IT’S BEEN A LONG JOURNEY

The Autobiography
of
Capt. Troy B. Hamm, U.S.M.C. (Ret.)

Acknowledgments
I must give credit where credit is due. I became a Christian at the early age of fifteen. Like
most Christians, I gave Him my sins but not myself. He has never forsaken me or left me.

When The Lord called me into His service, I tried to be a Paul, who I believe was the most
faithful and dedicated Christian of all time. I claimed Philippians 3:13 as my life verse:
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.” (Also read
verse 14.)

Allen & Linda Rooks are very dear friends. My deepest gratitude goes to them. They have
spent hundreds of hours editing, reediting and printing my Biography and Testimony. My
sincere and heartfelt THANKS.

Colonel Paul Barzler, U.S.A.F. is also a very dear friend. He was one of my students of the
Marine Corps Junior ROTC Program, Clearwater High School, Clearwater, Florida. Paul has
also spent many hours in the final editing, formating, and final touches on my Biography and
Testimony. My sincere and heartfelt THANKS.

My sincere THANKS go also to Jennifer Smith and Danyl Barry of Office Depot, Clearwater,
Florida who have been so patient with me while running off copies, copies, and more copies
of my drafts and a final print.

May god richly bless each one you!!

Copyright

Troy B. Hamm

Testimony of Capt. Troy B. Hamm, U.S.M.C. (Ret.)

© 2012, Troy B. Hamm

Self publishing

TroyHammUSMC@yahoo.com

2295 Americus Blvd East, #49, Clearwater, FL 33763

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright
Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. This book in its entirety may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author
/ publisher as long as it is done so for a noncommercial purpose, at no cost or charge to any person, and includes
this copyright notice.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments i

Table of Contents ii

Prologue iii

Introduction v

1. Childhood 1

2. Parris Island, SC – Boot Camp (1951) 17

3. Camp Pendleton, CA – Infantry Training Regiment (1951) 32

4. Korea (1951-1952) 39
5. The Cotton Patch, MS & Cherry Point, NC (1952-1953) 56

6. Camp Lejeune, NC – 1st Tour &Puerto Rico (1953) 60

7. Korea (1953-1955) 65

8. Cyprus – State Department Duty (1955-1956) 73

9. Cairo, Egypt (1956) 78

10. Quantico, VA - The Basic School (1956-1959) 80

11. Camp Lejeune, NC − 2nd Tour (1960-1962) 90

12. Bridgeport, CA - Mountain Warfare Training Center (23 Feb – 14 Mar 61) 92

13. 81mm Mortar Platoon 96

14. Puerto Rico − 2nd Tour (1961) 100

15. Mediterranean Cruise (13 Sep 61 − 21 Feb 62) 104

16. Parkersburg, WV – Inspector & Instructor Duty (1962-1965) 111

17. Fort Bragg, NC – Special Warfare School (1965) 121

18. Vietnam (1965-1966) 123

19. Quantico, VA – Officer Candidates School (1966-1968) 133

20. Vietnam (1968-1969) 137

Vietnamese Food 149

21. Camp Lejeune − 3rd Tour (1969-1972) & Retirement (1972) 156

22. Concluding Thoughts 169

Time In Service 171

Index of Abbreviations 174

Prologue
Our family − our marriage and each one of our children − has been the better part of my life.
The journey was long and rough before God gave me my beautiful wife. We met and married
on the Island of Cyprus in 1955.
When Pat came into my life, the journey got easier. I am sure she never realized this. For the
most part, she saw my outward life, and through it all, she has loved me and has been a
faithful wife.

More good gifts were to come from God. He gave us three beautiful children − Bob, Tom,
and Linda. Each time I look at the pictures of them when they were young, I am saddened,
not having been the father I should have been. But that is past. I was always totally
concerned for providing for my family. My life was mostly doing my job as a Marine, which
was not easy. But over the last years, hopefully, I have been a better husband and father. The
Lord is Good.

Our oldest son, Bob and his first wife, blest us with three granddaughters − Nicole, Michelle,
and Monica. They lost a son, Matthew, at birth. After their divorce, Bob was blest with a
lovely second wife, Linda, and her daughter, Nicole. Bob’s oldest daughter, Nicole, is now
married to Ross (also a Marine), and they are expecting our first great-grandchild.

Bob was with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office for twenty-seven years. Bob went home to
be with the Lord in August of 2007. The Pasco County Sheriff’s officers were absolutely
wonderful throughout his bout with cancer. They were there every day for Bob and the rest of
us. Bob was well thought of by the Sheriff and all of his co-workers.

Tom and his lovely wife, Kathy, blest us with three granddaughters − Bethany, Charity, and
Hayley. Tom has been with the Lincoln, NE Police Department for almost twenty years.
Tom’s family is very active in their church. Kathy has been on staff there for a number of
years, and Tom sings in a men’s group.

Linda and her husband, Craig, have blest us with a grandson, Paul. Craig is a tile setter, and
Linda has been a receptionist with St. Luke’s Cataract & Laser Institute for over twenty-five
years. She has always been a most faithful and precious daughter.

God has truly blest us with a lovely family. We are truly grateful and thank Him with all of
our hearts for each and every one.

We extend A HUGE, SINCERE THANK YOU to our dear friends, Allen and Linda Rooks.
They have spent hours proofreading and editing this autobiography. Their friendship has
been a true blessing ever since we met at East Lake Road Baptist Church (Tarpon Springs,
FL) in 1992.

Troy B. “Bud” Hamm

June, 2010

Introduction
The things I have achieved in my lifetime − the disciplining of myself, the setting of goals,
and the intention to never waver from my beliefs − were by the grace of God. I learned one
lifelong lesson, and that was to work hard and to be obedient and honest.
As a young man, from childhood and up into my teens, I didn’t have much going for me. I
was bashful, shy, and had very low self-esteem. I was not much of a communicator and had
NO confidence in myself − NONE! No one in my family had ever graduated from High
School. Some of them never even went to the 4th grade. My oldest brother had the most
educated mind in the family. Since Mom and Dad did not have much schooling, the rest of
the family was not encouraged to get an education. Of course, we could have had one, if we
had so desired.

I left school in the 10th grade and joined the United States Marine Corps (U.S.M.C.). I later
received my GED (General Education Diploma), while in the Corps. The Marine Corps
really helped me to build strength and character. I spent two and a half years in Korea
(portions of 1951, 1952, and 1953, and all of 1954) and came back to the States with the First
Marine Division in March of 1955. I also spent two years in Vietnam (1965-1966 and 1968-
1969). All of my combat experiences were in the Infantry, as Corporal and Sergeant in each
of my three tours in Korea and later as a Staff NCO (non-commissioned officer) and an
officer in Vietnam.

I didn’t have much of an education, had poor speech, and lacked good communication skills.
This bothered me. When I would do something wrong and get in trouble, it really bothered
me, especially in the Marine Corps. I tried to learn my job, work hard, and be obedient. My
subordinates, and even my peers, did not like me for this attitude. I told my peers that they
could go down the drain if they wanted to, but I wasn’t going to go with them. We, as Staff
NCOs and officers, were trained that our subordinates were not to like us but were to respect
us. We had to gain respect from our troops. I wanted my troops to become better Marines for
their sakes, for the U.S. Marine Corps, and to get promoted. This only comes through hard
work. When my troops found out my real feelings about them, they respected me more. I
tried to be a good Marine, without stepping on people’s toes to get where I was going. The
Marine Corps was good to me, and I was good to the Corps.

I never, never, ever want this book in ANY way to glorify me or to represent me as a hero.
Anyone is free to read all of my awards and citation papers. Military men would know I am
not a hero.

When I was between 50 and 60 years of age and serving as a missionary to the U.S. Military
in Puerto Rico, my physical fitness routine went generally like this: starting at 0300 - 0330, I
would run twelve miles, work out at a gym, swim ten to twelve laps in the Olympic-sized
pool, eat breakfast, and be at work by 0730. I worked hard during the day in temperatures of
100 to 110 degrees, until about 1600. Even though my legs would sometimes be shaking, I
always felt good. I would eat and go to bed. At 0300 the next morning, I would start all over
again. I was raised up this way and lived it throughout my Marine Corps career.

Every weekend, I would run different types of races, with the marathon usually being my
longest. My Mother and Dad taught me to work hard and not complain. That was the way
they lived their lives.

People ask me, “How old are you?” I tell them I played sports 29 years, was in the U.S.M.C.
22 years, and was a runner for over 50 years. So, I am about 101 years old, and feel like it! I
am now paying for punishing my body all those years with such activities.
There were good times and bad times. I was a very hyper person − full of energy, 24-hours a
day, never slowing down − but then something happened. I got old! I wonder now how I did
all those things. While I was living out these experiences, I never gave them much thought.
Now that I am older (nearing eighty and somewhat crippled), I find it hard to even imagine
how my body held up through it all. I attribute it to God and to all who had a part in my life,
especially my family.

As I look back at my experiences, I find I had an interesting and maybe a little different life
than others.

I would never have given a thought to writing about my life had it not been for my dear wife.
She has been able to decipher my writing and then type, type, and re-type all of the pages.
She has always been my best helpmate. I thank you dearly, Patty Mou (Greek, “my Patty”).

1. Childhood
Before discussing my early childhood, I want to talk about my Mom and Dad. They never
said much about themselves or their early livelihood. My Dad was born somewhere around
Blytheville, Arkansas and Mom was born near Baldwin, Mississippi. They were very poor
and had a meager start in life. They both were very hard workers. My Dad was one of the
hardest workers I have ever known. This was also said of him by many other people.

Dad, Mom, and Robert (their first child)

After much hard work, Dad had about a couple hundred head of cattle and horses, a farm, I
don’t know how many acres of land, and a new car. One story they used to tell us was how he
and his brother went into town and each one bought a new car − Model T Fords. On the way
home, they cleaned out every ditch, and when they got home, they didn’t know how to stop
the cars! Dad ran his through the yard and down into a ditch and let it stay there until he
learned how to drive it.

During the Depression, Dad lost the farm, the cattle, the car − everything. Dad had to become
a sharecropper. He and Mom had to move to another house that was owned by a landlord
who had only sharecroppers working for him. Sharecropping work was the very poorest
lifestyle known in those days. A sharecropper was the lowest man on the totem pole in
society. He would start work about three o’clock in the morning, when he would milk and
feed the cows, feed the horses and chickens, eat breakfast, and be on his way to the field
before sunup. He would leave the field just before sundown to come home and do all of his
chores. We would all have supper together. After supper, everyone had to take a bath. Dad
would go out to the pump, draw water, and take a cold shower. The rest of us would bathe in
Mom’s wash tubs. We had one lamp, which we called a “coal oil” (kerosene) lamp. We used
the lamp sparingly, because of the cost of kerosene. We had very little money. When
everyone got bathed, that was it. We all went to bed, and the lamplight was put out.

The next morning, Mom would get up and start cooking. Dad would go out to do his chores,
come back to eat, and then head for the field. Mom continued her daily chores by scrubbing
the ol’ wooden floors and washing clothes. She was an immaculate housekeeper. She would
cook lunch and then walk to the field to help my Dad.

Very seldom did my Mother, Father, or any of us see doctor. We did not have the money.
My mother took care of our colds, cuts, bruises, punctures, fever, and everything. She
used the ol’ remedies and would mix up a concoction, put it on a certain type of cloth, work it
in, and then lay it on our chests at night for colds.

