsburgh—several of the newer Marines had been together since the day they enlisted. Private Horace L. Melton of Cordova, N.C., was the “old man” at 31; Privates Stott, James J. Martell, and Martin C. Finn were youngsters of 17. Private Alvin Laibman would swap college stories about Duquesne with Private Melville Eaton (Massachusetts Agricultural College) or Lieutenant Hobbins, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. Handsome Private Ralph Welliver aspired to be an actor and possessed a fine radio voice. Private Lawrence Lott was authorized to wear a Good Conduct Medal from a four-year hitch in the mid-1930s; PFC Willie E. Jenkins could look back on three years in the Army, and Lieutenant Wolfe had stories of training as an Army pilot before joining the Marine Corps.

Some brought unique experiences to the gab sessions including Private Joseph Buono, a New York shipyard worker who survived the SS Normandie disaster. Private Arthur Bennett might have been close-lipped; he had spent time in Moyamensing Prison and the infamous Fairview State Hospital for “impersonating a G-man.” The Corps chose not to hold this transgression against Bennett when he enlisted in October 1941.

Mallory departed New York on Jan. 23, 1943, and set a course for Halifax where she joined other merchantmen and escorts assembled as Slow Convoy (SC) 118. “Slow” it certainly was; the average speed of a ship in SC-118 was a mere six knots, a third of Mallory’s capability. No other convoys included Iceland-bound sections, so Mallory was stuck with the slower ships. The prospect of a long voyage was most unwelcome to the enlisted men stacked in the holds. “The passage was miserable,” said Private Thomas M. Sullivan of Kansas City, Mo. “We never had one day of sunshine, and we were sailing in one of the worst winters in the North Atlantic. Our quarters were overcrowded, and the food served to us was abominable. I doubt that accommodations for the officers on board were much better than ours.” The ship’s master, Horace R. Weaver, was a seasoned Mallory officer but had never sailed in command. Boat drills, held every day and twice at night, were as much for the benefit of the inexperienced crew as the passengers. Author Michael G. Walling notes that these drills omitted crucial information: “Men reported to their lifeboat stations, but the boats weren’t swung out or tested, and the passengers were not shown how to lower them or what the boats contained for emergency supplies.”

While the first few days at sea were uneventful for the men aboard Mallory, their adversaries were assembling the formidable Wolfpack Pfeil II: 13 U-Boats led by veteran Korvettenkapitän Dietrich Lohmann. Decoded Allied messages revealed the route of SC-118, and a prisoner plucked from the sea confirmed a slow convoy: easy pickings for German torpedoes. Lohmann established a patrol line to intercept the freighters, but rough weather worked in the convoy’s favor and the submarines struggled to make contact. On Feb. 4, 1943, the Norwegian-flagged freighter Annik accidentally fired a star shell and was spotted by U-187. Escorts picked up the German transmission and sank U-187 for first blood; the next day, the American freighter SS West Portal was torpedoed and lost with all hands. Two more stragglers (Greek Polyktor and Polish Zagloba) were picked off on February 6. The battle for SC-118 was joined.

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Survivors of a torpedoed vessel huddle beside the tiny mast that was rigged to their lifeboat as they prepare to board USCGC Bibb after being rescued in the North Atlantic. (USCG photos)

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     Aggressive actions by the British, Free French, and U.S. Coast Guard escorts kept Lohmann’s Pfeil II from exploiting the convoy’s slow speed and poor coordination. In addition to the loss of U-187, two badly damaged boats had to limp home to port. German fortunes seemed at their lowest until Kapitänleutnant Baron Siegfried Freiherr von Forstner entered the equation. A formidable commander, von Forstner had nine ships to his credit—a score he shared with his veteran crew of U-402. They were shooting hot on their sixth war patrol: early on Feb. 7, U-402 scored fatal hits on the tanker Robert E. Hopkins and the British rescue vessel Toward.

 

Joseph McMillen celebrated his 19th birthday aboard the Mallory on Feb. 3; now he was standing KP duty in the ship’s galley. As he carried a pail of garbage to dump over the side, he saw “a brilliant flash on the horizon; I guessed it was possibly a tanker,” or possibly the death throes of the Hopkins. Marvin Muehl noted, “We were getting quite nervous” even before a submarine alert sent all hands scrambling topside in coats and live preservers. When the alert secured, the men trooped back below to their quarters or headed to their guard posts. In the back of their minds was the knowledge that convoys never stopped to pick up survivors. That role was left to rescue vessels; they could not know that Toward was already gone.

The passengers were also blissfully ignorant of Mallory’s vulnerable position on the convoy’s flank. Maintaining a steady pace was difficult for a fast ship in a slow convoy, and Captain Weaver’s inexperience led to a habit of straggling out of position. Earlier that evening, the freighter Empire Squire maneuvered erratically and cut into formation ahead of Mallory, forcing the troop ship to cut her speed. As Walling writes, “For an hour or more, there was no ship outboard of Mallory in the convoy. She had three ships in sight and was between four hundred and a thousand yards astern of Empire Squire. One or two corvettes patrolled a mile and a half to two miles astern.” She was a tempting, almost inevitable, target.

U-402, her tubes reloaded after a successful first strike, reentered the fray by disabling the Norwegian tanker Daghild and sinking the British freighter Afrika. Less than 20 minutes after sending Afrika to her demise, von Forstner sighted in on a single-stacked vessel of about 6,000 tons. On his command, U-402 sent a 21-inch torpedo racing toward the target at 30 knots.

A grouchy galley cook saved the life of Marine Private Henry Filippone. He spotted a fresh blueberry pie cooling in the galley at chow time, only to be chased off by a sailor—pie was reserved for officers. “Pop” Filippone brooded over the pie for hours until he could take no more. Pulling on some clothes, he started up the ladder from Hold 3 and was on his way to the galley when 280 kg of high explosive slammed through the bulkhead where his buddies were berthed. Filippone hurried to the main deck to see what was going on.

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Pvt Henry Francis “Pop” Filippone was on his way to the galley when the torpedo struck. He survived the sinking. COURTESY OF THE FILIPPONE FAMILY
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Just months after ravaging SC-118, U-402 joined her conquests on the bottom of the ocean. Seen here under attack by aircraft from USS Card (ACV-11), she went down with all hands, including Korvkpt von Forstner, on Oct. 13, 1943. (Photo courtesy of Naval Heritage and History Command)
     Private Sullivan was sleepless after a turn of guard duty. “I went to get a cup of coffee. Father James Liston [U.S. Army Chaplain Corps] was there … We were visiting when the torpedo struck. There was no mistaking the fact that the Mallory had sustained a finishing attack.” Private William Ryals was also in the galley: “Since we had an alert earlier in the night, I had on a lifejacket and overcoat. We ran out on deck and saw one of the two lifeboats assigned to the Marines had been blown away, so I went forward where there were other boats and crawled down into one of them.” The blast wrecked two lifeboats, destroyed the oil pump and ammonia lines, and sent a hatch cover sailing into the sky. Mallory lurched to starboard, then righted herself. In “officer’s country,” Second Lieutenant Robert C. Barrick, Jr. heard “no loud explosion, but rather a dull thud.” The extent of the damage was not immediately apparent.

 

It was a very different scene in Hold 3, where Marines were reeling from the force of the explosion. Mickey McMillen and Private Stanley Pasinski fell asleep chatting shortly before the strike; Pasinski was knocked out and “came to with a gash on my head. I don’t remember anything except climbing up through the hatch.” McMillen “woke to the sound of people yelling and screaming and much confusion.” He was napping on another Marine’s bunk, and when he looked at his own, “there was nothing there … I managed to get on deck and to my assigned lifeboat, but it was gone.” Still somewhat dazed, McMillen returned to Hold 3 to grab an overcoat. “I decided it was going to be cold on the water.”

McMillen’s decision was a smart one. Passengers on the Mallory were advised to sleep in their winter clothes, but the heat in the holds made that impossible. Private Donald Gross was sitting on the ladder when the torpedo hit, and said, “I don’t remember anything else until I came to in a lifeboat. Then I found that I had on only dungaree pants, a dungaree jacket over a sweater, and no shoes.” Private Gerald Moyer was trapped under collapsing bunks. “I managed to squeeze out, but my clothes were still under there,” he recalled. “I went up on deck with only a khaki shirt and dungaree pants.”

In the bunk directly above Moyer was 17-year-old John Stott. “I was thrown up against the overhead and knocked out,” he said. “I fell down on the deck, and when I came to, there was considerable water in the compartment. Something was wrong with my leg … I couldn’t put any weight on it.” Stott had the presence of mind to pick up a life jacket on his way to the gaping hole that led out of the hold. An unknown number of Marines were left behind in the hold, either killed by the explosion or too badly injured to escape the rising water.

Chaos reigned on the upper decks. Men raced to their assigned stations to find their boats gone, ropes fouled, or pressed against the hull by the increasing list. Only the merchant sailors had experience lowering boats, and none had practiced with Mallory’s equipment. To make matters worse, Captain Weaver issued no orders after the torpedo strike—no alarms, no flares, no radio calls, and no abandon ship instructions came from the bridge. Nearly 500 men were left to fend for themselves. With one of their assigned boats already destroyed, the Marines were in a particularly tough spot. A corporal—possibly Floyd W. Jerkins, a pre-war enlistee—gave the frightened men advice, a warning, and an appeal in one sentence: “If you gotta go down, go down like Marines.”

Mickey McMillen found his way to another lifeboat.

“When we reached the water, no one could figure out how to release it from the lines. Then someone found a hatchet and used that to cut the lines at one end. While passing it to the other end, though, the hatchet was lost over the side. The issue with the lines became moot, however, as we also discovered that the boat was filling with water since no one had closed the seacock. As the waves lifted the boat, guys would jump out of the lifeboat and back onto the deck of the Mallory.

“I was still in the lifeboat when an object landed in the water next to me; I jumped to it. I did not land on it but did manage to grab hold of it and climb aboard. Once aboard, I realized that it was a life raft, and soon it began to rain men jumping from the Mallory. When morning came, I counted 22 people on board.”

Privates Pasinski, John Behun, and Joseph Biedenach jumped from McMillen’s boat back to the Mallory, then found another floating by. “There must have been 50 or 60 of us in that boat,” Pasinski said. “We were so overcrowded that the boat was low in the water, and waves kept washing in and filling up the boat even more.”