For cuts, they would soak the cut in coal oil, let it set for awhile, and then wrap it up with a
piece of sheet. Then we would go back to work or play. Regarding punctures, Dad would
just pull the nails out, soak us in coal oil, and away we would go! With bruises, you just put
up with the pain. I remember my Dad taking a big splinter out of the bottom of my foot. He
laid me down on the bed, on my stomach, and I put my feet through the rail. Dad took a razor
blade, opened it up, and pulled the splinter out with the pliers. He gave me the coal oil
remedy, then Mom wrapped my foot up and I went out to play. This was typical in those
days. They had certain medicines like Sloan’s Liniment, which was used on livestock. It was
strong! When you took a whiff of that, it would open your nose right up − I mean, it would
knock your head back! They would even rub it on their bodies.

Other ol’ time remedies were Vick’s Salve and iodine. My Dad used to tell about how his
tonsils would swell up and get so big that he couldn’t drink water − the water would run back
out of his mouth. He did go to the doctor those times. He said the doctor would lance, cut his
tonsils, let the blood and stuff run out of his mouth, and then he would go right back to work.

There are only two or three homes in all the places that we lived that I can look back and
visualize. We were so far removed from anyone else. It was miles between homes, so we just
worked and played as a family.

On Sundays, Dad and Mom got up at about three o’clock in the morning and did all the
chores. Then she hitched the horse to the wagon, and we all headed for church. My sister and
I would start in the back, with our feet hanging off the rear of the wagon. The bumping got so
bad from all the pot holes in the road that our little butts would tingle and we would have to
move toward the front of the wagon. We attended morning service, ate dinner on the grounds,
stayed for the evening service, and then got home late at night.

My Mother often told of a lady, a very big lady, who got so excited in the service that she
tried to roll head over heels in the aisle. She ended up on her back with her feet up in the air,
and right across her “bloomers” was the writing, “Mother’s Best.” Her bloomers were made
from a flour sack!

My Dad was really a kind man, a very loving individual. My Mother had a real strong
temper, as did one of my brothers, who was actually worse than my mother. I got my temper
from my mother, as well. I got my hard working habits from my Dad. I was a hard worker
and, of course, that was helpful throughout my life. One can get along well if he is a hard
worker. After Dad’s death, my oldest brother told me, “Dad would kill you working, and as
soon as I could, I left home and got a job elsewhere.” All of us boys, except one, left home
early. We had to do something different with our lives. We left home for the same reason −
my Dad could work you to death farming. Dad would say, “Son, if brains were dynamite, you
wouldn’t have enough sense to blow the fuse off a peanut.” One of his favorite sayings, when
stuck in a bad situation, was, “It is easy if you know how, and good if you like it.” Actually,
everyone in our family turned out to be good workers. Mom was a hard worker, even before
she married Dad.

My sister, Lorene, and I grew up together. She was the only one that I had to play with, until
we went to school. She was bad about harassing me, and because of my temper, I would hit
her or throw anything I could get my hands on at her. One time, I threw a bracing bit and a
hand-operated drill at her. Another time, I threw an axe at her. Both times, she just about got
the door closed before the brace and the axe stuck in it! I was just that hot-tempered − a little
ol’ skinny thing − and of course, everyone wanted to whip me because I was so little and
skinny. I would fight with rocks, sticks, or anything I could get my hands on. My sister was
two years older than me and a lot bigger. She could always whip me when it came to fighting
and wrestling. I’ll say one thing, bless her heart, she had asthma real bad. I can remember
many a night and many a day, she would sit and fight to breathe. I guess she had the worst
case of asthma she could have had. It hurt me terribly when she passed away at the age of
twenty-seven.

As a kid, there wasn’t much to do, so we had to learn to make up things. A lot of times, we
would just sit around, playing with anything in the yard (especially snakes), or chasing
Mom’s chickens − boy, that was hell to pay!

We’d look for a hole of water to swim in, and it might have snakes or alligators in it, but that
didn’t bother me. That water felt so good. Dad had some big horses that belonged to the man
who owned the farm. My sister could really ride a horse! We had to grab the horse’s tail and
pull ourselves up onto its back. My feet would stick straight out, and I would have to hold on
to the horse’s mane. My sister always wanted to run her horse, but I couldn’t hold on when
mine would run. One time I fell off onto the plowed field. Back in those days, when they
plowed the field, they busted up the ground with a turning plow, and the ground would get as
hard as a rock. When I fell off, it was like falling into a pile of rocks. My body was bruised
and scratched all over. The next time Lorene started her horse running, she ran towards
Mom’s wire clothesline. She guided her horse around the clothesline, but my horse ran under
it. The clothesline caught me right under my chin and flipped me off. That was it for me, as
far as riding horses. I did not ride again until I became an adult.

We would even ride goats. One day, my sister and I slipped off to my uncle’s farm. My dad
was working for him at that time. Everybody was gone, so we went over to the barnyard. He
had a lot of goats, so we took some baling wire and caught a couple of them, wrapped the
wire around their necks, and got on their backs to ride. Pretty soon, those goats took off,
leaving us sitting on the ground. They ran up under the smokehouse, or corn crib, which was
about three feet off the ground on stilts, and got hung up in the wire. They couldn’t get out,
and we couldn’t get them out. We got a good whipping! (Is there such a thing as a “good”
whipping?)
We didn’t even have rubber tires to play with. We had never seen a car. One day, somebody
(Mom or Lorene) yelled, “A car!” and I ran to the front door and slid to a stop. That is when
that big splinter ran up into my foot and Dad had to operate on me.

My first school year photograph

My temper got me into a

lot of trouble, in school and at home. I remember my mother used to whip me every day
(once or twice a day), and she would tell me “Buddy, get me a switch.” Well, if I came back
with the wrong one, she would send me back. I knew what she wanted − one of those willow
switches, the kind that cuts when it hits you. That was a big decision, when she would call
and say, “Buddy, get me a switch.” She was ready to tear me up!

One time, my mother scrubbed the house after Dad had gone to work. She had to get down
on her knees and scrub the hardwood floors, which were full of splinters. Then she would
cook lunch and go to the field to help my Dad. In those days, we kept everything in the
cupboard in the kitchen. We only had a small icebox to keep the milk and tea cool. We had
ham left over from breakfast, and I would go in and get a piece of ham, walk outside, eat it,
and then go back to get another piece. Well, I didn’t realize it until Mom came home to fix
supper, that I had strung grease all over the kitchen floor, all through the living room, and out
onto the back porch. WHEW! Was she mad! She came out, and she was going to whip me.
She didn’t ask me for a switch, she was just going to whoop me. I decided that day that I was
not going to get a whipping. I took off running, jumped over the fence into the barnyard,
jumped over the other side of the fence, ran down to the field, and came back around the same
way. She was right behind me.

Finally, I realized I had to stop somewhere, so I got back over the fence and started to the
house. I just stopped. While she was running, she picked up a board. Boy, she whipped me
− my butt, my back, my arms. I would put my hands back to cover my butt and she’d beat my
hands, then my legs. I couldn’t sit down for the longest time. I had never hurt so bad in my
life. I learned never to run from my Mother − a short, stocky, half-Indian lady.

One thing about it, back in those days, you learned to take responsibility as a kid. Parents had
ways of correcting us. There was no psychologist or television to watch. You learned to take
responsibility for yourself. The parents took the responsibility, and no one told them how to
raise their children. Can you imagine if someone whipped a child like my Mom did me
today? They would go to jail. But I learned responsibility. I learned to be a hard worker. I
still have this temper which, in some ways, helped me later in my life, especially in the
Marine Corps. I learned how to protect myself. I wasn’t going to let anybody beat me up.

There are two or three schools that I can remember attending as a child. When I first started
school, I used to get into fights. All day long, as I said, everybody wanted to whip me
because I was a skinny dude. I decided that I wasn’t going to get whipped. I would pick up
anything I could get my hands on and I would run them all over the schoolyard. I would
knock them down, if I could catch them. The teacher would call me in, and either the teacher
or the principal would whip me. Up until I was in seventh grade, it was basically the teacher
who would whip you in the classroom. Back then, there were some big ol’ boys in those
schools. They were big for their age, some bigger than the teacher, and some were much
older than me. The teachers would try to whip them. The kids and the teacher would be in
the back of the classroom, just fighting it out. The teacher would whip the kids, and
sometimes the kids would whip the teacher. That’s basically the way I grew up. I had such a
temper that when the teacher hit me, I would hit back.

I was walking home from school one day and a friend of mine and his mother stopped to give
me a ride. I jumped on the running board. As we passed the house of another friend of mine,
he called to me and waved me to come in. Like a fool, I jumped off the running board, right
onto the gravel road. My forehead, arms, and knees were all cut up − another lesson learned!

My dad always told me that if I started a fight at school, he would whip me when I got home;
and if someone else started the fight and I didn’t fight back, he would whip me when I got
home. In one school that I was in, there was a bully who picked on me every day, and the
teacher would jump on me. One day, I decided that this had to stop and that this would be the
day. When he started bullying me, I went into the bathroom, and he came in. I didn’t let on
that I was going to do anything, but I knew what I was going to do. I stood back and looked
for awhile at his nose, and then I hit him right in the nose as hard as I could. The blood just
flowed. I walked out and went back to my classroom. He never bothered me again. I
maintained that tactic the remainder of my life, and I never got beaten up again. It was never
my choosing to hurt or injure anyone, but my strategy was “better them then me.” I never
started any fight. I have met a lot of mean people in my life, both before and after I went into
the Corps. You don’t have to be mean to protect yourself, but the key is in knowing HOW to
protect yourself. I never liked bullies, and back home they would say, “Never corner a
coward, for he will kill you.”

Another time, I got in trouble at school and the principal kept me after school. Of course, my
sister, Lorene, stayed with me, and we missed the bus. At that time, we rode a bus for about
ten or fifteen miles to and from school. We went out on the highway and started hitchhiking.
A guy picked us up, and he was drunk. He took us to our turn-off (a dirt road), but wouldn’t
take us any further. It was a long way down the dirt road to our home, and by then, it was
dark, but we weren’t afraid of the dark in those days. When we got home, Mom and Dad
were waiting for us. They didn’t know what had happened to us, as they didn’t have a phone,
a car, or any way to go and look for us.

I was born in Baldwin, Mississippi, on November 23, 1932. We moved to Arkansas and then
to Michigan, just before the Second World War. There was a family that my dad supported
during the depression. They moved to Michigan and wrote back, saying that they were
making good money and for us to move up there. We put everything in an ol’ truck, and my
sister and I crawled up in the back, which was covered with a tarp. We couldn’t see anything.
We lay in the back of the truck for I don’t know how many days and nights. We tried to see
out but couldn’t get our heads out from under the tarp. Dad would open up the tarp every
now and then and give us something to drink and eat. We ended up in Benton Harbor,
Michigan. There were a lot of new kids to fight, but a lot of the kids liked us, especially
because of the way we talked.

I will always remember one incident that happened when we first went to school. It was
getting cold, and since my sister and I were shy, we were standing with our backs against the
side of the school building, watching the children play. I had one of my feet propped against
the wall. When we went back into the classroom, the teacher called our names and said the
principal wanted to see us. He was hot! He sent us home because we didn’t have shoes on.
We had never had shoes in our lives. I could stick a nail or a tack into my foot and I wouldn’t
feel it. The principal sent a note home with us, stating, “Do not send them back to school
until they have shoes.” So, we each got our first pair of shoes.

You had to belong to a “gang” and run with your gang on the streets or get beat up by another
gang. This was one reason we moved out of Benton Harbor. The kids would steal from
stores and share amongst themselves. When anyone took something from a store, you were in
the gang. They would have expected me to do the same thing, but I didn’t join in.

We moved out of Benton Harbor to a little place called Millburg, out in the country, as my
mother wanted to raise chickens and my dad wanted a garden. My sister and I would pick
strawberries and raspberries. My mother didn’t pick berries, but she would cut grapes. The
owner of the vineyard would let my sister and I cut grapes with Mom. She would make about
sixteen dollars a day. My sister and I could make about eight dollars a day. My dad made
about one-thousand dollars a month (which was unreal at that time) for the piecework that he
did. I remember a friend of ours who worked with him saying, “That is the hardest working
man I have ever seen in my life.” There were times that my dad would be so sick with a
fever, but he would get in that ol’ car, in spite of snow, ice, or freezing weather, and go to
work.
In Michigan, we ate store-bought bread for the first time − we called it “light bread.” Mom
would put butter and sugar on one side of a piece and put it in the oven. That was good! We
ate a lot of new types of food and loved them. Mom had her chickens and Dad had his
garden.

One of my buddies and I were playing one day and wandered over into our only neighbor’s
yard. He called us up on his porch. He gave me a lot of Bible statistics and told me to learn
them. The next time I saw him, I answered all of his questions. He gave me a new Bible, my
first Bible. He noted that I had seed warts all over my left hand. He took a straight pin, made
a motion like an “x” on each one, and then told me to put the pin upside down in my shirt and
forget about the pin and the warts, saying that when the pin was lost, I would lose the warts.
That is exactly what happened!

One day, as I was lying on my bed reading the Bible, my mother came in and said, “Son, if
you start reading that Book, you had better start living it.” People are just like that today,
thinking “If I don’t know the Bible, I won’t be accountable if I don’t live it.” WRONG!
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

Our school in Millburg was over a mile from our home. There were days that my dad didn’t
drive to work but rode with someone else. One day, my sister and I decided we couldn’t walk
to school. It was so cold and snowy and the wind was whistling − just freezing cold. My
mother said, “Get in the car,” and as far as I know, my mother didn’t know how to drive. I’m
sure, in those days, there were those that drove but didn’t have a license. We jumped into the
car and took off. Well, we didn’t get to school in the car. She had a wreck! Somehow or
other, we finally did get to school, and Mom got back on the road and went home.

I was in a couple of school plays. I was a good student in those days, believe it or not! I was
one of the top students. I was a key character in the two school plays that I was in. I rode my
bike to and from school when I was in the plays. A girl that lived not too far from us was also
in the play and rode her bike to and from school. The play was over around 9 or 10 p.m. We
took off for home that night on our bikes. I rode with her to her home and got back on the
highway. I had to go by the house of our neighbor who had some (what sounded like) mean
and vicious dogs. I don’t know if he kept them tied up all the time, but this night, they were
loose. There was a great big tree between his home and our home. People in Michigan
always talked about bobcats or panthers and how they lived in trees and that they would jump
down on you. Every time I went past that tree, I would think about that.

On that night, it was pitch black, and when I got to this man’s house, I heard the dogs barking.
They were coming out toward the road. I went under that tree and I heard toenails − clip, clip,
clip − no barking or anything, just the toenails right behind me. I started pedaling that bike,
laying the left handlebar almost to the ground, then the right almost to the ground. I was
really picking them up and putting them down. (We used to say, “Picking them up and
putting them down.” ) When I got to the house, I was going so fast, I couldn’t make the turn.
I went right into a big hedge, and as the bike and I went through it, the bike hit the side of the
house and flew up into the air. I raced into the house, and my dad said, “What’s wrong with
you? Are you OK?” I said, “I’m OK.” I was shaking like a leaf.

The family that moved to Michigan before us had two young boys. They were my dearest
friends. We played Army all the time, and we’d ride our bikes just about everywhere. We
made a Burma trail that took us down through woods and creeks, up hills, down hills, and
around trees. It was a rough trail! We didn’t know where we were going the first time, and I
was leading out. We came to the top of a hill, and as I started down, I saw a big barbed-wire
fence, about fifty yards away, down at the bottom. I came flying over that sandy hill. When I
got about halfway down, I laid my bicycle down and slid right up to the barbed wire. My
buddies did the same. We rode our Burma trail often. One day, I came over the hill first, and
there were about a dozen big blue racers, lying out on the side of the hill, sunning. I turned
my bike over on the side and went right through those snakes, and my buddies came over the
hill and did the same. Snakes were scattering in all directions.

I would often go to Benton Harbor and stay over with my buddies. We would stand a long
ladder up against the side of the house before dark. Later that night, we would slip down the
ladder, play Army all over the place, and then about three in the morning, we would slip back
in and go to bed. Howard, Paul, and I would go to the store right across the street from their
house. The store owner would turn to get our order and we would steal stuff. One day, as I
walked out of the store, I grabbed an apple. When we got outside, we stopped, and I ate it.
My brother was standing by, watching us. He took us back into the store, and we had to
confess to the owner and give back the rest of what we had stolen.

World War II had started, and my oldest brothers, Robert and Ira, were drafted. James had a
real bad heart. He tried to join, but none of the military services would take him.

My brother, Ira, was killed at Bastion Belgian, 82nd Airborne, on January 13, 1945. He got
there in the latter part of December, 1944. He was a machine gunner, and an artillery round
hit and killed him. This was my first experience in losing someone in my immediate family.
Mom and Dad cried for six months. The military didn’t bring his body back until we had
moved back to Mississippi. Ira had stated in his insurance policy that Mom and Dad would
get money for the rest of their lives. Mom received a little over forty dollars a month and Dad
received a little over thirty dollars a month.

Our military had fenced in a large area in Benton Harbor to keep several hundred German
POWs (Prisoners of War). Some of them were transported each day to Millburg to work in a
basket factory, right in the back of our school. During their break, they would come over and
play dodge ball. There would be truckloads of them going right past our house. Mom would
be out in the yard working, and I’d be playing. They would see us and wave, and we would
wave back at them. After awhile, when they would go past our home and Mom would be in
the yard, they had learned to say, “Mom,” and they would wave and call, “Hi, Mom!” They
were contented to be here and work, away from the war. We often wondered if any of them
were allowed to stay in the U.S. after the war.

After moving back to Mississippi during the summer, I would sometimes work for my aunt on
her farm, and other times, I would go over to my brother’s farm. I worked real hard for my
aunt, but when I went to my brothers’ place, there wasn’t much to do. Occasionally, he would
take me to the field with him. One time, we were sitting on the side of a hill, eating our lunch
with his little dog. The hill was covered with coach whip snakes. His little ol’ dog went after
those snakes, and they scattered in every direction. The dog was standing and looking at one
of the coach whips that ran right between his front legs, and as this little dog’s head went
down, down, down (trying to see the snake), he just flipped over on his back! It was so funny.
I have a lot of snake stories and good memories of my buddies, Gurvis Phillips and Bobby
McCrory. Gurvis and I would sometimes leave the bus stop, just as the bus was coming, and
sneak down to an underground room beneath our garage. We would build model airplanes
down there all day long.

I was in the seventh grade the first year I attended Tupelo Junior High School and I failed it.
Mom and Dad wouldn’t pay (or couldn’t pay) for summer school, so I had to take the seventh
grade over. This was where the teacher hit me with a ruler and I hit her back. Tupelo Junior
High and Senior High were some of the best schools in the U.S. For me to come back and fail
(in English), after being a top student in Michigan, was unusual.

In the eighth and ninth grades, I played JV (Junior Varsity) football. We had ol’ leather
helmets, but later the school got plastic helmets. One day, in practice, I was making a tackle
on our fullback (I played end, but we played both ways − defense and offense). This kid
brought his knee up (we were always told to run “keeping the knees up”) and boy, he hit me
right above the left eye. That plastic helmet broke and cut my eyebrow wide open. The
coach told me to stick around, but I didn’t know what was going to happen. After we took
our showers and cleaned up, he took me to the doctor’s office and they shaved off my
eyebrow and sewed it up. Afterwards, I had to hitchhike home, which was about five miles (I
did that during basketball season and football season, at night, sometimes late at night, which
was rough). My face was funny looking without an eyebrow! I kept that bandage on as long
as I could, until the eyebrow grew back. I continued to practice and played every day.
Because of that, the coach let me go on my first road trip, even though I was not that good of
a player. We went down to Jackson, Mississippi. Man, we lost 77 to 0!!! It was cold and wet,
with rain pouring onto the field, and the coach called me to go in. I didn’t want to go − it was
a mess. Jackson was the only High School in Jackson, Mississippi, and they were big!

My first high school photograph

 One night we were
playing a High School which was in a league below us. I “kicked off” and kicked the “point
after.” No one held the ball on points after. We “dropped kicked” the ball. This school hated
us above all other schools, and it was a knock-down game every year. The first time I kicked
off, I was the first one down the field and was blocked out of the play. I got up and started
back to the huddle, and one of their players rolled under my feet from behind. It messed up
my ankle for over a month. At half time, the coach wrapped my ankle up so tight I could
hardly feel the ground under me. The same player did it two more times in the wide open
field, but the referee wouldn’t call a foul on him. Boy that started a dirty, dirty game. We
chewed tobacco on our team, and we would spit on their hands, faces, you name it. The
coach put me in as a defensive tackle, directly across from the player who clipped me, and put
a hard plastic arm guard on my right arm. All our guards and tackles wore those plastic arm
guards to smack the others in the face, neck, etc. On the next play, I was put in as a tackle.
When they snapped the ball, I came in with my right arm right in his face, and the guard did
the same thing with his left arm. Meat and teeth were hanging out of his mouth.
In about the seventh or eighth grade, I started pitching softball in Physical Education (PE)
class. I was a good, fast-pitch softball pitcher. I could strike them out. I had control out of
this world and did for years. I threw the ball so fast, so hard, and had such good control, that
the ball would do all kinds of things. I didn’t know how to throw a curve, a dropper, or
anything of that kind. My ball might do anything, as hard as I threw it. The coach said, “Boy,
I got me a pitcher!”

In the ninth grade, I had a science teacher that was the roughest teacher I have ever been
under in my life. We had earth science workbooks, and if you missed a comma, misspelled a
word, or used the wrong punctuation or grammar, she would mark the page in your workbook
that contained the error. She wouldn’t tell you what was wrong on that page, but you had to
stay there, no matter how late it got, until you found what was wrong and corrected it. I
stayed in every night! Consequently, I missed too many practice games and did not get to play
on the team.

During the summer months, we wore nothing but a bathing suit − no shoes or shirt. We swam
in Homestead Lake, which was close to our house in Beach Springs. Sometimes, we would
start swimming around six in the morning and swim until noon. Then, we’d go to lunch at my
buddy Gurvis Phillips’ house, which was right beside the lake. His mother would make us
sandwiches, and we would go right back in the lake. Sometimes, it would be midnight before
we would go home. We didn’t do as much swimming as we did diving. The people who
were building the Natchez Trace Parkway brought us some lumber and helped us build a
small pier. They put up a diving board and then taught us how to dive. We spent most of our
time diving and swimming underwater. I loved swimming above everything else.

Occasionally, some of us would go into a farmer’s watermelon patch and take the
watermelons. One of my buddies and I liked to visit his neighbor’s patch, because this man
had the biggest and sweetest watermelons I ever ate. But we didn’t just take one melon and
leave. We would take one melon each, and right there in the patch, burst it open and eat just
the heart of the melon. We threw the rest of the meat into the weeds.

After doing this one day, when we were walking out of the field, two brothers (big, big men)
walked up to us. They took us back to the pieces of melons that we had thrown into the
weeds and said, “Eat all of it.” We had to eat the rest of the two big melons right down to the
rind. One of them did say, “I think I’ll make you eat the rind.” Needless to say, there were
two young men in our neighborhood who NEVER stole another watermelon. I have never
forgotten doing this and often wished I could apologize to the man.