Lt Barrick watched in dismay as “the first raft they tossed overboard sank immediately … a crewman and I cut loose another raft lying on the deck. We couldn’t lift it, so we decided to let it float off. The ship was settling by this time and some waves were coming over the deck. A big wave finally washed us overboard. I think the raft got off easier than any other on the ship, although I had been afraid it would be swamped.” Barrick and 2ndLt Howard H. Fisher were the only Marine officers to survive the sinking.

The Mallory went down by the stern and vanished about 30 minutes after the torpedo hit. Hundreds of men now struggled in the icy water as the convoy sailed on, oblivious to their predicament. The Germans were still shooting; U-402 would score two more kills (Greek freighter Kalliopi and British merchant Newton Ash), while U-608 finished the damaged Daghild. Wolfpack Pfeil II sank 12 of the 61 ships in SC-118, with U-402 accounting for seven. Kapitänleutnant von Forstner was awarded a promotion and the Knight’s Cross for this feat. The loss of three U-boats and the severe damage of several more led German Admiral Karl Dönitz to deem SC-118 “perhaps the hardest convoy battle of the war.”

None of this mattered to the desperate survivors of the Mallory as they clung to boats, rafts, and debris in the dark. Private Horace Melton, the “old man” from North Carolina, spent 30 minutes in the water before reaching a lifeboat. “There were 18 of us aboard at first,” he said, “but the sea was dragging them off as fast as [their strength ran out] and the rest of us couldn’t do a thing about it.” Joseph McMillen struggled to stand upright on his raft. “Once during the night, I fell out, but a sailor pulled me back on,” he said. “He and I helped each other stay balanced all night.” The raft rode nearly a foot underwater, and the men were buffeted by continuous rain and sleet. Men turned on their red rescue lights, and Mallory cook George Dunningham thought “it looked like some weird, strange dream to see all those little red lights bobbing up and down.”

Snow and sleet blanketed poorly clad survivors already drenched to the skin in their thin clothing. Men hanging to the sides of boats and rafts gradually weakened; they lost their grip and drifted away to drown. Superhuman efforts saved many other lives. Father Gerald Whelan, a Navy chaplain, recalled the bravery of one Joe Reilly in keeping their lifeboat afloat. “We also had two poor Marines, legs broken, their faces damaged badly,” he recalled. “How they got into the boat I don’t know, but someone should have gotten the Soldier’s Medal for their rescue.” One of these Marines was probably Marvin Muehl, who suffered a fractured tibia in the explosion. The hours passed slowly; the sky began to lighten. There was little else to do but cling to faith, fast-dwindling hope, and anything that would float in the rough seas.

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Sixteen Mallory survivors balance on a life raft on the morning of Feb. 7, 1943. USCG.
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USCGC Bibb (WPG-31) at anchor during her World War II service. (USCG photo)
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CDR (later a vice admiral) Roy Livingston Raney of Salem, Ark., was captain of Bibb from December 1942 to January 1944. He received the Legion of Merit with combat “V” for meritorious service on Atlantic convoy duty. (USCG photo)
     Commander Roy Livingston Raney was determined to run down the submarines wreaking havoc on his convoy. Despite 40-knot winds and 15-foot swells, Raney took his vessel—the Coast Guard cutter (USCGC) Bibb—to investigate a possible contact. He found no Germans and was returning to SC-118 when a lookout reported red distress flares. Within 30 minutes, Bibb was recovering shocked and shivering survivors of the Henry R. Mallory. Raney’s report was the first concerning the loss of the Mallory, and he received a chilling response from the Escort Group Commander, CDR F.B. Proudfoot (RN): do not stop for any reason. Raney deliberately disobeyed. “The sea is alive with men,” he said, “and we have to go get them.”

 

To the men afloat, the modest Bibb was a wonderful sight, “The most beautiful ship in the whole world,” in George Dunningham’s opinion. “I can’t tell you how wonderful she looked.” Raney maneuvered the cutter “like a New York taxi” to block the worst of the wind, and exhausted survivors were hauled aboard with ropes under their arms. Muehl and McMillen both came aboard in such fashion; Muehl was rushed to sick bay, while McMillen went to the boiler room to dry out and sample his first-ever cup of black coffee. Private Melton, “almost dead of cold, fatigue, and exposure,” was hauled aboard the Bibb; he was one of only six men on his raft to survive.

Coast Guardsmen not directly involved with the rescue stared in horror at the scene before their eyes. “We drove right through masses of humans. Each one wore a red light on his life jacket on the left side,” said one. “I saw men bare from the waist up,” said another. “They were dead, of course. They were purple; we couldn’t do anything for them.” Rafts full of motionless bodies were searched, and Coasties pulled dog tags from lifeless men. Second Lieutenant Harry Hobbins was the only Marine identified in this manner; he “died on a raft at sea of wounds received in action.” The Bibb had neither time nor space to bring bodies aboard, and Hobbins joined hundreds of shipmates on the bottom of the Atlantic.

Wally Cudlipp, a Bibb crewman, remembered seeing a Marine clinging to a floating door. “Our skipper, Captain Raney, said ‘I want to rescue that man if we don’t rescue another one. He really wants to live. Let’s get him.’ So, I jumped in a raft with a few other guys, and we starter to lower it when somebody hollered ‘Periscope!’” The lone cutter was a tempting target for any German submarines still lurking in the area, and Bibb—first and foremost an escort vessel—suspended rescue operations to give chase. In this case, a lookout mistook the mast of a lifeboat for a periscope. Bibb returned to her work, but the short delay was fatal to some. “When we came back to pick this Marine up, he had slipped under,” Cudlipp concluded.

Help arrived in the form of USCGC Ingham and Royal Navy corvettes Campanula and Mignonette. While the corvettes provided cover, Ingham moved slowly through the water searching for signs of life. “The ocean was covered with litter and dead soldiers,” said one of Ingham’s crew. “They had their life jackets on, and they’d float up and down with the waves.” The escort commander repeatedly called Bibb to rejoin the convoy; Raney responded with a curt “Go to hell. We’re not leaving here until we get every man in the water.” After hours of effort, Bibb rescued 202 men and Mallory’s dog, Ricky. Ingham picked up 20, and the British ships four each. Astonishingly, later that same day Bibb rescued another 32 sailors from Kalliopi. Crammed to the bulkheads with nearly 540 men aboard, the cutter resumed her place with the convoy, screening for submarines.

Despite the efforts of medical person­nel, five Mallory men died of wounds and were buried at sea. Private John William Miller, Jr., a 30-year-old Marine from Highland Park, Pa., was among them. In keeping with naval tradition, each man was sewn into a canvas sack weighted with a 5-inch shell and was committed to the deep after a brief service. Like many other Marines on Mallory, Miller had been in uniform for less than three months.

The Iceland-bound ships finally arrived in Reykjavik on Feb. 14, and the survivors gratefully stood on dry land once more. Of nearly 500 men who left New York on the Henry R. Mallory, only 230 sur­vived the convoy ordeal. Thirty Marines were lost, including Lieutenants Hobbins and Wolfe, the experienced Sergeant Yanek, the reformed conman Arthur Bennett, and 17-year-old Martin Finn. Several others were hospitalized for broken bones, frostbite, shock, and mental ob­ser­vation. Private Marvin Muehl’s fractured leg was a ticket home for a disability discharge, as were Private Melton’s numerous injuries and those of six other Marines.

Those fit for duty were soon integrated into the Marine Detachment at NOBI and began a blessedly uneventful 12-month tour. On Feb. 1, 1944, the number of Ma­rines in Iceland was cut in half, and the Mallory survivors were among the contingent ordered back to the United States. A few would see combat in the Pacific, and some went on to long careers; Barrick and Sullivan both retired as colonels. For the most part, those who escaped the Mallory—men like John Stott, Stanley Pasinski, Gerald Moyer, and Joseph McMillen—served out the rest of their time Stateside and rarely spoke of their wartime experiences.

Today, the names of the 30 Marines lost with the Henry R. Mallory are inscribed at the Cambridge American Cemetery in Coton, England—the only such memorial for Marines lost in the Atlantic.

U-402 was destroyed by aircraft from the USS Card on Oct. 13, 1943. She went down with all hands, including 33-year-old Sigfried von Forstner.

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Pennsylvania Marines at “Sandbag Terrace,” NOB Reykjavik, in October 1943. Among them are Mallory survivors Joseph J. Biedenbach, far left, Stanley A. Pasinski, second from right, and John E. Stott far right. COURTESY OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES.
Marines lost with Henry R. Mallory
Ahart, Joseph

Private, Paterson, N.J.
Albaugh, Roscoe Harrison
Private, Akron, Ohio
Bennett, Arthur Abraham
Private, New York, N.Y.
Buono, Joseph Alfred
Private, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Cobb, Edward Charles
Private, Cincinnati, Ohio
Dunfee, George Donald
Private, Belmont, Ohio
Eaton, Melville Bates
Private, Watertown, Mass.
Famularo, Lawrence William
Private, Oswego, N.Y.
Finn, Martin Christopher
Private, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Frye, Elmer Muncie
Private, Greensboro, N.C.
Gehret, Harry Eugene
Private, Philadelphia, Pa.
Heckathorn, Boyd Wesley
Private, Findlay, Ohio
Hobbins, Harry Mears, Jr.
Second Lieutenant, Oak Park, Ill.
Hunt, Edwin Lester
Private, Kingston, Ohio
Jenkins, Willie Edison
Private, First Class, Wylam, Ala.
Jennings, James Robert III
Private, Spartanburg, S.C.
Jerkins, Floyd Willard
Corporal, Tampa, Fla.
King, Robert David
Private, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Laibman, Alvin
Private, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Lott, Lawrence Allen
Private, McKeesport, Pa.
Maujer, Joseph Henry
Private, Richmond Hill, N.Y.
Miller, John William, Jr.
Private, Highland Park, Pa.
Potts, William Raymond
Private, Bridgton, Maine
Roach, William Reges
Private, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Rogowski, Harry John
Private, Buffalo, N.Y.
Sopp, John Frederick
Private, Erie, Pa.
Surina, Stephen Anthony
Private, Jamesville, NY
Weaver, David McClain
Private, South Fork, Pa.
Wolfe, Paul Wilson
First Lieutenant (posthumous),
Marshalltown, Iowa
Yanek, George Andrew
Sergeant, Youngstown, Ohio

For more information and pictures of the Marines who were lost, visit: www.missingmarines.com.

Author’s bio: Geoffrey W. Roecker is a frequent contributor to Leatherneck and is the author of “Leaving Mac Behind: The Lost Marines of Guadalcanal.” His extensive research into missing World War II-era personnel is available online at www.missingmarines.com.

A Knife in a Gunfight: The Marine Who Defied All Odds in Vietnam

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 James Stogner received the Navy Cross on April 5, 2019. The ceremony in Polson, Mont., took place on the 52nd anniversary of his heroic actions in Vietnam.

Lance Corporal James Stogner tiptoed across the open rice paddy. Darkness veiled the crop of thatch-roofed huts behind a tree line at the paddy’s edge. The setting sun vanished, fleeing with every perceivable trace of light on its heels. James fumbled with the plastic rifle in his hands, feeling for the selector switch. He clicked it down from safe to semi-auto. One more click brought his weapon into full automatic. Eli stood only yards away but was nowhere in sight. How were they supposed to get their machine gun up quickly? A muffled hush sped up the line of Marines strung out to his left. The whispered order skipped past James and continued down the line.

“Fix bayonets!”

Fix bayonets? James didn’t even have a bayonet for his new rifle. The Ka-Bar knife hanging at his side would not attach. What kind of cluster f— were they getting into?

The paddy appeared less than 100 yards wide in the twilight, but an eternity passed creeping on line through the darkness. Time halted when an artillery round raced through the sky.

“Aww shit.”

James and every other combat vet from 1st Battalion, 9th Marines immediately recognized the telltale sound. It was not the high explosives they hoped would plaster the village in the tree line. Instead, the sound heralded an incoming illumination round. James squatted in the dirt and raised his rifle. The illumination popped overhead, bathing the paddy in 450,000 candle power of eerie yellow light. An officer screamed at the top of his lungs as chaos erupted across the field.

“GUNS UP!!!”

Less than two years earlier, James arrived at Parris Island on the morning of his 17th birthday. He trained as a recoilless rifle gunner following boot camp, then received orders to Vietnam. He arrived on Okinawa with a large batch of fresh troops in October 1966. The battalion recently pulled out of Vietnam, and as he toured the spaces of his new unit, “Charlie” Company, 1/9, he immediately picked out the combat-hardened veterans who had been in country. There were so few of them. James could not have known the battalion was virtually half the size it had been when it arrived in Vietnam the month before he stood on the yellow footprints.

1/9 had lost their first KIA three days after landing in Vietnam. Things only got worse from there. Rumor had it that 1/9 killed Ho Chi Minh’s nephew, and he swore vengeance. Marines heard an entire North Vietnamese Army division was specifically assigned the task of annihilating 1/9. In 16 months of continual combat, the battalion suffered more than 120 KIA, and many times that wounded. Someone christened the Marines, “The Walking Dead.” The haunting nickname stuck. The survivors returned to Okinawa in October 1966 to regroup.

James located a senior enlisted Marine to learn where 1st Platoon was housed. The Marine informed James that he was being reclassified as a machine gunner and assigned him to a gun team. James searched out his squad and introduced himself to his team leader, Lance Corporal Elijah Fobbs.

Eli had joined 1/9 while the battalion was still in country. Despite graduating boot camp several months after James, and holding the same rank, Eli was a machine gunner by trade with experience that earned his spot as the team leader. James bonded easily with Eli when he learned they shared the same home state. Eli spoke with a thick Southern accent. His signature Georgia drawl proved nearly unintelligible to a Yankee. To James, however, Eli sounded like home.

Without formal schooling on the M60 medium machine gun, James assumed the duties of the ammo humper. Stand­ing over 6 feet tall and weighing less than 140 pounds, the extra 800 rounds of belted ammo and tripod draped over James nearly obscured his slight frame. After two months of waiting, he packed his gear and prepared to go into combat.

The Walking Dead returned to Vietnam in January 1967 and hustled north toward the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The battalion’s luck remained unchanged as casualties mounted in the first three months in country. James rapidly evolved into a combat-hardened veteran; he survived more firefights than he could count.

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18-year-old James Stogner (above), and 19-year-old
Elijah Fobbs (below), prior to deploying to combat in Vietnam. They were assigned to the same machine-gun team with Charlie Co, 1st Bn, 9th Marines.

Photos courtesy of Linda Brown.

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On March 24, Charlie Co swept through the village of Phu An. James’ platoon ran into an ambush and the Marines dropped down to open fire. Eli’s shouts for more ammo rose above the din of rounds zipping over James’ head. He ran toward Eli’s blazing M60. His feet tangled in barbed wire, and he toppled down. As James threw an ammo belt toward Eli, a grenade ex­ploded nearby. Shrapnel peppered the back of his legs and butt. After the Marines finally fought through the ambush, a corpsman patched up James’ wounds and sent him back to the line. A medevac was deemed unnecessary for James’ first Purple Heart.

The battalion returned to the rear on March 28. Because of attrition, Sergeant Dave Mullins was assigned as the section leader over Eli’s gun team. Mullins was instructed to have his Marines report to the armory and hand in their M14 rifles. When James reached the front of the line, he hesitantly turned over his beloved weapon. In exchange, he received a black, plastic toy.

“What the hell is this?”

“That’s the new M16,” replied the armorer. “They say it’s space-age technology. The bullet is smaller, but hits harder.”

Every third Marine given the rifle also received a cleaning rod. The armorers explained they did not have enough for everyone. Supposedly, the rifles were self-cleaning, and the kits should not be necessary.

Mullins led his section to a nearby trash dump for familiarization firing. Instructors passed each Marine two full magazines. James fiddled with the rifle, then burned through the ammo in seconds. The introduction to his new weapon would have to suffice. No further range time was afforded to test the rifles or train the Marines.

Less than a week later, The Walking Dead moved out again on Operation Big Horn.

James donned his M16, 12 full magazines, three full canteens, 800 rounds of machine-gun ammo, tripod, pack, flak jacket, helmet, first aid kit, and Ka-Bar. He stuffed his cargo pockets full of C-rations, then fell in behind Eli. By now, the burden was second nature to him. Over three months of combat took a toll, whittling nearly 30 pounds off James’ already slender frame.

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An M76 Otter resupply vehicle in Vietnam. These tracked vehicles were employed often when weather or other factors prevented helicopters from carrying out the re­supply mission.
     Co C started walking in the afternoon on April 4 and did not stop until nearly dawn the following morning. At first light, the operation officially commenced. The Walking Dead swept through their area of operation seeking contact with an estimated battalion of North Vietnamese Army soldiers.

 

The day proved uneventful for Charlie Co. After finding and destroying several mines, the Marines dropped their packs and set up a perimeter. The sun dipped low in the sky as two M76 Otters rolled into the position. The Marines welcomed the chow and ammo that the resupply vehicles carried. James sat on his pack and opened a container of C-rations as the Otters cranked to life and sped off.

A commotion in the distance swiveled the head of every Marine as they cooked their rations. Small arms and machine-gun fire erupted somewhere out of sight. The cacophony rose in the direction that the resupply vehicles had taken away from Charlie’s perimeter. Sgt Mullins suddenly appeared.

“Eli, get your gun crew up and ready to move out. The Otters got ambushed and we’re going to help them. Leave your packs, just grab your guns. We need to move now.”

James shoveled another bite of food in his mouth, then gathered his gear. Co C stepped off in the direction of the gun fire. Several clicks away, the resupply convoy was taking a beating from a large NVA force. Marines fought back with M16s and a single .50-caliber machine gun mounted to the top of one vehicle. The NVA disabled one Otter, wounded eight Marines, and killed two. Rather than surrounding and eliminating the resupply vehicles, the NVA mysteriously melted away before reinforcements arrived.

The grunts double-timed to reach the Otters. The gunfight abruptly ceased somewhere still in the distance. The vehicles backed into a tall ditch for cover. When they came into sight, Charlie Co surrounded the ditch with rifles at the ready.

“God, are we glad to see you guys!” shouted one of the resupply Marines to Charlie Co as they ran by. “I’m almost out of ammo!”

“You guys got any cleaning rods?” called another. “These damned M16s are all jammed up!”

“We don’t have cleaning rods either!” a grunt shouted as he hit the deck near the ditch and scanned his field of fire. “What the hell happened?”

“They ambushed us! They took off toward that village over there! There’s a bunch of them!”

The Marine pointed across a large, dried-up rice paddy toward a small village nestled behind a tree line. James knelt over his rifle and took it all in. More than 50 yards of open ground spanned the gap between the ditch and the tree line. Small clumps of brush popped up here and there, but the terrain offered zero cover outside the ditch where the resupply vehicles took shelter.

Captain Reed, the Charlie Co commander, called his command group and unit leaders together. Sgt Mullins joined the meeting to hear the captain’s plan. In order to secure the area and medevac the wounded resupply crew, 1st and 2nd platoons would sweep on line across the rice paddy toward the village. Third platoon would remain in reserve in the ditch. The command group’s artillery forward observer (FO) recommended the village be pummeled with high-explosive rounds before they swept through. Reed refused the request. Further argument by the FO failed to change the captain’s mind. Reed organized his command group in line with the advancing platoons.

James set off less than 20 yards away from Eli. Pitch black darkness enveloped the rice paddy as they advanced. No moon or stars pierced the overcast sky. No ambient light reflected.

“It was truly the darkest dark I have ever seen in my life,” remembered Mullins. “I haven’t seen anything like it before or since.”

The hushed order to fix bayonets jacked up James’s heart rate, rushing blood through his veins and ringing in his ears. The artillery illumination round shrieked in overhead. Twenty yards away from James, another of his friends, LCpl Ted Van Meeteren, recognized the sound and dropped to a knee. The flare popped and yellow light flooded the rice paddy. Before his eyes adjusted, Van Meeteren heard a terrible rushing sound, getting louder and louder. He felt the heat as a rocket propelled grenade whizzed past his head and detonated in the paddy behind him. Light revealed the village, now less than 20 yards away. Captain Reed and the command group were bunched up in front of Van Meeteren. The captain yelled, “Guns up!” and sprinted towards the tree line as muzzle flashes appeared across their entire front.

An NVA soldier sprung out of a spider hole directly in front of the command group. He unloaded an entire magazine as he worked his way down the line, dropping one Marine after another. Van Meeteren watched in horror as his entire company command was wiped out in seconds. Steel pot helmets shot from heads and flew through the air. Shreds of flesh and flak jacket showered down around him. The newest member of Van Meeteren’s fire team, with only five days in country, stood nearby like a deer the headlights. Bullets passing through the command group struck him in the head, killing him instantly.