Gurvis and I had a dirty trick of going up to a house at night and knocking on the door. When
someone came to the door, we would run and hide. One neighbor’s house had a big fenced-in
garden, right beside his house. He had the corners braced with barbed wire. At the far end of
the garden was a large hole in the ground where the highway workers would throw big chunks
of broken concrete. One night, we knocked on his door and waited for someone to open the
door. Then we took off running down one side of the fence. We were running as fast as we
could and didn’t see the barbed wire that was strung from the top of the corner pole down to
the ground. I was the fastest, and I tripped over the wire, right where it was anchored to the
ground, and staggered into the concrete pile. Gurvis hit the wire, just above his knees, and it
flipped him up into all the concrete slabs. He was cut up all over and bleeding bad. We both
got back home, and his parents patched him up and did to him what parents would do in those
days.
When I was in Junior High School, someone (usually from the church) would have an ice
cream supper on Friday nights. Boys and girls from all over would come. The purpose was
for the boys and girls to meet each other and to play games under parental supervision. You
may be able to guess where some of the kids came from, especially back in those days. The
most popular game was for a boy and a girl to be matched up, and they would take a short
walk together. We were told exactly where to walk, turn around, and come back. The walk
usually lasted around fifteen minutes. There was a parent or two waiting to tell you when to
turn back. Sometimes, the couple would get “lost” and the parent would have to go out and
search for them. No more walk games for those two!

The most unpopular game was called “spinning the bottle.” The person spinning the bottle
would have to give the person that the bottle neck was pointing to a little peck on his or her
cheek. There were just some boys and girls that no one wanted the bottle neck to stop on.
Some would yell, “Spin it over!” Of course, it was very embarrassing to some of the guys and
gals. That was our dating back then.

My brother, James, would take some of my buddies and me fishing on the weekends in an ol’
creek near our home. It was full of snakes, mud cats, lamprey eels, and alligators. We had
never seen lamprey eels before. They looked something like a fish eel but had rough tough
skin, with two tiny legs about halfway down their bodies. We caught them by the dozens.
We would fish at night and throw out trout lines, setting hooks of all kinds, baited with rotten
chicken or liver. We would build a big fire on the bank and then sit around the fire and talk.
James would assign a team of two to check out the lines every two hours. Johnny was my
partner. He weighed about 300 pounds, wasn’t six feet tall, and was one of the meanest guys
I ever met. He had a big German police dog, a really smart dog. It killed about as many
snakes as I did. Several times, when we were about to step on one, he would spot it, grab it
by the neck, and shake it to death. He couldn’t stand snakes.

When it was Johnny’s and my turn, we went down and I pulled up one of the fishing lines. It
had some catfish on it, and I looked down and said, “Man, what is that thing?” It was a big
snake with one of the catfish in its mouth! It looked like a boa constrictor. When I pulled it
up on the bank, that ol’ dog was standing right beside me. The snake got loose and ran back
into the water. Well, the dog went into the water after the snake. We took our flashlight and
began looking for the snake. Then, out of the water came both the snake and the dog. We
took off! Johnny (who was scared to death of snakes) was right behind me. We went flying
up the hill, and I jumped the fire. Johnny couldn’t jump the fire, so he ran right through it,
throwing coals of fire everywhere and onto everyone that was sleeping around the fire. They
jumped up, brushing coals of fire off them, yelling, “What’s going on?”

I think it was the next day, when we got up and the others had gone home, that Johnny and I
decided to go over to the channel. It was a man-made channel, and the banks were always
sandy where the channels were dug out. There were channel cats, and the water ran all the
time. Channel cats are good eating. So we went over, since we hadn’t had breakfast and were
still half asleep. I had a little bait left over, and I was throwing it out in the water, letting it
set. Pretty soon, Johnny went swimming in the water. I looked out where my cork was, and
pop, pop − little ol’ snakes started popping up in the water. I would reel in my cork in and the
little ol’ snakes came right after my cork. I would jerk it out and beat the devil out of the
snake with the end of my pole. I would untangle it and throw it back out. Johnny was across
the other side. I looked and, man, there was the biggest black snake I had ever seen in my
life, right by him. I yelled, “Johnny, you better get out of that water, there’s a big snake near
you!” He looked like a motor boat when he went up that bank. We had recently had rain, so
the bank was wet, and you always have a skim of wet sand. He got up on the bank behind the
big ol’ snake, which was coiled up on the bank between him and the water. I said, “Johnny,
kill that thing! Get that log over there and kill that stupid snake.” Johnny was strong as a bull.
I mean, he was STRONG! He picked up a huge log over his head, and as he did, his feet slid
out from under him. Man, he slid down beside that snake. He and the snake hit the water at
the same time, and he came across where I was at about ninety miles an hour. It was so
funny!

We were always fishing and hunting, like kids will do. We enjoyed our life. I started going
to church there. No one else in my family went to church. My good buddy, Gurvis Phillips,
whom we called “Cotton,” was a good kid, and his parents went to church. So I started going
to church − a Free Will Baptist Church.

Normally, at a Free Will Baptist Church, they do foot-washing, but this church didn’t. It was
a small church, and the pastor was an interim pastor. He had a bigger church down in East
Tupelo (where Elvis Presley was born). In the winter, Gurvis and I would go up to the church
early in the morning to build and stoke the fire, getting ready for the service. In that church,
four of us teens formed a quartet. I was a tenor, and people thought we were pretty good.

There was a well-known man that traveled all over the south, running singing schools. Near
where we lived there was an empty Middle School. The kids around there would go to his
singing school and learn harmony and so forth. I never tried to sing a solo. No, I wouldn’t try
that at all. On graduation night, each quartet was to select its own song. We were going to
sing that night, and people from the community would attend. Your name and the church you
were from were called and you got up to sing. When I walked in, there weren’t a dozen
people in there, and I said, “This isn’t going to be bad at all.” We sat down up front. They
called “Beech Springs Baptist Church quartet,” and as we got up, I turned around and saw that
the place was packed with hundreds of people. I had the lead part, but no one could hear me!
We picked one of the hardest songs in the world to sing − “The King’s Highway.” My
brother got so mad, he wanted to kill me. “Why didn’t you sing?” he asked. I said “I did.” I
really wasn’t singing loud enough to be heard. That kind of chilled me about quartet singing.

Sometime after that, my brother talked to a man that had a radio program in Tupelo, and the
man said, “I’ll let them sing on the radio.” The other three were good, and I was, too, but I
was scared to death to sing in front of people. My brother kind of headed up things with us,
and he said, “You all are going to sing tonight at the church.” That wasn’t too bad, so my
brother, James, and Gurvis went over with me. We got there a little early and sat down beside
an open window, since it was summertime and it was hot. The longer we sat there, the more
Gurvis and I decided that we weren’t going to sing that night. I looked over at my brother and
Gurvis and said, “Let’s get out of here.” My brother, who was about four or five years older
than us, jumped out of the window, and Gurvis and I were right behind him. The church
never figured out where we were that night. When they called our quartet up, someone said,
“We don’t have a quartet. Bud and Gurvis are not here.”

Just before I went into the Marine Corps, my next door neighbor bought a big Harley-
Davidson motorcycle with a sidecar. That was “the cat’s meow.” He would take me to
school every day. We would ride it everywhere. It was a dangerous ride, as we soon found
out. We kept the sidecar on until we got brave enough to take it off.
One day, we were heading home on the motorcycle, going about ninety miles an hour and the
vibration was so strong that I couldn’t hold on. I couldn’t talk to him, because he couldn’t
hear me, and boy, I was about gone. As we came down a hill, all of a sudden, a chicken flew
right in front of us, and it hit the front shocks and windshield. There was blood, guts, and
feathers everywhere. That poor ol’ chicken saved my life. We had several other close calls.

In high school, I was a pretty good basketball player. When I went into 10th grade, the
basketball coach said, “You can’t play. You have poor grades. I can’t use you.” At that
time, I was one of the top six to play for the first team, and Tupelo High School’s basketball
team played in the semi-finals or played in the state championship game almost every year.
The coach’s statement really bothered me, so I went up that same day to the Navy office and
tried to join the Navy. They fooled around with me for a couple of months, since they didn’t
need anyone at that point in 1950.

Later that year, the Marine Corps lost a lot of troops in the winter, during the Chosen
Reservoir operation in Korea. I was in the Navy office one day, wanting to know when I was
going to be able to go, and as I was sitting there, a man in a blue, brown, or whatever color
uniform (I had only seen one Marine before) came in and said, “You want to leave
tomorrow?” I said, “Yes, Sir,” and he said, “Follow me.” We went downstairs, and he gave
me a written test, which I passed. About that time, my buddy, Tommy Houston, walked in
and said, “You going into the Marine Corps?” I said, “Yes,” and he said, “Let’s go together.”
The recruiter signed us up to go into the MC on the same day. That recruiter was later killed,
while I was in my first tour in Korea. The police never found his killer.

Most everyone has heard of Elvis Presley. He was from East Tupelo. I was from North
Tupelo and went to Tupelo High School. Elvis was a couple of years behind me and went to
East Tupelo High. I never met him.

My brother, James, ran a pool hall in Tupelo. Elvis and several other young guys would come
by at night after my brother closed the pool hall and he would let them in to shoot pool. Elvis
was a “nobody” then − he was like me. James and Elvis became very close friends. My
brother was a gambler − dice, pool, and cards. If a pool shark would come to town, my
brother would close the pool hall to everyone but gamblers. No one knew there was a pool
shark in the game. My brother, the pool shark, and another guy would be partners,
unbeknownst to the other players. They would set each other up. The pool shark would lead,
and if my brother followed the pool shark, he would miss and set James up. They played
Snooker. My brother could run a Snooker table.

Then, James got into hard core gambling. He owned a place called “Rocky Way Inn,” which
was later called “Rocky Way Inn and Fight Your Way Out.” It had been a motel and
restaurant at one time. He had taken all of the furnishings out of the motel rooms and put in
dice tables, card tables, and all kinds of gambling devices. He also used card sharks. I
remember one card shark that lived above the restaurant. He showed me how he dealt the
cards, and he was so good that even after he told me what he was going to deal, I couldn’t
catch him cheating.

The selling of whiskey and beer was illegal in Lee County, of which Tupelo was the county
seat. My brother would buy bonded whiskey from Kentucky − a federal offense. He didn’t
sell white lightning or home brew. The restaurant was a booming business. I worked in the
kitchen while I was waiting to go into the Marine Corps. Mostly, I would sell the whiskey
outside, like a carhop. The customers would come into the restaurant and dance. All of these
activities were illegal in Lee County. Our customers were mean − just plain MEAN.

2. Parris Island, SC – Boot Camp (1951)

Tommy Houston and I had orders to go to Boot Camp. We left Tupelo in the latter part of
January, 1951 to go to Memphis. The one-lane roads were solid snow and ice. We were
sitting right up front in the bus, and the driver drove about 70 to 75 miles an hour all the way
from Tupelo to Memphis (about 100 miles). I will never forget that ride. We stopped in
Memphis overnight. The next morning, we finished the paper work and were sworn into the
U.S.M.C. They put us on an ol’ military troop transport train. These trains were used to
transport military personnel all over the United States. It was an ol’ rickety train, and I never
will forget the ride. It would rock to the left, then rock to the right. We were cramped up.
The kitchen was small and the meals were cooked on a wood-burning stove, like the ones my
mom and dad had. We would go into the kitchen to get our food on paper plates, then go
back to our seats and eat what hadn’t fallen onto the deck. After Boot Camp, we rode that
same type of train from Parris Island all the way across the United States to California.

We got to Parris Island and pulled into the Yemassee Rail Head. There, a real short, stocky,
mean-looking Master Sergeant jumped on the train. He started yelling, “You’ll jump off this
train running. You’ll fall in there.” He continued to yell out all kinds of things we didn’t
understand. Some guy standing behind me said, “Who is this little (some sort of name) guy.”
The Master Sergeant didn’t pay any attention to him, but he heard him. I jumped off the train.
The New Yorker behind me started to jump off and the Master Sergeant kicked him about
twenty feet out of the train onto the railroad tracks. He found out real quick who “this little
guy” was. We were loaded aboard buses that took us across Parris Island and the swamp to
our tent area, where we were to live for ten weeks. We got off the buses running. From then
on, everywhere we went, we ran or marched. In between the two rows of tents, where our
Platoon (PLT) was to make home, were wooden pallets, which we had to run down to get to
our tent. They used to tell us, “If the man in front of you falls down, everyone will run over
him.” It was true − if you fell down, everyone behind you did run over you. They were not
allowed to stop.

The thing that I remember most about the beginning of Boot Camp was standing at attention,
eyeballs straight ahead − no movement, NO movement, not even your eyes. Oh, my back and
shoulders would burn. We would stand and stand, for what seemed like hours. It was cold,
and we were housed in tents. All we had for bedding was a canvas cot, a sheet, and a blanket.
I don’t remember if we had a pillow or not.

In 1950, the 1st Marine Division (MARDIV) was badly shot up during the Chosen Reservoir
campaign. Parris Island was flooded with recruits who were going to be replacements for the
1st MARDIV in Korea.

We were told that when reveille sounded, “Go to the head to shave and brush your teeth,
come back and get dressed, and fold your blanket and sheet up.” They showed us how.
Everything had to be folded a certain way and laid on our cots. Then we were to go outside
and roll the tent laps up. It was so cold! The Drill Instructor (DI) would yell, “Fall out,” and
we were to run to our assigned position − generally in alphabetical order. We stood at
attention until the DI took his position in front of the Platoon. We were ALL to be in the right
position and at attention. On the first morning, several recruits were late. They were called
“stragglers.” The DI told us, “You will get up fifteen minutes earlier tomorrow morning, and
you will be out here standing at attention when I come out.” The next day, the same thing
happened. Most of us were out there, standing at attention, and then, out would come the
stragglers. They would take their time shaving, etc. Every time we had stragglers, he would
say, “Fifteen minutes earlier in the morning.” That went on until we were getting up about
0315 and didn’t get to bed until Taps at 2100. All of this started the first week of Boot Camp
and lasted through the day we left there. The DI never did retract any of our punishment. We
got up at 0315 every morning, and stood at attention. Then, it was drill, run, and PT (physical
training) until it was time to go to chow. Consequently, we got a lot of drill time that the
other recruits didn’t get. We would march to chow, and our DI taught us that when he yelled,
“HALT,” we were to say, “ONE, TWO,” and make a real loud sound with our feet. He
always wanted to hear ONE BIG BANG. We did this over and over − “HALT,” “ONE,
TWO,” and ONE BIG BANG.

We would always get to the mess hall early, and the DIs would march us back and forth. We
got louder and better every day. Of course, the other recruits standing at parade rest and their
DIs were watching us, and our DIs really liked to show us off. We were getting real good at
drilling. We always had to stand at attention, and then go through the chow line into the mess
hall. There was a big sign just inside the mess hall (of course, we didn’t pay any attention to
it at first) which read, “Take all you want, but eat all you take.” The food was terrible, but we
were starving.

In Boot Camp, we were always hungry, because we were on our feet from early morning until
late at night. As we would leave the chow hall with our trays still half full of food, we would
be stopped by the DIs and made to stand there and eat the rest of the food on our trays. We
would have to stuff the food down our throats and couldn’t dump anything into the garbage
can. We would then run outside, get into our position, and stand at attention. You learned in
a real hurry to get out there fast. Of course, the DI didn’t move us until it was time to go to
another phase of training. If we were early and the DIs were early, we would drill.

We had three DIs − one senior and two assistants. After the evening meal during the first few
weeks we were there, we were marched out in the swamp area, which was full of sand fleas.
Some called them “sand flies,” but whatever they were, they would bite. Oh-h-h, would they
bite! We just couldn’t stand it. We wanted to move, slap, or do something, but we weren’t
allowed to move any part of our body. The DI would say, “You had your supper, now the
sand fleas will have theirs.” We would stand out there the longest time, and those things
would swarm in and eat us. Then we would march back to the tent and do whatever they
wanted us to do. Most of the time, we practiced drilling.

January, February, and March are cold months in South Carolina. All we had was a field
jacket − no long johns or anything like that. We had a little ol’ pot belly stove which burned
diesel oil. The DI would yell, “Light the lamp.” The stove took a while to fire up and really
get the flame going. The better the flame you would have inside, the hotter the stove would
be. Just about the time the flames started lapping up, they would call, “The lamp is out,” and
we would have to turn the stove off. That happened every night we were there. We never got
any heat. We would then get into bed. Everyone would get real quiet. No one would dare
say a word the rest of the night.
The next morning at reveille, everybody would get up and run to the head, knocking each
other around, trying to shave and brush our teeth. Then we had to get our tent squared away.
We got outside every time before the DI came out. We had to shower every night, and if
anyone missed, they were really in for it. We would take the guys that hadn’t taken a shower
and give them a soap and sand bath. We would soap them down real good, and then rub their
bodies with sand. That would teach anyone real quick the importance of taking a shower. I
can remember the one morning I didn’t shave. I didn’t have any fuzz on my face, and I
thought, I’m going to skip the shave this morning. When we got outside, it was daylight, and
during the inspection, the DI said, “Hamm, you didn’t shave, did you?” I thought, How in the
world could he know that I hadn’t shaved? (Of course, there was always an outline on your
face where you shaved.) He said, “Come to my tent tonight. Bring your razor with you.”
Well, that was a bad thing to have to go to the DI’s tent to shave or if you were caught
sneaking a smoke.

The usual procedure when one had to report to the DI’s tent was to bring your bucket and
your shaving gear. “To report” you had to hit the post outside the DI’s tent three times −
BANG, BANG, BANG. “Sir, Private Hamm reporting as ordered, Sir.” “Oh, I can’t hear
you.” We would bang until our knuckles would be sore. I’m telling you the truth − they
would make some of those guys stand out there until they almost beat their knuckles off.
Finally, they would put a bucket over your head and take you to the head. Then you had to
lather up and shave while doing double time in place. Man, you would cut yourself to pieces.
If you were caught smoking, they would put a cigarette in your mouth, light the cigarette, put
the bucket over your head, then wrap a towel underneath the bucket. They would make you
smoke that cigarette while double-timing in place. I thought, Oh boy, I’ve had it. But when I
reported, the DI said, “Hamm, go over to the head and shave. Report back to me.” I went
over and shaved and came back. He said, “Don’t let that happen again.” I said, “No, Sir.”

I didn’t know that I was doing so well in Boot Camp. In fact, I was recommended at the end
to be Honor Man. The last day that we were there, the DI came over and said “Hamm, you
are my Honor Man, and I’m going to see the Colonel one more time.” Well, I guess the
Colonel thought I was stupid. I never gave a thought to the written tests. I didn’t think they
amounted to anything or that they would even count. I was busy with the practical application
phase, where they could see your every move. I was doing real well in everything, but my
scores on the written tests were too low, and the Colonel wouldn’t give me the Honor Man
Award. Tommy Houston, my buddy from Tupelo that I joined with, got the Honor Man
Award.

There were no uniforms for us when we first got to Boot Camp. They were totally out. We
drilled, ran, worked out, and did everything in the civilian clothes that we had worn to Parris
Island. After two weeks, we finally got our uniforms. What a rat race!

Then we got our first haircut. As each man sat in the chair, and they would ask, “How would
you like your hair cut?” “Well, a little off here and there.” The barber made about four “Z-I-
I-Ps,” which took off all of our hair, right to the skin. They then said, “Go in the head and
take a shower.” After looking into a mirror, some of those guys were crying, with real tears
running down their cheeks. We were skinheads!

Some of them had come in with “duck tails” and had kept their long hair during the two
weeks. It didn’t bother me. I had short hair anyway, since we had to have “flat tops” to play
sports at Tupelo High. After my haircut, I headed for the shower. My feet flew out from
under me and I landed on that concrete floor. Oh boy, was I hurt! It seemed I always got hurt.
In every school that I attended in the Marine Corps, I got injured. Anyway, I got in that
shower, dried off, and didn’t say anything. But oh, was I hurting!

We then got in line and they told us to hold our arms out. Either they knew our size or
guessed it, I don’t know. Anyway, they started slapping stuff into our arms. When we got to
the end, we were loaded down with underwear, trousers, shirts, caps, and socks. The last
items we were issued were our dress shoes and our boondockers (shoes). We were so loaded
down, and there was nowhere to put our shoes. They threw them at your heads. I guess we
were to catch them with our teeth. We then had to run to the dressing room and drop
everything on the floor.

They then taught us how to dress. They would say, “This is your ‘underwear’” (in military
terms). We were to put on one pair of shorts, a T-shirt, trousers, etc. When given our
boondockers (no boots yet), there was a can of Dubbin inside of them. You weren’t allowed
to polish them like a dress shoe, because it would close the pores on them. You were to scrub
the boondockers and then rub Dubbin into them to protect the leather.

I don’t remember when the Marine Corps issued us the first pair of boots, but the first boots
issued to the Marines in Korea were called “therm boots,” or “moon boots.” I remember
wearing a pair of the short leggings and spit-shining them during my second and third tours in
Korea. I also remember the difference in the feeling I had when I stepped over a dead gook
(North Korean) as opposed to a body with the yellow leggings. They told us the North
Koreans feared those “yellow legs.”

As for the dress shoes − oh my, what a job it was the first time we tried to spit-shine a pair of
those ol’ ugly-looking shoes! The socks that were issued the first few years were the ugliest
looking socks in the world. The socks and the shoes were a cordovan color. The socks had
no elastic in them and were always hanging down on top of the shoes.

Keith E. Yarnell, our Senior Drill Instructor. He was wounded in Korea in 1951 then
medically discharged.
We were now on a regular schedule − running, PT, eating, exercising, classroom work, and
drill. We had to be on time for every class. If the class started at 0700, the DI had better have
us in the classroom at 0700! Private 1st Class (PFC) Yarnell was our senior DI, and the other
two DIs were Corporals. PFC Yarnell was squared away, sharp, and had a real DI’s voice.
He was from Indiana. The things they would say, I can’t repeat, but they never yelled or
screamed in our face. All that yelling and screaming from the other DIs just took time away
from training. I don’t know what they think. Maybe it’s just an ego trip (“I can yell and
scream”), scaring the troops, which they do, I guess. I was scared enough. They didn’t have
to scream in my face. Just a few years back, we had a get-together, or reunion, in Tampa,
Florida with some of our Platoon members, and Sgt. Yarnell came down. He had been badly
wounded in Korea and retired with a medical discharge.

We were in full swing in our training, but things didn’t get any easier. There were always
new types of harassments. The DIs had to keep us on our toes − alert at all times. We needed
that! I listened in the classroom, but I was more concerned with the physical aspect and
practical application of the training. We stayed real busy with our tight schedule, again from
0330 until 2100 − the same routine every day.

First-aid training was a big thing in the Marine Corps. I never will forget the first class, when
they showed us real combat scenes from World War II, shot by Army photographers. They
turned the film on and all of a sudden there was a big explosion and some guy was lying
there. His arms were missing, his legs were missing, and it looked like everything was
missing. He was burned all over his body and there was blood everywhere. They said,
“Would you try to give first-aid to this man or would you just leave him to die?” (Most of us
wouldn’t say it out loud but thought to ourselves, No need to try to revive this guy.) They
filmed his life from then until he recovered. He had artificial arms and legs and could walk
and talk again. All the movies they showed us were the real thing − guys getting killed and
things that happened in combat. This really made an impression on our minds, because we
knew we were going to Korea after training.