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Elijah Fobbs (above) at his home, later in life. Eli survived his tour in Vietnam as a machine gunner with the “Walking Dead,” leading a gun team like the one pictured below, with their M60 against an unseen enemy in early 1967. From his time in combat, Eli earned three Purple Hearts, and eventually, the Prisoner of War Medal. (Above photo by Linda Brown) (Photo below by USMC)

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Van Meeteren shouldered his M16 and fired at the muzzle flashes coming from the village. His second round failed to eject, and the following round crammed the spent casing back into the chamber. He jabbed his fingers through the ejection port, struggling in vain to claw out the stuck brass. If only he had a damn cleaning rod to punch it out. He inched his body lower. Around the rice paddy, Van Meeteren witnessed several Marines with cleaning rods attempting to use them. They lay on the ground jamming the rods down the barrels of their M16s. It looked like a scene from the Revolutionary War; them fighting with muzzle-loaded single shots, while the NVA chewed them to pieces with machine guns. Some of the Marines’ M60s fired up in response. Green and red tracers crisscrossed all around Van Meeteren and over his head.
“It was just a madhouse,” Van Meeteren reflected. “The only way I can describe it is like a shootout in your bedroom with a couple hundred guys.”

When the flare popped overhead, James raised his M16, ready for whatever the light might reveal. One moment, absolute darkness surrounded him. An instant later, three NVA soldiers appeared, standing right in front of him. Were they lost? Were they coming out of the tree line to meet the Marines in the open? James squeezed the trigger. All three fell dead before his magazine ran empty. His brain caught up with his instinct and processed the utter chaos surrounding him. Eli opened up with the M60 a few yards away. Barely seconds after the lights came on, an overwhelming volume of fire swelled across the field. Dead and dying Marines lay everywhere, intermingled with dead and dying NVA.

James located a fresh magazine and ejected the spent one. AK-47 bullets snapped past his head. Suddenly, his rifle bucked from his hands and smashed into his face, knocking James onto his back. When the daze wore off, James brought his hands to his face. Blood rushed from his disfigured nose. He found his rifle on the ground and tried again to insert the new magazine. Two enemy bullets had stuck the rifle and destroyed the magazine well. It was completely useless.

The flare burned out and darkness ruled the night once more. Eli maintained an insane rate of fire. His barrel glowed red hot, the brightest light in the darkness. James scoured the ground for a weapon to replace his destroyed M16. He had no luck. He unsheathed his Ka-Bar and held it ready. Shadows rose and passed all around. Were they Marines? More NVA? No way to tell. Any time shots rang out, a shower of NVA grenades followed. In the pauses between Eli’s fire, screams filled the void. Wounded men lay across the field, crying for a corpsman and screaming in pain. At some point, James realized Eli’s gun had gone silent.

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James Stogner and Elijah Fobbs at a 1/9 reunion in Wilmington, N.C., in 2014. The reunion group also attended the deactivation ceremony of their battalion on Camp Lejeune. (Photo courtesy of James Stogner.)

Van Meeteren hunkered down be­neath the tracer rounds, explosions, and screams filling the air. A muffled sound stirred the dirt in front of him.

“They’re dead! They’re all dead!”

The company radioman dragged himself through the rice paddy, dazed and severely wounded. Van Meeteren was shocked to see him alive, believing he had been killed with Captain Reed and the remainder of the command group. He intercepted the radioman and assisted him to the ditch where a casualty collection point formed. Van Meeteren turned around and ran back through the darkness. Out of nowhere, he collided head on with another person running in the opposite direction. Van Meeteren stumbled and fell. The other person toppled hard to the ground behind him. Should he say something? What if it was an enemy soldier? Without exchanging a single word or shot, both combatants rose and sprinted in opposite directions.

Van Meeteren ran until he came across a large bush. He crawled inside and silently waited out his adrenaline high. Suddenly, more footsteps approached. Two people entered the bush with him. Van Meeteren’s heart raced. He had come a long way, close to where the remainder of his squad should be. These must be more Marines. He inhaled to whisper to his squad mates. His drawing breath picked up the scent of rotten fish. Van Meeteren had smelled it plenty of times before, always on dead NVA. It was the damn sauce they put on their rice. A quick flash of light illuminated the bush. The unmistakable front sight post of an AK-47 hung in the air 6 inches in front of Van Meeteren’s face, angled away and down toward the ground. The image seared in his vision as the darkness returned. Before he could decide what to do, the two NVA soldiers whispered something back and forth, then shot out of the bush in another direction. Van Meeteren silently cursed the night and moved to locate the rest of his squad.

James remained in place, Ka-Bar in hand. Shadows passed around in the darkness. The intense firing ceased. Several yards away, a wounded Marine moaned and struggled in pain.

“No, no, no!!”

A single shot rang out. The Marine went silent. Muffled Vietnamese chatter accompanied the rustle of gear and weapons.

“Jesus, they’re executing the wounded.”

Heavy, gear-laden footsteps departed toward the village. Another NVA soldier remained in the paddy, moving closer. Another single shot pierced the dark. James flinched so hard he feared the enemy soldier would hear. Sweat trickled down his brow as rage swelled inside. He squeezed the Ka-Bar hard. Steps came near. The madness had to end.

James coiled like a snake preparing to strike. He latched onto the passing enemy soldier. His left hand felt around in the darkness. An arm. A chest. The softer stomach. His right hand followed with the blade, slashing and stabbing wherever it landed. It ended in seconds. James lay on the ground next to the body. He could not see the results of his action, but the rich smell of blood filled his nose. Another shot rang out. James crawled toward it. More unintelligible chatter and footsteps approached. One soldier came close. James dragged the enemy to the ground and plunged the Ka-Bar into him. When the scuffle ended, James heard rapid footsteps carrying away the other enemy soldier.

Periodic shots continued in the dark. Any time an American weapon went off, the NVA followed with grenades. More footsteps suddenly approached. More chatter. The smell of rotten fish. James prepared to launch. He grabbed the NVA soldier’s leg as he passed, wrestled him to the ground, and stabbed him to death. When he was sure the soldier was dead, James crawled away. Tracers passed overhead. An M16 went off several yards away. As soon as it stopped, grenades exploded. James crawled further. Moans and screams from the wounded filled his ears.

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Dave Mullins and Eli Fobbs sit in the front row at James Stogner’s award ceremony on April 5, 2019, listening to an account of the events they experienced in Vietnam 52 years earlier. Photo courtesy of Sgt Warren Smith, USMC

“Stogner! Stogner!”

James froze in the dirt. Were his ears tricking him? Was someone yelling his name?

“Stogner!

STTTOOOOOOGGGGGGGNNNNNNNNNEEERRRRRRRRR!”

The shouts came from the rear toward the ditch. Through all the chaos, why would someone be calling for him? Somebody must have cracked.

“Where are you?? Stogner! Stogner!!”

“WHAT??” James screamed.

“What’s goin’ on out there?”

“I’M FIGHTING A F—ING WAR!!!”

The outburst exploded from James’s mouth before he could suppress it. Had he cracked? It was the most screwed up night in a screwed up war that he’d ever seen. How would any of them survive? A dull thud hit the ground in front of him. James rolled away as the grenade exploded. Everything turned silent and black.

When he came to, James had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. A splitting headache raged from the grenade’s concussion. His hand still clutched the Ka-Bar. Periodic screams and gunfire still filled the air. As the daze wore off, something different rose above the din.

“F— you, ya’ son of a bitch! I’ll kill you, bastard!”

A long, intense scream followed the curses. More profanities followed, and more screams after that. James immediately recognized the southern drawl. It was Eli. His screams emerged from the village. James crawled closer. He came across Eli’s assistant machine gunner, lying wounded where their gun went down.

“They took Eli and the gun!”

Eli’s screams echoed louder. James witnessed the NVA executing Marines in the rice paddy. Why did they carry Eli away and keep him alive? This night contained enough horrors. James refused to accept his friend being tortured.

“I’m going after Eli. If I don’t come back, I love ya’.”

James crawled through the tree line into the village. In a dim light, he saw Eli on the ground. Four NVA stood over him. Two soldiers yelled at Eli. He yelled back as loud as he could until one of the soldiers kicked him. Another grabbed a stick and jabbed it into a large, bloody hole in Eli’s leg. Eli screamed louder. The soldier left the stick protruding from the wound, grabbed another, and stabbed into more open wounds.

“They were screaming at me and the only thing I could do was curse and holler, curse and holler,” Eli later recalled of that night. “All the sudden, Stogner come in like a wild man and went to cuttin’. I don’t know how he did it. All I know? Out of four of ’em, four of ’em dead,” he said.

One of the soldiers walked away from the group, directly toward the bush where James hid from sight. When he approached, James snatched the NVA into the bush and cut open his throat. A second enemy soldier inexplicably followed in the same direction. James silently dispatched him alongside the first. The final two enemy remained over Eli, toying with him. James erupted. No training could prepare someone for this. He charged from the bush, covered in blood.

“AAAAAARRRHHHHHHH!”

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From left to right, Ted Van Meeteren, Elijah Fobbs, and James Stogner, in 2021 at a ceremony presenting Eli with the Prisoner of War Medal. Linda Brown, (not pictured) who was also in attendance at the ceremony, helped Stogner receive his belated Navy Cross and fought long and hard on behalf of Eli to obtain the POW medal for his period of captivity on April 5, 1967. Photo courtesy of Linda Brown.
     His war cry drowned out all the gunfire, grenades, and screams. Before the NVA knew what was happening, James pounced. The nearest soldier turned. James plunged the Ka-Bar into his chest. He yanked on the knife as the soldier fell, but the blade remained lodged in the soldier’s sternum. James let go and rushed the final enemy. He overpowered the soldier, wrapping his bare hands around the man’s neck. When the soldier stopped moving, James released his grip. He returned to the other dead NVA and retrieved his Ka-Bar, using his foot against the man’s chest to provide leverage. He scooped Eli up onto his shoulder, grabbed the stolen M60, and took off.

Tracers flew all around as a swell of fire from the village poured on. Grenades flung up the earth behind the two Marines as James outran their explosions. Miraculously, James pointed himself in the right direction before darting out of the village. Adrenaline carried him across the rice paddy. Another miracle spared him from getting shot by either the NVA or the Marines. James finally stumbled into the ditch.

“They took my gun! They took my gun!”

Eli repeated the words over and over as if he had not yet realized James rescued him and his machine gun. James handed off Eli, who received immediate medical treatment.

At some point, the night went quiet. Was everyone in the paddy dead? The NVA did not try to overrun the ditch. They must have pulled out. The first hint of dawn finally appeared. A thick ground fog, taller than a man, replaced the receding darkness.

“Alpha Company’s coming through, don’t shoot!”

James turned toward rustling footsteps. Marines appeared through the mist. They seemed an apparition, materializing from the fog. As they passed the ditch, they handed out ammo. Some Marines asked for cleaning rods, some for new rifles altogether.

Medevac choppers landed. James helped Eli aboard a chopper that whisked him away to a hospital ship. With a broken nose, concussion, and shrapnel wounds, James eventually boarded a medevac bound for a hospital in the rear. Chopper after chopper landed to evacuate the night’s casualties. Virtually all of James’s 1st Platoon lay dead or wounded. In total, 21 Marines died that night, and more than 30 were wounded.

Van Meeteren returned to the ditch when Alpha came through. The company gunny approached.

“Did you hear what Stogner did?”

“What do you mean?”

“He went out there and killed them with his knife.”

“Aw bullshit, Gunny, no way.”

“It’s true. Go out there and see for yourself. Start gathering up any gear left out there while you’re at it.”

He climbed the ditch and made his way back into the paddy. Bodies of Marines and NVA littered the ground. He came across an abandoned M16. A round was stuck in the chamber. Several yards away, another M16 lay partially disassembled with a cleaning rod stuffed down the barrel. He found the spot where he had been when the flare lit up the night. The rifle belonging to the new member of his fire team lay on the ground, still loaded. The Marine’s body was gone. His rifle was the only working M16 Van Meeteren found across the field. He never even had a chance to fire it.

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LtGen Frank Libutti, USMC (Ret), presented James Stogner with the Navy Cross on April 5, 2019, 52 years after his heroic actions. (Photo by Sgt Warren Smith, USMC)
     He came across the body of a dead NVA soldier. Quickly looking over the corpse, Van Meeteren discovered no wounds. Coming closer, he noticed a single stab wound through an eye socket. He kept walking. He found another enemy soldier, stabbed to death. When he entered the village, Alpha Co Marines were stacking bodies of the dead NVA.

“Hey, you guys find any that looked like they were killed with a knife?”

“Yeah, a couple over there looked like they were cut up pretty bad.”

Van Meeteren walked in the direction they pointed. He spotted two booted feet sticking out from under a bush. He grabbed each ankle and pulled. No wounds revealed themselves as he dragged the body into the open. When the head appeared, Van Meeteren saw two long gashes across the soldier’s throat. He paused.

“My God. Stogner really did this.”

Sgt Mullins walked the area checking on the survivors. Multiple Marines recounted pieces of James and Eli’s nightmare ordeal. Mullins was determined to get the story straight. He eventually gathered seven Marines, all painting the same picture; Stogner stopped the NVA who were executing the wounded and rescued Eli. Mullins decided James deserved some kind of award for his heroism. He drafted a citation on the side of a C-ration box and signed it alongside the seven Marines who corroborated the story. He gave the scrap of cardboard to an officer, who promptly dismissed the award as insignificant compared to the stacks of dead bodies he was trying to get off the field.

Unknown to Mullins, several days later, the officer stepped on a landmine, taking with him any hope for James’ award.

Following his recovery, James re­turned to the front lines. He did not return to The Walking Dead, however. Instead, the powers that be sent him to Lima Co, 3/26. He saw more combat with his new unit and finally left Viet­nam in October 1967. His family back in Georgia struggled to understand why the 19-year-old looked like a skeleton, weighing only 98 pounds. James kept quiet about the things he’d experienced. He decided there were things that “normal” people couldn’t handle and would not believe anyway. He reenlisted, serving three and a half years at Marine Barracks London. He spent his last year at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and left active duty in June 1973.

As with many Walking Dead veterans returning from Vietnam, James’s life-long battle with post-traumatic stress disorder began as soon as he came home.

“We came back from Vietnam, and we drank a lot. I guess we were trying to replace that adrenaline high,” James reflected. “There ain’t a drug in the world that compares to coming into a hot LZ on a CH-46. You never really get over PTSD. Certain sights, certain smells, just set it off.”

James struggled to maintain stability. He earned the rank of sergeant three times before he left active duty but lost his extra stripe each time for getting into some kind of fight. As a civilian, he cycled through as many as 10 jobs per year as symptoms of PTSD surfaced and drove him away or got him fired. He sought help from the VA while enduring his first divorce. He tried explaining to a doctor the things he’d seen and done. The white-coated man sat opposite James, listening, and taking notes.

“I understand exactly what you’re going through,” the doctor replied.

“You’ve been in combat?”

“Well, no.”

“Then you’ve been in the military, at least.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well then how the f— can you understand exactly what I’m going through?!”

Nearly 40 years passed until James finally reconnected with someone who could understand the events that changed his life. In 2006, James attended a Walking Dead reunion in Branson, Mo. Ted Van Meeteren also attended the reunion.

“Did you ever get your medal?” asked Van Meeteren.

“What medal?”

“For April 5th.”

“I got a Purple Heart, but that’s it.”

Following the reunion, Van Meeteren resolved to see James recognized for his heroism. He wrote up the paperwork for a Medal of Honor and submitted everything through his congressman.

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James Stogner spends time with his cousins at home shortly after returning from his tour in Vietnam in the 1960s.(Photo courtesy of James Stogner)

At the same time, James’ new-found reconnection inspired him. A year after the reunion, James finally located Eli. He still lived in Georgia. James called Eli and resumed their friendship as abruptly as it had ended in April 1967. Living in Texas at the time, James planned to visit Eli while en route to the next 1/9 reunion in Washington, D.C. Nearly three years later, in 2010, James and Eli embraced in Eli’s driveway. It was the first time James had seen Eli since he helped load him on the helicopter the morning after their night of hell.

While they reestablished their friendship, Van Meeteren was bogged down in the bureaucracy of military awards. He enlisted the help of Linda Brown, a former taxpayer advocate for the IRS, who singlehandedly cut through mountains of red tape. Together with Captain Wallace Dixon, Charlie Co’s executive officer in April 1967, and Lieutenant General Frank Libutti, a legendary Marine from Walking Dead lore, they continued fighting. The Marine Corps finally reached a decision on James’s award after a decade of delays. His recommended Medal of Honor was downgraded to the second highest medal for valor a Marine can achieve, the Navy Cross. On April 5, 2019, 52 years after his heroic actions, James finally received the formal recognition for his heroism. The ceremony took place in James’ home state of Montana.

“The award that Cpl Stogner will receive today is long overdue,” said U.S. Senator Steven Daines in his opening comments. “Anyone who knew Jim or heard about his story would agree that his actions deserved this high honor. Some might say that it should be made into a movie.”

Survivors from Charlie Co, includ­ing Eli, filled the front row to witness General Libutti present James with the Navy Cross. The ceremony ended with a final roll call, reading out the names of each Marine killed in action on April 5, 1967.

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LtGen Frank Libutti, left, pins the Navy Cross on James Stogner on April 5, 2019. (Photo by Sgt Warren Smith, USMC)
     In the years since James and Eli re­connected, they remained good friends. They spoke on the phone sev­eral times a week and met up at 1/9 reunions across the country.

“There ain’t a damn thing I won’t do for him, and I’ll kill anybody that messes with him, just like that,” Eli told the author in 2019. “You can be black, brown, blue, white, or whatever. Don’t mess with James Stogner! If it wasn’t for Stogner, I wouldn’t be here today.”

On May 26, 2022, Eli passed away in hospice care at the age of 75. James spoke with him a final time two days before Eli’s death. After his passing, James immediately made arrangements to attend the funeral. He couldn’t allow his brother to pass on without fellow leathernecks there to pay tribute. James packed his car and drove 2,500 miles one way from Montana back to Georgia. Several hundred people crowded the venue, including four other Walking Dead survivors. Eli’s family greeted them like guests of honor and asked James to provide the eulogy.

“I knew two Elis,” he began, looking at a photo of Eli in dress blues on the front of the funeral program. “He was the fiercest soul I ever met. He was a warrior, and the best machine gunner in Charlie Company.”

James flipped the program over, bringing into view a photograph of Eli later in life.

“The other Eli was the gentlest soul I ever met. He lived a good life. We were friends for over 50 years.”

The scars James and his brothers wear from Vietnam, visible and invisible, can only be truly shared with each other. April 5, 1967, proved just one night of hell among many for the Walking Dead. In nearly four years of con­tinual combat, the battalion suffered the highest killed-in-action rate of any battalion in Marine Corps history.

“Every year when those an­niver­sary dates come up, I know something is wrong,” reflected Dave Mullins. “It’s just something that doesn’t go away, something that’s hard to talk about. Most of these things are buried in my mind. I have to go back in and search all the doors to open them and let it out.”

Today, James stays close to the remaining survivors from the 1/9, attending reunions and keeping in touch over the phone regularly.

“The guys always joke with me now. They say I’m the only person they ever knew who took a knife to a gun fight and won. When my M16 got hit, all I had left was my Ka-Bar. I just did the best I could with what I had.”

Editor’s note: To read the history of the M16 and learn more about the problems that plagued the rifle in Vietnam, see “This is My Rifle: From the Hill Fights in Vietnam to Today: The History of the M16,” in the October 2021 issue of Leatherneck.

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The Illustrated Marine

A dichotomy of perception re­sounds today, as true as it has for decades. One group has al­ways viewed tattooed Marines as a stigma, a mark of the undisciplined or unprofessional. The opposing sect, perhaps inspired by the first, revered the Marine who was covered in ink. Many USMC veterans can look back at their time in the Corps and instantly remember their drill instructor or gunny or some other grizzled old warrior covered in tattoos, smoking a cigarette, and spitting dip into an empty beer bottle. In school circles, these Marines punctuated their wisdom with every profanity known to man, all the while teaching us something we would never forget about being a Marine. They were terrifying, inspiring, and made us strive to be the best we could possibly be.

Conflicting opinions on tattoos impacted many Marine careers over the last few decades. In spite of this, Marines and their tattoos continue telling stories. Policies or perception have deterred few who wanted a tattoo. Quite the contrary, Marines seem even more proud of their ink.

Adam Krick is one of these proudly tattooed Marines. He returned home from his first deployment to Iraq in February 2005. He and the other veterans of 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines enjoyed the bonds they formed in combat. Krick knew the experience would stick with him forever, and he wanted to memorialize it. He walked into a tattoo parlor outside the gates of Camp Lejeune and considered his options. A lot of guys went with the eagle, globe and anchor. Krick liked that idea, but instead selected a less traditional “tat.”