So many things happened in Boot Camp that it’s hard to remember them all. Many things
were not funny when they were happening, but later they were very funny. Our first mail call
was an eye-opener. We would be in our Platoon formation and the DI would face us. They
worked it out so that they would call two recruits’ names at the same time. We were trained
that when your name was called, you were to leave the formation by taking one step
backward, do a left or right face (as instructed), and take off running. The recruits were to run
around toward the DI who was holding the mail out in front of him. Most generally, both
recruits got to the DI at the same time. We were told not to avoid the other, just take your
mail. As you grabbed your mail and the other grabbed his mail − WHAM! Not much fun.

There was one recruit in our Platoon that was ranting and raving. He was going crazy,
wanting some “pogey bait.” He had his mother send him a box with a lot of candy. The first
time he got a package, we were all sitting at attention on our bunks when they called his
name. He jumped up, failed to say, “Here, Sir,” went sailing out the tent, ran to the DI’s tent,
and didn’t knock or report to the DI. That’s death, man! He was dead! We sat there looking at
each other, and then peeked under the rolled-up tent flaps. I don’t know how in the world it
happened, but evidently the DIs were ready for him. They must have been looking under the
flap of the tent and could see him coming. He ran in, and as soon as he got inside the tent,
OUT HE CAME! They threw him out of the tent, over the pallet walkway, into the tent across
the way (knocking over the stove), and out the back of the tent. I have never forgotten that,
and I’ve had many a laugh over that day.

When we got a package, we had to go into the DI’s tent. They would have all their DI
buddies there. When we would open our package, they’d say, “Man, what do you have here?
Then to the DIs, they would say, “Try one of these!” They would sit there, eating the goodies.
They really didn’t take much, but if you got anything unauthorized, they did confiscate that.

When they called me for a package, I said, “Oh, no!” I didn’t get my letter to my mother off
in time, telling her to not send any chewing tobacco.” I thought that maybe I had been sent a
plug of tobacco. I didn’t smoke, so I guess I thought I could enjoy a chew and spit out the
tent. But if you got caught spitting, they would bury you. After they called my name, I went
into the DI’s tent, and they took something out of my package. The DI said, “Hamm, I can’t
let you have this chewing tobacco. I’ll take it with us, and when we take a smoke break, I will
let you take a chew.” I had feared that chewing tobacco might be sent, and I never asked for
it! I was imagining eating that whole plug of chewing tobacco. I guess they wouldn’t have
done that. They only got down on me a few times. (I didn’t know it at that time, but I had
been in first place to be the Platoon Honor Man).

One day, early in our training, we were bused to the railhead to unload a train. While we
were there, Tommy Houston slipped off to a store and bought some candy. Well, the guy
down at the store told the DI, and they rode Tommy the rest of the time we were there. They
rode him to death. He became the house mouse. They put him up in the tent right across
from them. He had to clean up their tents, shine their shoes, and still do everything we did.
Ole Tommy would be over there at midnight, shining their shoes, etc. He paid until the day
he left there. Tommy did end up being the Honor Man. He was good. He had a lot more
sense than I had, and he was a High School graduate. He also had a marvelous voice and sang
in many different churches back home.

On the way back from the railhead, the bus stopped to pick up some girls that were coming in
to be Women Marines (“BAMs,” as we called them, “Broad A__ Marines”). We were sitting
up front and were made to move toward the back. The DI said, “Men, you understand you
have women aboard, and we do not wear our covers in the presence of women.” There was
no way in the world we wanted to take our covers off. We had just become skinheads! The
girls turned around as we removed our covers, and Oh-h-h, how they laughed − all those bald
heads, with our eyes peeking out! What a sight! Finally, one Marine recruit stood up and said,
“Ladies, laugh now, but you wait until tomorrow.” Suddenly, the laughter became tears.
That was all that had been said, and they had started crying. They thought they were going to
get their heads shaved, too. Well, they did get it cut pretty close.

I was good at drilling. I caught on fast and always paid attention to the commands the DIs
were giving. I did what they said to do, because there was something in me that prompted me
to perform well. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I had flunked out of Boot
Camp. I was really concerned over that. I had very low self-esteem. So, I would listen and
work hard. They were watching us close, and they would tear us up if we made a mistake.

There was one command, actually two commands, they would give us − an oblique
movement, right oblique march, left oblique march. The Platoon would then march at a 45-
degree angle to the left or to the right. The DI would then say “Halt,” or “In place halt.” To
continue marching in the oblique, the DI would say, “Resume march,” or “Forward march.”
If the command was given, “Forward march,” we were not to move from the “Halt” position.
In the oblique movement, there is only one command the DI could give us to continue
marching in the oblique, and that was “Resume march.” The command he gave us was the
command that we were not supposed to move on. But I took off! I was looking straight ahead
and then heard the DI yell, “Hamm, where in the hell are you going?” I stopped and looked
back. I was the only guy that had moved, and I was alone out in the middle of the field. I ran
back on the double, and he chewed me out but good.

The day we went to pick up our 782 gear (cartridge belt, helmet, packs, etc.), we ended up at
the supply building, and the DI went inside. We stayed outside at the position of attention.
We really wanted to move and would try to look for the DI without moving our heads. We
couldn’t see any of the DIs. The sand fleas were biting us, and one of them got in my ear. I
tried to hit it as fast as I could, hoping none of the DIs had seen me. We were marched inside
of the supply hut, where we were issued our 782 gear. We then marched back to the barracks.
The DIs had been watching us from inside the supply building and had seen me slap at the
sand flea in my ear. So, on the way back to the tents, the DI came over to me and pulled my
cap down under my nose. Consequently, I couldn’t see where I was going, and being the 3rd
Squad leader, I was leading the Platoon all over the place − to the right or to the left. The DI
yelled at me all the way back to our tents.

Speaking of the sand fleas, when we were standing at attention or drilling, with our rifles,
some of the recruits would swat at them. The DI would come over and take the recruit’s
bayonet from his cartridge belt and put it in his hand with his rifle in his other hand and say,
“Now you can hit all the sand fleas that you want.”

We were so good at drilling that the DIs would show us off when we would march by the
other Platoons. You would hear our heels digging in the pavement − BOOM, BOOM,
BOOM − nothing but heels, heels, heels! The DI would yell, “Look to your right, your guide
is right,” or “Look straight ahead, don’t look around, don’t move your head up and down,
your guide is right.” Oh, we were good, and we would show off everywhere we went. Our
Platoon eventually became the “Series Honor Platoon.” Our DI was promoted to Corporal at
the end of his Boot Camp series. We lacked just a few points of being Honor Platoon of the
Year. We were good, but, of course, it was the DIs that made us that way.

There were a lot of unforgettable events that happened in Boot Camp. Of course, if you got
hurt, you didn’t dare tell the DIs. I never will forget the day we marched to get shots at the
medical clinic and to visit the dental clinic. We got into a single file, and as we were going in,
we saw all the Marines coming out the other side, just spitting blood. It really shook us up.
When I got into the dental chair, they filled a couple of my teeth. The dentist kept drilling one
of my teeth, and finally he told me to go out and sit in the hall until they called me. I sat there
for the longest time and was so afraid that the feeling would come back before they would do
anything. Finally, they called me and took me downstairs to pull the tooth. I don’t know
what they used to pry it out, but it seemed like a crowbar!

Then, we got in line to get our shots. If we needed four shots, there were four Corpsmen, two
on each side, and as we walked by them, we were given all four shots at the same time.

Wednesday p.m. was the time we washed our uniforms. We scrubbed them with soap and a
brush, rinsed them, squeezed them by hand, and hung them on the line. That took most of the
afternoon, so we thought we would then get a break. NO! We had to run, drill, or do PT.
When the uniforms were dry, we took them down, folded them, and put them in our seabags.
Everything was stored in our seabags.

Everyone was marched to the chapel on Sunday for services. I don’t remember if there were
separate services for the Catholics and the Protestants. Sunday − we thought we would get
this day off. WE NEVER GOT A SUNDAY OFF! We went to chow, marched some, went to
the chapel, went to the mess hall again, and then drill and drill. It seemed that we did get
some time to shine our dress shoes or to go out and wash the DI’s car. We never got any time
to lie around, though. In my recruit book, it showed recruits lying around, sitting on the
walks, etc. We didn’t get any of that.

One day, they called, “Hamm, go to Battalion (BN) Headquarters. Report to 1stSgt. so-and-
so.” This was early in Boot Camp. I went running over there and knocked on the door. The
1st Sergeant said, “Hamm, go across and sit in the tent until I call you, and sit at attention
over there.” So, I’m sitting at attention on an ol’ cot in that tent. He called me, and I said,
“Private Hamm reporting as ordered, Sir.”

He said “Go get me a hammer,” and I said, “Aye, aye, Sir.” I went over to the tent and
thought, Where am I going to get a hammer? I was scared to death. He didn’t tell me to go to
the supply tent (I didn’t have any idea where the supply tent was anyway). I ran back to his
tent and said, “Sir, they don’t have any.” He said, “Get out of here.” Man, I was so glad
when he told me to go back to my Platoon.

The “biggie” of Parris Island was the rifle range. Oh my, it was cold. I have pictures of us
sitting there all huddled up, freezing. We would sit in the tent or an outdoor classroom for
hours and hours and hours. They taught us all about marksmanship. This was a must! It was
#1 in the U.S.M.C. You had better qualify.

Swimming was a big thing, too. We had two or three guys that didn’t qualify. It was the
thing that beat us out of the Honor Platoon of the Year. We had to be able to swim and
qualify with the rifle. I think we fired the pistol, but we didn’t qualify with it. The M1 rifle
was it!

We went through all the classes on marksmanship and then we had to “snap in.” We fired in
the off-hand position, the sitting position, the kneeling position, and the prone position. We
wore a sling on all positions, except the off-hand position. The sling was so tight. Oh, it was
miserable! The most difficult position was the kneeling position. We had to sit back on our
right heel. That was the part that killed me, it was so painful. The longer we snapped in, the
more painful it got. The sitting position wasn’t bad. In the off-hand, we had to hold the
eleven-pound weapon up, aim, squeeze, and try to hit the target at 200 yards. Oh, that rifle
range was miserable!

The DIs were not to unduly harass us while we were on the rifle range. A good night’s sleep
was required to better shoot the rifle. The next day, you needed to be relaxed while shooting
the rifle on the rifle range.

One night, about 0000 (midnight), while we were still on the rifle range, our DIs called us out.
They were mad! Our tents had failed inspection. All of them were filthy. I guess we thought
that since we were on the rifle range, we did not have to worry about cleaning our tents. Our
DIs were yelling and hollering, “Everybody get out!” They told us just to put our trousers and
shoes on. They marched us over to a particular area, and when we got there, they started
running us. We had three DIs. One would run us for a while, and then another would take
over and run us again. In turn, they just kept running us until everyone, except two or three of
us, dropped. The DI finally called, “Halt.” We had been running for a couple of hours. I had
to adopt the philosophy that PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY!

I ran all my life. I don’t believe that there was anyone in our Platoon that could outrun me. I
could run around the clock. I was one of the two or three that had not dropped. Remember,
on the rifle range, the DIs were told not to overly harass us, since in order to qualify and really
shoot the weapons well, we had to have a good night’s rest. (We didn’t count on it!)

Before firing the M1 rifle, we fired the 22-caliber (22-cal.) rifle. We did get to shoot the 45-
cal. pistol. We were told to stick our right arm straight out, point the pistol at the target, aim,
and squeeze the trigger. BAROOM! My ears started ringing and rang for an hour or longer. I
think the pistol must have bucked a foot in the air. I don’t know if I even hit the target. Next,
we fired the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). We were scared to death of that thing. I
think we got to fire ten or twenty rounds. The next thing was the grenade range. We threw
one practice round each. Then, we all had to throw live grenades. You talk about things
puckering − buddy, things began to pucker then! The Instructors demonstrated the firing of
the 60mm mortar and the 2.36-inch rocket launcher.