In Iraq, Krick had humped around a medium machine gun. He loved it, and he loved the camaraderie he shared with his fellow 0331s. As he sat down in the tattoo parlor, Krick presented a photograph of an M240G straight from the machine gunner’s training manual. He told the artist to draw the gun on his forearm as large as possible. The end result, stretching from wrist to elbow, left Krick looking unique among his peers.

“After that, I figured I couldn’t just do one because machine guns are always deployed in pairs,” Krick recalled. “I went back and got another 240 on the other arm to match.”

On leave at his home in Pennsylvania, Krick followed up his pair of tattoos with a traditional eagle, globe and anchor on his bicep. He returned to Camp Lejeune full of pride.

“Back then, obnoxious moto tats about your MOS weren’t really a thing yet, so I got ridiculed pretty hard by my senior enlisted.”

Krick joined his company in formation one day when the company gunnery sergeant called him to the front. The gunny made Krick raise his arms above his head, putting his 240s on display. After berating Krick in front of his peers, the gunny forced him to demonstrate “talking guns” with his inked weapons. He struggled to contain his laughter as he alternated arms boxing the air, making machine gun sounds with each punch.

The experience served only to make Krick prouder of his tattoos, and he continued adding ink to his collection. At the same time, the Marine Corps revised its policy on tattoos. In 2007, while back in Iraq on his second deployment, Krick learned that tattoos on the forearm were no longer allowed. In order to avoid disciplinary action, his 240s needed to be photographed, added to his Service Record Book, and “grandfathered” into the new policy. While still in country, manning a remote traffic control point in Rutbah, Iraq, a senior Marine photographed Krick’s tattoos on a company camera.

Multiple times before Krick’s experience in 2007, and numerous times since, the Marine Corps changed its stance on “acceptable” tattoos. Ink on skin has always carried some associa­tion with an unprofessional appearance.

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HM1 Jerry Ostrem with Marines in Vietnam during Operation Oklahoma Hills in 1969. Of his multiple tattoos, the large, fully rigged sailing ship riding the waves across his chest stands out. (USMC photo)
Robert Ham, a former machine gunner with 1st Bn, 3rd Marines, recently added this new ink to his collection, celebrating his time as an 0331 from 2014-2018. (Photo courtesy of Robert Ham)

 

“It appears that the newer generation [of Marines] has taken to eccentric appearances of the popular culture,” stated one Marine officer amid a major tattoo policy change. “The new policy sends a message to all Marines that this type of behavior does not fit into the conservative image the Marine Corps wants to project.”

Although this quote might easily be confused with sentiments from present day, the officer made these comments more than 25 years ago in May 1996. It is also curious that the policy implemented back then proved more lenient than today’s policy, prohibiting tattoos on the neck and head only.

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Radioman Francis Comer, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, waiting for a helicopter in 1968. Visible on his right arm is his bulldog head tattoo.

 

Regulations have come full circle over the last two decades. In 2007, the Corps instituted additional restric­tions, outlawing sleeve tattoos. Marines like Adam Krick were grandfathered into this new policy, but still faced potential road­blocks to their career development. These restrictions were spelled out in 2010 through an official policy “amplification.” Any en­listed Marine with sleeve tattoos, even those grandfathered, became ineligible for officer and warrant officer commissioning pro­grams. Additionally, these Marines, regard­less of service record or fitness reports, were barred from billets such as recruiting, drill instructor, and Marine security guard.

The changes met backlash. Some could not reconcile the Corps’ desire to preserve a traditional appearance with the impact these decisions had on many within the ranks. One 2007 opinion piece in Marine Corps Gazette presented the opposition argument crystal clear.

“The amount of ink a Marine sports isn’t indicative of maturity level; behavior is… To me, there is no uniformity in a nontattooed, poorly behaved Marine dragging his peers to his bottom-feeding level. I’d prefer the illustrated man who is motivated, dedicated, and educated to lead America’s finest fighting force.”

A more forceful opinion article appeared in the Marine Corps Gazette in 2015.
“The current tattoo policy is a blanket doctrine that is often misused to prevent the professional advancement of a warrior … How is this strengthening the fabric of our Corps? Often, these exemplary Marines become so disgruntled that they choose instead to exit active service and leave the occupational field, depriving the Corps of leadership and experience, all because the Marine is not afforded the chance to progress based on a few tattoos.”

The Corps’ leadership began changing regulations in 2016 with Marine Corps Bulletin 1020. More tattoos were approved for more body parts but determining if your ink fit the criteria proved arduous. The 32-page document covered every inch of skin, detailing the new directive in excess. Photographs, body diagrams, and measuring instructions specific to each body part filled the pages. The bulletin even contained official USMC printable tattoo measuring tools. Marines were supposed to print the device themselves, cut it out, and utilize it over their knees and elbows. No detail remained unspecified, lest any computer illiterate Marines venture into the agonizing task. A full page outlined formatting and printing instructions, complete with diagrams, screenshots, and color photographs demonstrating how to cut along the dotted lines. Perhaps a Marine deciphering his career prospects through a free printable held against his body would have found it more humorous if the photos at least featured crayons.

Robert Ham enlisted under these policies, but routinely entered unfazed into tattoo parlors stateside, in Hawaii, and in Korea. He served as a machine gunner with 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines from 2014 to 2018. He walked away with multiple tattoos commemorating parts of his time on active duty.

“My whole platoon got a pineapple grenade as an ode to the Hawaii Marine Corps,” Ham recalled. “Setting your own headspace and timing was becoming a lost art, so all the machine gunners got a headspace and timing gauge. A bunch of us got a pirate flag at infantry school. Fresh out of boot camp, I got my typical moto tat, ‘Semper Fidelis’ on my ribs.”

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Former 0331 Robert Ham wears numerous tattoos in memory of his time in the Corps. This pineapple grenade serves as an ode to his tour in Hawaii. Photo courtesy of Robert Ham

Ham collected more tattoos, each one drawing up a memory and story from his time in the infantry. He started a sleeve on his left forearm while on active duty, but due to the tattoo policy at the time, waited until he left the Marines in 2018 to finish it. Now a professional firefighter in Virginia, Ham continues inking his body with tributes to his new squad, his wife and his children.

“I think a lot of people love the idea of the Marine Corps and what it stands for, but once you’re in, it can be a little frustrating. A lot of guys talk negatively about their time in the Marine Corps, but still come away with tattoos. That’s because of the bonds you make, sitting on field ops for days on end with all the wild and crazy conversations, just being with your boys.”

Current tattoo guidance evolved in October 2021. An official review determined the old regulations, “were believed to have an adverse effect on retention and recruiting efforts.” The new message came refreshingly clear and simple; “Marines may have tattoos on any area of the body, excluding the head, neck, and hands in accordance with this Bulletin.”
Exceptions and potential career implications still exist. The content of a Marine’s tattoos will be scrutinized more thoroughly. Even so, in general, if a Marine today wants ink, he or she can get it.

Every policy change across time spawned from the same motive; the Corps has a responsibility to maintain a disciplined and professional appearance. In his updated bulletin of last year, however, the Commandant expressed a judicious observation.
“This Bulletin ensures that the Marine Corps maintains its ties to the society it represents.”

What is the definition of a disciplined and professional appearance? It appears the Marine Corps has remained firmly committed to this philosophy. The society it serves must have changed. A traditional appearance might no longer be equated to a professional appearance. A person’s level of discipline might no longer be measured, in part, by the amount of ink on their skin.

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Published in 2016, this official graphic (above) depicts approved tattoo sizes and locations. Confusing? The updated 2021 graphic (below) simplified the message. (USMC Illustrations)

Regardless of shifts in policy or society, Marines continue getting tattoos. They desire to display their individual experiences; the things for which they are most proud or most impacted. Vinyl stickers splashed across a vehicle or bedazzling a Yeti water bottle can only go so far. What can be more powerful than inking your own canvas of skin?

Though tattoos may be greater in number and variety, their significance to Marines remains unchanged. Captain Robert Asprey, a World War I veteran of Belleau Wood, affectionately remembered his drill instructors as, “the tall, straight, mustached professionals who dressed their pride in gaudy blue uniforms, decorated their bodies with salty tattoos, fed their thirst with chewing tobacco, frequently dipped snuff, assuaged fatigue with whiskey, cursed with the metric vigor of Kipling … and knew everything there was to know about the Springfield .03 rifle.”

Some of the most famous Marines to wear the uniform proudly bore their ink.

“I selected an enormous Marine Corps emblem to be tattooed across my chest,” stated Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor recipient and legendary Marine general. “It required several sittings, and hurt like the devil, but the finished product was worth the pain. I blazed triumphantly forth, a Marine from throat to waist. The emblem is still with me. Nothing on earth but skinning will remove it.”

Another Medal of Honor recipient, John Basilone, inspired generations of Marines with his tattoos. He sported a cowgirl pinup on one bicep. The other arm bore a popular military tattoo, a dagger plunged through a heart and wrapped with a banner proclaiming the ubiquitous, “Death Before Dishonor.”

Thousands and thousands of Marines across time inked their bodies with a standard, “moto tat.” An eagle, globe and anchor, or bulldog head were common. These timeless drawings remain popular today. Many Marines, however, prefer a more unique tattoo.

David Meza, a former Marine Corps Security Forces Guard and 0311, received his moto tat while home on leave in 2017.

“My uncle, who is a Marine as well, took me out to a bar and asked, ‘So what’s going to be your Marine Corps tattoo? You know, the one everybody gets after graduating boot camp.’ I told him I didn’t want something typical, so I found this image scrolling through social media and he was like, ‘Let’s go get it right now.’”

The finished product, “Protek the Crayonz,” received a laugh from everyone at the unit.

Another Marine veteran, David Tyma, took a more satirical approach to his moto tat. Tyma served as an Amphibious Assault Vehicle crewman and repairer at Camp Pendleton.

“We always joked about how we keep the Marine Corps amphibious, and I basically spent four years just sitting on the beach at Del Mar. I don’t remember if I came up with the idea for the tattoo or one of the other guys did, but we talked about it enough that I finally decided to do it.”

Tyma altered the traditional eagle, globe and anchor into a seagull, beach ball, and umbrella. Now off active duty and serving as a professional firefighter in Nebraska, Tyma routinely runs into other veterans who recognize his tattoo.

“I get a lot of crap over it, especially from older Marines. They think it’s trash or an abomination, but to me, it’s a joke and it sums up my Marine Corps experience perfectly.”

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Former 0311 David Meza took a less traditional approach with his “moto” tat, received in 2017. PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID MEZA
After spending years on the beach at Camp Pendleton, former AAV crewman David Tyma altered a standard Marine “moto” tat into his seagull, beach ball, and umbrella.