We then marched and ran to Elliott Beach for our field training exercise. It was Infantry
training. It was a long march out there and back, and everyone dreaded it. We had heard that
a lot of bad things would happen to us at Elliott Beach.

There were certain phases that you never forget. One of those was the gas chamber. They
told us how to put the gas masks on and adjust them to our faces. They ran us to the gas
chamber and the Instructors would call, “Take them off. Put them on. Take them off.” We
NEVER put the masks back on. We had to sing the Marine Corps Hymn as we walked
around and around in the chamber. You talk about crying, burning, and hurting!! When they
opened the door, our noses were running, and we stumbled outside and fell down. It was
quite an experience.

The biggest dread of all the recruits was mess duty! I probably would have died if they had
put us on mess duty. That was the hardest job you could be assigned to in Boot Camp. The
hours for mess duty started around 0230 and finished around 2200. The recruits’ feet and
clothes were always soaking wet from cleaning and scrubbing. The DIs told us that since we
were the Honor Platoon, we would not have to do mess duty.

Two days before graduation, we went to pick up our uniforms, but they were not ready. The
shop had so many uniforms that the workers couldn’t get them ready. The top ten percent of
the class made PFC. I was among them, and some of us had to have chevrons sewn on our
uniforms. When I was in Boot Camp, I thought I would be very lucky to ever be promoted to
CPL (E-3) in four years, but I made Corporal in seven months and Sergeant in 13 months,
while on my first tour in Korea.

There were hundreds and hundreds of “boots” (new recruits) at Parris Island at that time. We
stood out there until about 2400, waiting for our uniforms. We were marched back to the
tents without our uniforms.
The next day we got up at 0300. We ran, drilled, scrubbed our tents down, and got everything
ready. Finally, we got our uniforms. We went back to the tents, put our uniforms on, and
were inspected. We weren’t all that sharp looking. After standing all night, waiting to get our
uniforms, we were so tired. If you look at the Parris Island Recruit book, you will see we
were not squared away. We didn’t have time.

Then we had the big parade. Everybody marched, and we were good. I think we had about
eighty men in our Platoon. We were a good Platoon of recruits, thanks to our DIs! A Marine
will never, ever forget his Boot Camp days. I know I haven’t conveyed just how miserable
those ten to twelve weeks were, but I remember all of it.

Boot Camp Graduation in 1951(I’m holding the Platoon Guidon, top row upper left)

Our Base Pay was seventy-two dollars a month − thirty-six dollars every two weeks. By the
time they took everything out, there wasn’t much left. Monies for the United Fund Drive or
Red Cross (I don’t remember which − maybe both) and for the building of The Marine Corps
War Memorial were automatically taken out. We spent ten weeks at Parris Island Boot Camp,
instead of the usual twelve weeks. Troops were needed in Korea as soon as they could get
them, but the MC always trained its troops before sending them into combat. We were sent to
the Infantry Training Regiment (ITR) at Camp Pendleton, CA, which would be at least a
month, unless we caught mess duty, and we did. So, that made it another month before we
would leave for Korea.

When we got on our bus to go home, we hadn’t slept for forty-eight hours. The bus ride was
an all-day and all-night trip back to Mississippi. We talked all day and all night to everyone
on the bus about Boot Camp. We finally arrived home, completely exhausted.

The next day, Tommy Houston and I went down and had our utility uniforms starched and
pressed. We were sharp! We decided to go downtown, wearing our utilities. We got out of
the car and didn’t walk ten feet before we stopped and looked at each other, thinking, You
know, it’s illegal to wear the utility uniform on liberty! In those days, the police would lock
you up and call the recruiter. You’d be sent back to your base, and that was brig time. Man,
we couldn’t wait to get out of sight! We broke into a run toward the car and went home to
change. We put on our dress uniforms.

The next day, I asked Dad, “Where are my boots?” I had worn my brand new motorcycle
boots when I went to Boot Camp. He said, “What?” I said, “My brand new motorcycle boots
that I sent home with all my civilian clothing.” He said, “Why, Son, I threw all of that stuff
away.” I said, “What?” and he said, “There weren’t any heels on them. They were busted
open.” That was because we had to wear our civvies the first two weeks at Boot Camp. We
marched, ran, and did PT in them before we got our uniforms. Sure enough, Dad had thrown
all my clothes and boots away.

The next night, I called my girlfriend, and she wanted me to come up. She knew I only had a
few days at home. She lived about twenty-five miles from us toward Memphis. Her dad
worked for the Nuclear Power Plant in Tennessee. I borrowed my brother’s car and went up
that night. About ten or eleven o’clock, I fell asleep and wrecked the car. She said, “Do you
know how fast you were going?” I said, “I don’t know,” and she said, “About 75 to 80 mph.”
I went off the road and went down into a hole, came up, and went to the other side. I made a
phone call to my brother, and he told me to get a motel and stay there. I got up the next
morning and found that the car would still run, but it was totaled. I finally made it back
home.

Platoon 126, 50th Year Reunion

Tampa, Florida
Our First Luncheon TogetherTampa, Florida
3. Camp Pendleton, CA – Infantry Training
Regiment (1951)
We went home for ten days after Boot Camp and then returned to Parris Island, SC. We
boarded the troop train again, or one similar to the one we initially rode on going to Parris
Island. We headed towards California, traveling all over the country − sometimes north, then
south, then north again. The porter told us that our trip was being kept a secret. We got into
the mountains (Colorado, North Dakota, or maybe Utah), and it was beautiful but scary. You
could look down what seemed like a thousand feet or more! We would cross on trusses and
bridges in that ol’ rickety train and then look down and see narrow passageways and tunnels.
It was really interesting, but as I said, SCARY! The porter said that we would stop every day
in the desert somewhere and they would run the devil out of us. They would really work us
over. But that never happened! I don’t know how many days it took us to get to California.

After arriving in California, we got off the train and loaded our equipment onto the trucks.
Then we boarded the trucks and took off. We ended up somewhere up on the mountainside,
where there was a big fire. I don’t remember how many Marines there were, but I remember
that when we got off the trucks, they gave each of us a paddle to beat the fire with. We did
that for the rest of the day, and then headed out again. When we got into Camp Pendleton, we
saw tents and huts. They called our names and said, “You are going on mess duty.” This was
the terrible job we had avoided at Boot Camp!

We reported to the mess hall the next morning around 0300. Russell Hathaway and I were
together from then on, throughout the first tour in Korea. In fact, I patched him up when he
got hit during the first or second week that we were on the front lines. They assigned us to the
garbage house, which had monstrous 60 to 80-gallon garbage cans. When they were fully
loaded, we would strain our guts out to empty those cans into the garbage truck! We then had
to scrub them with steel wool and soap, inside and outside. They had to be clean enough that
we could eat out of them. We were also responsible for about 20 to 40 of the 55-gallon water
cans. The water had to be clear! Nothing could be floating in it! So, that meant the cans had
to be scrubbed and cleaned before we put the water in them. Three times a day, we would fill
them up, empty them, and clean them again. We had gas burners that we put in the cans to
get the water boiling hot.

At the entrance of each mess line where the troops entered the chow line, there was one can of
hot water to rinse all of the mess gear. Each person’s canteen cup, meat can, cover, knife,
fork, and spoon had to be rinsed before going into the mess hall to eat. There were thousands
of troops eating at our mess hall, three times a day. As they would go out, there were about
twelve different lines. They would dump their garbage into one can, mop clean their mess
gear with a type of brush in a soapy wash, and then rinse twice with hot water. We had a lot
of cans to clean and fill up, three times a day. That was our primary job, and it was hard, dirty
work. We usually worked from 0300 until 1900 or 2100.

The first day we were there, a guy was sitting outside the building doing crossword puzzles.
He looked at us and said, “I’m in charge here.” We didn’t know the difference then, but we
found out later that he was a former Merchant Marine and only a PFC like us. He had just
gotten out of Boot Camp also, but was an “old salty.” He didn’t do anything. One day, he
said, “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go see the 1st Sergeant and tell him we are ready to go to
Korea. Let’s get over there and get it over with.” So we went over to the 1st Sergeant’s tent,
and the PFC started talking to him. The 1st Sergeant must have jumped ten feet into the air.
He didn’t “show” us out, he THREW us out!

Then there were days that Russell and I had to load several full cans of hot water onto a truck
and go out and help feed the Marines in the field. We would take the cans off the truck and
get the hot water going again. The water had better be clean and hot! We worked on mess
duty for thirty days.

The mess hall became a beer hall/slop shoot at night. There were about twelve tables across
and a hundred from front to the back. Different people from the tables would take turns
buying a case of beer and bringing it back to the table. I guess the beer was only about one or
two dollars a case. You couldn’t sit there and leisurely drink it. I was not a beer drinker then.
Each man at the table would get a can of beer, stand up, and drink the entire can of beer, while
the others sang, “Chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug.” Each one had to drink the whole can
before taking it away from his mouth, and then mash the can so everyone could see that it was
empty. Everyone would stagger back to the hut, take a shower, and get everything ready for
the next day.

After our thirty days on mess duty, we were assigned to our companies for training. I was
assigned to a large Weapons Company. We lived in a Quonset hut, as we did while on mess
duty. We started our training early in the morning (PT, running, and exercises), before we
cleaned up and went to the mess hall. Now, we had a new exercise. We had been issued
rifles and did the “up and on” shoulder routine with them. It was more difficult. We were
trained on the flame thrower and the 2.36-inch rocket launcher, which was replaced by the
3.5-inch rocket launcher in Korea. I guess we were being trained on the ol’ rocket launcher to
get rid of the ammunition they hadn’t used up in World War II. We were also trained with the
rifle grenades, mines, booby traps, and demolition. We were trained to be anti-tank assault
men.

There was a lot of running and hiking. We would hike up and down on firebreaks that the
bulldozer had cut out of the mountainsides. The firebreaks were real wide and steep, but they
were nothing but sand. We went up and down, up and down, taking one step forward and
sliding back two. Some hikes were long − quite often twelve to fifteen miles. It was rough
training, but just what we needed before going into combat.

We wore field transport packs on our backs. These were the big ones, loaded with all the gear
needed to go into combat. I already had bad feet. In fact, my feet just about killed me, but
when I put on the pack, my helmet, my rifle, and the cartridge belt, I would have shooting
pains, just like fire, right down the middle of my back. This took my mind off of my feet!

One Sunday evening, we climbed part way up “Old Smokey,” a mountain that overlooked our
huts. (As I recall, the song, “On Top of Old Smokey,” came out about that time.) We
“killed” a snake and brought it back to the hut. We put it in the rack of one of the guys who
always came in drunk, late at night. When he crawled in that rack with the snake (which was
still moving a little), he sobered up real quick, yelled loud, and ran out of the hut.

We would be taken out in 100 to 110-degree weather to sit on the side of a hill and have
classes. It was so stinking hot! I don’t remember if we had any indoor classes. We were in a
place called “Tent Camp Two.”
 Weapon’s Platoon Infantry Training RegimentCamp Pendleton, California

Our company won a trip to 20th Century, because we gave the most money per capita to the
United Fund Drive. We were pressured to give all that we could. Out of our seventy-two
dollars a month, we had to make sure we had money for our haircuts, laundry (25 pieces of
clothes cost us a little over one dollar), shaving gear, toilet articles, etc. We would go on
liberty with whatever was left over. We only had enough money to go on liberty every other
weekend (Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday). We were broke for the rest of the two weeks.