Perhaps Garrett McMahon, a 0311 from 2015 to 2021, wears the most motivated of moto tats. In fact, his evolved into an entire sleeve dedicated to USMC warriors throughout history. The WW I-era painting of a Marine bayonetting a German soldier covers an entire side of his forearm. The silhouetted Marine photographed while sprinting under fire on Okinawa honors Marines of WW II. McMahon paid homage to Korean War veterans by adding the 1st Marine Division’s patch from that era. Another famous Vietnam-era photo of Carlos Hathcock peering through the scope of his sniper rifle covers the outside of his arm. A modern battlefield cross honors veterans of the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. As a final personal touch, McMahon included his grandfather’s dog tags on his wrist. His grandfather fought in two wars as a Marine, surviving landmark battles such as Guadalcanal and Bougainville in WW II, and the landing at Inchon in Korea.

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Tattoo sleeve worn by former 0311 Garrett McMahon honoring Marine warriors from World War I through present day. COURTESY OF GARRETT MCMAHON

As sacred as their moto tats, many Marines proudly wear ink they received unintentionally. Alcohol, a lost bet, or some combination of both, typically serve as the catalyst. No matter what these tattoos turn out to be, they forever represent a piece of the brotherhood the individual shared during his time in the Corps.

“One night, after a bottle of Jack Daniels and playing Mortal Kombat in the barracks, I made a bet with one of my fellow boots that I could beat him in a game,” remembered one hard charger. “The loser would get the winner’s name tattooed on their butt, with another tattoo of the winner’s choosing. I lost, obviously.”

After months of putting it off, and incessant taunting from his buddy, the Devil Dog finally went through with the bet one week before shipping out to Twentynine Palms for Integrated Training Exercise (ITX). Beneath his trousers, the Marine sported a cute, baby unicorn on his left cheek, with his buddy’s name in a semi-circle over the creature’s rainbow mane.

“The first night we were in Camp Wilson, I stayed up past midnight thinking the showers would be clear and nobody would see my fresh ink. After five minutes in the shower by myself, none other than my CO walked into the same shower as me. I could hear him laughing shortly after he came in. That made my first ITX very interesting.”

A sizeable portion of Marines allowed themselves to be inked by a buddy who was an aspiring artist. These “barracks tattoos” may not look as professional but are just as prevalent. Eric Althen perfected his craft tattooing other Marines while in the barracks on Guam in 1985. Althen entered the Corps as an 0331 the year before. He arrived on Guam to his assignment providing security on the naval base.

“At the time, I had been doing a ton of drawing. I think that’s how I was recruited into being the tattoo guy,” remembered Althen. “A couple of my buddies got a bunch of tattoos and we talked about them all the time. One of the guys with us was this hard kid who grew up on the streets of Los Angeles. One day, he told me I should make a prison tattoo machine. I’d never heard of anything like that, so he drew it out for me.”

The leathernecks gathered raw materials for the homemade device and got to work. They cut the bristles off an old toothbrush and bent the top over, then extracted the motor from a cassette player and mounted it to the toothbrush. They stripped down a Bic pen and blew the ink out of the reservoir inside, leaving a thin, hollow plastic tube. Althen found a Marine in the barracks with a guitar and convinced him to donate a length of guitar string. He filed the string to a point and fed it through the ink tube, then attached it to the motor. When powered up, the motor fed the string rapidly back and forth. He picked up a voltage controller at the PX to adjust the motor speed, and a bottle of Indian ink from out in town. Before long, Althen was in business.

He outlined his art on a willing Marine’s skin with a ballpoint pen. They requested all kinds of tattoos. Althen employed his machine to ink everything from “USMC” in block letters across a Marine’s knuckles, to a massive snake wrapping around and all the way up someone’s arm. Once outlined, he dipped the guitar string in the Indian ink and went to work.

“The tattoo process involves a lot of ink and blood. You’re constantly wiping it off so you can see where you’re going. Today, a normal person would have a microfiber cloth or something like that. I remember I couldn’t even find an old t-shirt to use, but I had a pair of underwear I was willing to sacrifice. They were freshly laundered, at least.”

Althen’s list of customers multiplied after his guinea-pig-Marine’s tattoo healed and turned out better than expected. By the time his island tour ended, with his prison machine and fresh pair of underwear, Althen inked more than 20 Marines.

“Some of the stuff I did back then, I would imagine it has all been covered up today,” Althen mused. “I’ve got a lot of tattoos, but I never tattooed myself. I knew better. Why these guys put their trust in me is beyond me!”

Whether received in the barracks or a tattoo parlor, more and more Marines are now telling their stories through their skin. MOS-specific tats permeate the ranks for every job from rifleman to combat camera. Often, the most meaningful tattoos honor the memory of a fellow Marine lost in combat. The Corps’ most recent casualties at the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport are memorialized in ink.

Von Straight served with Weapons Platoon, “Bravo” Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines in Kabul during Operation Allies Refuge. The suicide bomb at Abbey Gate detonated behind him on Aug. 26, 2021. Later that night, he and several others learned their friend, Sgt Nicole Gee, was one of the 13 American servicemembers killed in the attack. When they left Afghanistan, Straight and his friends designed a tattoo to remember her. The outline of Afghanistan lies in the middle with “OAR” written in Arabic inside, and “21” outside. A ring of 13 stars surrounds the country and text, representing each American killed at Abbey Gate. The largest, outlined star at the top of the circle represents Gee.

Whatever their motivating experience may be, Marines who memorialized a piece of their Corps on their skin found great meaning in the process. In the end, it boiled down to pride in being part of something great, and more importantly, remembering the brothers and sisters with whom they shared that time of life.

Marines from every era have more fully realized what the Corps meant to them after they got out. The culture of being a Marine, the struggle to earn the title, and the camaraderie shared is difficult to explain to outsiders. For many Marines, their tattoos will continue telling these stories. For many more to come, their stories remain to be inked.

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Turning Advocacy into Action

Featured image: Stephen Peck, CEO of U.S.VETS, at the opening of Veterans One-Stop Service Centers at Patriotic Hall in Los Angeles, Calif., 2014.

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Employees from Home Depot helped Peck and his wife landscape the grounds of U.S.VETS’ Washington, D.C., site.

Stephen J. Peck is the president and CEO of the United States Veterans Initiative (U.S.VETS), which is the nation’s largest nonprofit devoted to providing housing and other essential services to at-risk veterans. He is descended from a Hollywood legend; his father is the late Gregory Peck, but Stephen chose a different path for his career. Peck served in the Marine Corps and was an artillery officer in Vietnam.

U.S.VETS opened its first facility in Los Angeles, Calif., in 1993 and has grown to 11 sites in five states including the District of Columbia. The nonprofit serves more than 5,000 veterans a day and helps 8,000 veterans find housing and more than 1,500 veterans gain full-time employment annually.

Peck lives by a lesson learned in the Corps: “If you don’t go where the trouble is, you can’t solve the problem.” He shares his Marine story, continued service, and current activities in his interview with Leatherneck.

What are the greatest life lessons you took from your service in the Corps?
I was drafted after my sophomore year and got my 2S deferment then joined the PLC [Platoon Leaders Course]. I did not want to be a private in the Army. I wanted to be surrounded by trained killers, and the Marines were the way to go.

I’ve been around several military events recently and am so impressed with young Marines these days. They are professional. They are disciplined. They are respectful … The fact that we all have been through TBS (The Basic School) from the Commandant on down, we’ve all had that same training and it’s important to bring us all together. All of us carry that [bonding moment] who have been Marines. We all have experienced that and use it. I use it regularly and try to build that esprit de corps in the agency that I run. I use those leadership principles. You put your ego out of the way so that they can do the best job that they can. That comes right from the Marine Corps.

I run a big organization and we have 500 employees. That’s not something I can possibly, even remotely, attempt to do by myself. I must have key people underneath me and I must make sure they’re supported. The term “I’ve got your back” is totally overused these days, but in Vietnam, it was a real thing. It was serious. I knew that they [the Marines] did, and they knew that I did. That’s essential in combat. The people that work for you must know that you’ve got them. I’m going to send you out there and you’re going to do this. Whether you succeed or fail, I’ve got you. And if you fail, we’re going to try again and we’re going to try again.

It’s all about accomplishing the miss­ion, no matter who does it. We’re all doing this together. It’s really critical. We try to teach that to all our site direc­tors and managers. Some people get into a leadership position and it’s all about me; I have to do this and make every single decision and every decision has to come through me. They don’t under­stand that you really have a whole team of people under you, and the more know­ledgeable and more professional and more committed they are, the better you are [going to] look at the end of the day, but it’s not about you. It’s about accomplishing the mission and getting homeless veterans off the street. I’m happy to give credit away, it doesn’t matter. Our results are what matters.

What’s important is how many men and women we get off the streets and how many we get into housing and how many we get jobs. That’s what we’re all about, not about any one of us. I’m getting on in years and probably have a couple of years left of doing this. This has to continue on. I’m the only leader that has been here since the beginning of this organization, 29 years ago this month we brought five veterans into a facility in Inglewood. Now we’ve got 600 formerly homeless veterans in there. We house another 2,400 more in 11 metropolitan areas across the country. If I disappear it’s [got to] go right.

Fortunately, I’ve got a Marine as my second [in command], so I’m good to go. He’s been with us for 19 years. Our CFO is a Marine. We’re rotten with Marines here. We learned in the Marine Corps that you have to accomplish the task whatever that is. Over, around, under, or through. You’ve got to accomplish the task. If you don’t accomplish it the first time, you have to keep going. Use your imagination. Use other people. Whatever you’ve got to move forward. We learned that in the Marine Corps and in combat you don’t have a choice. You have to protect your team. That is life and death. It is life and death for some of the homeless veterans we encounter. We have to stick with it. Whatever our particular task is, we’ve got to get it done. If you get a “no,” try to bring in someone else. Maybe you’re not the right person to get that task done. Let’s pass it off to this person or maybe somebody else knows someone who can get it done. It’s all about getting the job done. It’s about getting veterans off the streets.

Can you share with us about your experience in the Corps?

I was assigned to the artillery so after TBS I went down to Fort Sill and became an artillery officer. I was assigned as a Forward Observer with “India” Company, 3/7. I was about 15 miles west of Da Nang at Hill 10. Those memories don’t leave you. I was going on patrols for the first three or four months—mostly platoon sized patrols immediately west of Hill 10. We were the last emplacement out there. Hill 10 wasn’t very big. It was what they called “Indian Country”; you don’t go outside the wire because you don’t know what’s out there. We went out in units, and we’d be out for two weeks. We’d come back in for four days and then go back out for two weeks in the mountains where the NVA was operating. Our task was to be a presence to prevent them from rolling down that valley going east into Da Nang. We were part of Operation Oklahoma Hills going out as a company and there were other companies going up into the hills there. We were there to intercede the activities of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong up there.

Even at the bases we regularly received mortar fire and rocket fire. I was rocketed on my birthday, Aug. 16, 1969. I was at Hill 55 at that point which was the 7th Marines headquarters. It was a big base; it’s a pretty safe place and our company commander was talking with battalion about where we were going to go next. We were chilling out for four days and I was in the officers’ club, which is essentially a big hooch. There was music in there and there was a bar in there, so it was semi-normal.

Rockets started falling outside and a whole bunch of us ran out the door into slit trenches. We ran about 50 feet and piled into a trench, one on top of the other. We were piled three or four high. Rounds were dropping as we were running. Miraculously, no one got killed.

I feel lucky all the time, any number of times it could have gone differently. One tour of Vietnam was enough for me but it’s extraordinary how exhilarating combat is, you’re wired. You’re buzzed. The last few months in country I was at Division headquarters in S-2. A lot of times they put officers in the rear for the last few months. I had like an eight-hour job. I was in the S-2 office for an eight-hour shift and then kind of hung around. I remember thinking one night, combat was a lot more exciting than this. I had to tell myself not to volunteer to go back out there. You got out of that situation once, don’t take another chance. It’s terrifying, but it’s thrilling. Boy, do you have a mission—to stay alive and accomplish the task. A lot of guys come back from combat, and they miss that. Their life seems kind of empty.

I remember feeling kind of rootless when I came back. You’re just not in a life and death situation at home unless you are a cop or something. You miss that adrenaline. It’s a real problem with some guys. Some guys volunteer to go back and I know a couple guys that did. A couple guys didn’t make it back after that second tour. It’s a real emotional dilemma that you face when you come back.

Can you share some of the statistics of success with your organization?
We came along about the time when the homeless veteran movement was really gaining steam. There was a group of guys who started the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. That was really the beginning of the homeless veteran service movement. Now there are some 300 organizations across the country bringing homeless veterans into housing and off the streets. When we started in 1993 there were about 240,000 homeless veterans in the United States. Today there are a little less than 40,000 so we really are accomplishing the mission here. Now we’re dealing with more challenging groups. We got all the low-hanging fruit. The guys who we bring in, get them a job and push them back out into the com­munity. We got those guys. But there are a lot of veterans that are suffering from some sort of mental illness, substance abuse issues, real emotional problems, tragedy in their life, PTSD, TBI, you name it. They just can’t set one foot in front of the other because they are so pre­occupied with their combat exper­ience. That’s a more challenging group.

We have about 1,000 rehabilitation beds with intensive case management. Let’s find out what got them homeless in the first place. Let’s get them back to work if they are able to work. Let’s get them into permanent housing so they are not on the street anymore. We are also emphasizing two other parts of it which are homeless prevention and mental health services before they become homeless. So, we are expanding those programs and on the other end, building more permanent supportive housing.

We’ve got about 2,400 permanent housing beds at the moment and are building another 450 or so as we speak. There’s a lot more funding available and we’re one of those agencies that are doing everything we can to solve that drastic shortage of affordable housing with the support services that will keep these men and women stable. We run all types of therapeutic groups at our sites whether it’s AA [Alcoholics Anonymous], PTSD groups, fatherhood groups, financial literacy, the whole nine yards. We want them to be independent when they leave us. That is the whole goal. Create an independent guy who can be a contributor to the community.

What inspired you to join and lead U.S.VETS?
I was a documentary filmmaker and had a particular interest in homelessness. I had done a couple of films about homelessness in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. In the late 1980s, someone told me that one-third of homeless men were veterans. I did a short film on my own down on Venice Beach in Los Angeles. Someone pointed out to me that there was a group of veterans living on the beach down there, so I went down there with a film crew and filmed them. Six Vietnam vets, totally disillusioned, angry. These were some of the guys who came back and were not welcomed home. They were made to be ashamed of their service and it really embittered them. They were just saying to society, “To hell with you, I’m out here on the beach, just leave me alone.”

I did a short film and started using that for advocacy. My idea was to do a one-hour film on homeless veterans. But one thing led to another, and I be­came an advocate with the West LA VA [Veterans Affairs]. I didn’t want to leave that advocacy behind because I was so into it. The VA ultimately offered me a job in their outreach department and as a liaison to the community. I started as an outreach worker in 1993. Going out under the bridges and into the shelters bringing homeless veterans in off the street. I learned from the ground up what homeless veterans needed, what their desires were, what their challenges were, and that education was invaluable. I spent a few years really learning what we needed to be doing so we could create programs to help them.

I was with the VA until 1996 then I jumped over to U.S.VETS. I wanted to be able to do more … they had just started. I was an outreach worker assigned to this brand-new nonprofit in Los Angeles and brought the first five guys in. Then we had 25, then 100. Now that’s the site that has 600 vets. We learned by making all the mistakes. We learned what it was that veterans needed. Not only the housing but the services, the support services, the clinical counseling and employment services. They need those three things [housing, support and employment] together. They didn’t just lose their home. Something happened, maybe losing a job, losing their family, losing their income to the point they can’t pay rent and then they’re out on the street. We have to address all those issues.

“Heart of a Warrior” is the documentary that led me to change careers. We filmed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Vietnam and the U.S. It showed in festivals all over the U.S., VA Medical Centers, Walter Reed Army Hospital to a group of 60 psychiatrists as the Gulf War was heating up, and Harvard School of Government. Bob Sampson and I attended many of these screenings together to participate in panels. Here’s the short description:

“Bob Sampson is a former U.S. Army paratrooper who fought in Vietnam until his left leg was shot off. Nikolai Chuvanov is a former paratrooper in the Soviet army who served in Afghanistan until his right leg was shattered by a bullet. “Heart of a Warrior” movingly portrays the personal aftermath of war for these two men. Both still suffer from the emotional damage, unresolved moral questions and enduring pain of wartime. Through compassion, camaraderie and even humor, these former warriors form a powerful, healing bond and offer a message of hope.”

We’re now at a point where we are about to reduce the number of rehabilitation beds we need in Washington, D.C., because we’ve knocked the homeless population down. The street population of veterans in D.C. last I heard a week ago is 27. Nationwide we’ve got about 1,000 of the grant and per diem beds from the VA. We’re paid per veteran that you serve on a monthly basis. You’re expected to provide housing, meals and all of those services that are going to make them whole again. Those are really important beds to us. We’ve got 85 of those beds in Washington, D.C. But now we don’t need 85 anymore. We’re going to reduce it to whatever the need is … then transform the other space into permanent supportive housing.

We hope this process happens all across the country. We knock the numbers down so low that we have to redesign our pro­grams to fit this new reality, creating more permanent housing on the one hand and creating homeless prevention programs on the other so we prevent veterans from becoming homeless. It is strategic and has an immense financial impact.

You’ve got to face these problems head-on. In the Marine Corps, you learn to face enemy fire, you don’t turn your back on it. Homelessness is one of those issues that people are kind of afraid of, it’s such a big societal issue. Most people don’t know what to do about it. Do you give them money or give them a bus ticket? We have to look at it right in the face. We happen to be one of those agencies that have the capacity to do that and feel a real responsibility for that.

What new programs and initiatives are you working on for veterans?
A lot of focus has been on veteran suicide and it’s not getting any better. It’s happening among veterans and in the military. Twenty veterans and military a day are taking their own lives. We have to address that in some way, a more significant way than we have been. We started our homelessness prevention program in Los Angeles and all that mental health programming that we do is ultimately about suicide.

We’ve started a Women’s Veteran on Point program that’s a portal that reaches out to women that are not seeking services. Only a third of women veterans are seeking services at the VA. They view it as a male bastion. This is particularly true when a woman veteran walks into the waiting room at the VA and she has experienced military sexual trauma and there are 20 guys in there, she’s not comfortable in there. She’s going to walk right back out. So, we initiated this portal where there is a chat room, there is a self-assessment tool and then a phone number to call. You can come in and get counseling either in person or through telehealth.

What COVID has done is really ex­panded our ability to provide telehealth and we want to spread that throughout our programs across the nation so that we are serving not only the veterans within our walls but also into the wider community.

The highest number of homeless vet­erans in the country is in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, the West LA VA over the last decade has been receiving lots of criticism because it hasn’t been housing homeless veterans. Many of the buildings for housing veterans there have been abandoned for decades.

The VA put out a request for proposals a few years ago and U.S.VETS along with two other partners were chosen as the principal developers to develop up to 1600 units of permanent supportive housing on that north campus. We’re well into it at this point. The first building will open this fall in November or December. That will be for 60 senior veterans, who are one of the fastest growing homeless populations in the US. We have another 400 units coming online by 2024 and are continuing to raise money to build up to 1,600 units. We will also build support service space for homeless prevention programs.

We will not only house 1,600 veterans, which is nearly half the number of the homeless vets on the streets of Los Angeles, but if we can prevent more vets from becoming homeless, we might be able to significantly solve the problem here in Los Angeles. It is a monster project that will take eight to 10 years to accomplish. The VA has stepped up during the pandemic and placed about 120 tiny shelters on the grounds to get veterans on to the campus and out of tents and now they are challenged to provide the level of service those veterans need. The VA has also stepped up and is helping us redo the infrastructure. All the water, power and telecom. They have put up a bunch of money to build the backbone of the water and sewer to the different buildings. We’re out there raising money to build the buildings and to provide the support services. We’re going to create a real close-knit community with resident councils and town halls so the veterans will have a lot to do and to say about what goes on there so that we are providing the best support for them.

What are you most proud of from your service?
I never imagined that when I got out of the Marine Corps that I would be doing what I’m doing. There was no thought in my mind that I would have anything to do with the military again. The Vietnam experience was enough for me. I was done. But those thoughts and emotions don’t leave you. Ultimately it led me back to what I’m doing where I have an outlet for all of that. That’s the legacy that the Marines have left me with. They got me into a career that has been extremely rewarding.

Author’s bio: Joel Searls is a creative and business professional in the enter­tainment industry. He writes for We are the Mighty. He serves in the Marine Corps Reserve and enjoys time with his family and friends.