Our Commanding Officer and Executive Officer with our escort, actress June Haver.
 We arrived at 20th
Century Fox and met our escort, June Haver, a very beautiful and pleasant woman. We were
turned loose to walk around by ourselves before meeting for lunch at the lunch room/snack
bar where the stars would go to eat. While walking around, one Marine said, “Hey, there’s
Marilyn Monroe.” I said, “Who is Marilyn Monroe?” We ran over to her, and there was a
reporter from a magazine that was writing a story about her. I think it was the Saturday
Evening Post, but it may have been one of the other magazines. He put one of us on either
side of her and took a picture of us. He said it would be on the cover of the magazine. I also
saw her on my 2nd or 3rd tour in Korea. The one thing I remember about her is that she had
powder all over her face, shoulders, and arms. They said it was to prevent light reflection,
while shooting photos of her.
 Some of our Marines were selected to appear on “The Great Gildersleeve” radio program.
I’m in the middle of the back row. We were also on the Bob Crosby and Dinah Shore radio
shows and Jerry Colonna’s television show.

We then went to the snack bar to eat. We saw some stars, but I didn’t know any of them.
That afternoon we went to see Bob Crosby (Bing Crosby’s brother), who had his own radio
program. They used to sing the commercial “That’s what Campbell’s soups are − m-m-m, m-
m-m good.” They treated us real nice. Then we went to Dinah Shore’s radio program set.
She stopped her show and talked with us. Next was “The Great Gildersleeve” show. They
called four of us Marines up on the stage. He talked to all of us. The four of us had our
picture taken with them, and I still have a copy of it. Then we went to a TV program set. I
think it was one of the first television shows in America − Jerry Colona’s show. The
comedian treated us real well. We were first class to him. They turned the camera on us for
quite awhile as he talked about us going to Korea. That night we were taken to a swanky
restaurant in Hollywood or Los Angeles for a real good meal.

After that, we went to cold weather training for a week at Pickel Meadows, an area in the
Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, CA. I later went there two more times for
cold weather training. The one thing I remember about that place in northern California is
that it certainly was COLD! They would not let us get warm − no fires! We would throw our
ponchos down on the ground, put up our shelter half, and try to sleep. In the morning, the
poncho would be frozen and stuck to the ground. I went through this same course before
going the second time to Korea. Later, while stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC (CLNC), I went
through what they called “Mountain Training,” over snow and ice. It was a skiing, mountain
and glacier climbing, and rappelling course.

During this training, we had extensive hand-to-hand combat training − knife and bayonet
fighting. We were taken to a place that was like a rock pile. We learned how to throw
people, slamming each other on the ground and applying choke holds. After being slammed
on the ground, we were bleeding on our elbows, arms, and knees. But we kinda liked it! We
were always being taught to be mean and how to fight. The “Biddle” system, named after
Anthony J.D. Biddle, was good. Using his boxing background, Biddle perfected knife
fighting. I remembered it for years. He happened to be at Camp Pendleton while we were
there, and we got to meet and talk with him.

The knife we used was the U.S.M.C. K Bar. We had extensive bayonet training, in which we
put the bayonet on the rifle and used it as a weapon. We were beginning to see that it was
building confidence in us. If we went out on liberty and someone looked at us the wrong
way, we were told to knock the devil out of them. I remember Lieutenant General Lewis B.
“Chesty” Puller told the troops the same thing. He said, “You just pull a brick out the side of
a building and beat the hell out of them.” We were taught to fight!

After we got back to Camp Pendleton, we had a three or four-day exercise. They broke us
down into Infantry companies. We started the exercise, and man, was it hot! I was assigned
as a Connection File, along with about three or four other Marines. We were positioned
between our Company Command Post (CP) and the next higher echelon, which would be a
Battalion Command Post. Each one of us was to keep sight of the man in front of us and the
one in back of us at all times. If the commanders lost radio communication, they could relay
messages back and forth through us. Some of the Marines had to climb up the mountainsides
as flank guards. I know they were extremely hot and thirsty. We were given only one
canteen of water, which had to last us twenty-four hours. We weren’t even through half of the
first day and we had consumed all of our water. I remember just straggling along, and there
were some high-ranking Officers all along the way, standing and watching us. They were
encouraging us on. As I walked, I evidently stirred up a rattlesnake, and it bit the man behind
me. He had to go to the hospital.

Before leaving for my second tour in Korea, while at ITR for my second time, I was the
Platoon Sergeant. I told my Radio Operator, “Let’s put our packs and sleeping bags under a
big bush. That way, our gear will be in the shade during the day.” That night we came back
after dark, opened up our sleeping bags, and crawled into them. After zipping them up, all of
a sudden, I heard a noise in the bushes. It was a rattlesnake! I told the kid, “Don’t move! Zip
the bag up as far as you can and grab the opening with your hand. Just lie still.” That son-of-
a-gun must have slithered right over both of us, but I was so tired, I think I fell asleep before it
got out of the bushes!

During one of our three or four-day exercises, as I continued to struggle along, I suddenly
came upon a big hole of water. Man, I dumped my 782 gear and went right in. I didn’t tell
anyone! They would have locked me up, if they had caught me. Because I was a Connecting
File, I didn’t get caught. The guy behind me had already gotten lost or had passed out
somewhere, so he didn’t see me. After putting my gear back on, I staggered on and came
upon an old abandoned camp. It had been used during World War II. Tents had been there at
one time, but nothing was left, except the foundations. I saw Marines lying under the trees all
over the place. The Corpsman yelled at me and said, “Get your canteen cup and suck up all
the water you can from those water pipes. Spit it in your canteen cup.” There were ol’ water
pipes sticking up all around. So, I sucked all the water from the pipes that I could, hoping
there were no spiders in the pipes. The Corpsman was using the water to wet a rag and was
wiping the faces of the Marines. There wasn’t much water to be found. The Base Provost
Marshall, a Captain (Capt.), came out in his truck. He said there was another unit that had no
water at all and had suffered almost 100% casualties. He said every hospital and sick bay on
the base was loaded with individuals being treated for heat exhaustion. I don’t know if there
were any heat strokes. About 50% of our company had to be taken back to the medical
clinics.
We continued on, and would you believe it, they came out that evening with HOT food! We
just took the oranges. We couldn’t eat anything else. I was going through the wash line with
my mess gear, and when I got to the final rinse, I reached into that stinking hot water and
filled my canteen. I put the lid on and thought, When it cools off tonight, I’ll have some
drinking water. Later on that night, I found out that the water was greasy, and it never did get
cool enough to drink. On top of that, my canteen was ruined! That night, we were in some
dried-up creek beds, and we thought that if we could dig down far enough, there would be
water. We dug and dug and did find water! I drank so much, I got sick as a dog! I don’t even
know what happened the rest of that night.

All we were trying to do was get some water. For the rest of my life, I was psyched out about
not having enough water. I ALWAYS made an effort to obtain a supply of it. Later, while I
was working with the Vietnamese, I always had three canteens of water on my back. They
thought it was funny and used to laugh at me. I said, “I’m not going to be without water.”
When I was in Puerto Rico as a missionary, Hurricane “Hugo” was about to hit us. Again, I
filled every pot and pan I could find with water. I was still psyched out about not having
water.

The exercise was secured the next morning. No one could do much of anything, so we came
back and got ready to sail out to Korea.

It came time to board the ships at San Diego. Our ship was BIG! I guess there were tens of
thousands of troops on that thing − Army and Marine Corps personnel. On the first or second
night of my first time ever out to sea, there was a storm. I looked out the porthole at the ships
escorting us, and their bows would go completely under the water. Then as they came up, the
water would run down over the ship and off the fantail − a little scary, to say the least.

4. Korea (1951-1952)
We went through with our training, and it was time to put what we had learned into practical
application − COMBAT. We were told, “You now have ten days leave to go home if you
want to.” Well, there was no way in the world that I was going to go home. I found out later
that my mom and dad were sure that I would be killed, because my brother, Ira, was killed in
World War II. Remembering how terrible it was for them at that time, I didn’t go home. I
went with the next draft to Korea on 15 August 1951. We boarded the USNS General M.C.
Meigs at San Diego, CA. We arrived and disembarked at Pusan, Korea on 31 August 1951.

We got aboard a ship (you are not going to believe this!) and again my Platoon caught mess
duty. But this turned out to be a good deal for us! When you are aboard ship, you are limited
to where you can go and what you can do. They wanted to keep us down below most of the
time. We didn’t want to do that. We used to sneak up and sit around topside to get some air.
This ship was really overcrowded! I don’t know how many thousands, or tens of thousands, of
troops were on it. It was a general class ship, so it was the biggest troop transport that the
United States had.

I soon found out that when you go onboard a ship, you want to get on a special detail. On
special detail, you are issued a tag, which is worn on your jacket and no one would say
anything if you went to the head of the chow line or any other line. The tag was also for any
other detail, such as hosing off the ship’s deck, after everybody went down at night or early in
the morning. It seemed as though all that the troops did was stand in chow line all day long!

On the way over to Korea, my tour of mess duty turned out to be a blessing. I was assigned to
the bakery. There were four or five of us Marines that went down in the evening, at about
1800 or 1900, to work there. The chief baker was a Merchant Marine, an old-timer. We
mixed the batter for cakes, cookies, and bread and put them in the oven to bake. I broke out
in a heat rash, something I had done often as a child. The chief powdered me down with
baking soda. We used to work until about 0000. The chief would go down and get steaks and
French fries and cook us up a meal every night. Then he would take me down, way down to
the bottom of the ship, to the deep-freeze lockers and bring out a gallon or two of ice cream.

When we first started, he would let us taste the hot bread, just as it came out of the oven.
Man, we loved it and always wanted more. It smelled so good! He said, “This will ruin your
stomach, so you are not going to eat a lot of it.” Later on, after the bread cooled off, he would
let us have it with our steak. We had it made during that period of time. (Sometime later, the
chief went down with the ship he was on.)

We went through Kobe, Japan for four days and four nights. They gave us a little liberty, but
of course, we didn’t have any money. We went back aboard ship and sailed to Korea, landing
in Pusan. There we were issued our 78 gear. Our seabags were stored in Ascoma City. We
boarded a train heading north. When we got off the train, we were put on several airplanes
(DC3s, or they may have been DC6s) and continued north. It was the first time I had ever
flown on an airplane.

After landing, we got off the plane and were stacked on six-by-six trucks. You wouldn’t
believe how many of us were put on a truck − we literally couldn’t move! We had gotten on
the trucks with our packs, helmets, and rifles and were literally sitting on top of each other.
There were no seats, so we sat on the floor and each other. Oh, it was miserable trip! We rode
all night, and it was fortunate that it was night, because when it got daylight, we could see the
danger of riding in those trucks! We couldn’t believe how fast those trucks went down the
mountains! There was just room for one vehicle on those roads. If another vehicle was
coming the other way, one truck would stop, and then back up into a turnoff, so the other one
could go by. It was one or two thousand feet straight down, if we ran off the road. We were
scared to death. The drivers always drove their trucks wide open. When they would go up
the mountain, they had to keep shifting the truck down in lower gear. I thought, This thing is
going to break loose and we’re going backwards down the mountain! Then they would
double-clutch it, put it in lower gear, and then go down to the lowest gear. That ol’ truck
would whine and groan, getting up to the top of the hills.

When we finally arrived, we were taken to the 7th Marine Regiment, and someone from the
Anti-tank Company (A/T CO) met us there. We were loaded onto trucks and taken to the
Anti-tank Company. The Anti-tank Company was a Regimental Company. The Regiment
(RGT) also had a Weapon Company, plus three Infantry Battalions, and each Battalion had
three rifle companies. We only had four 75mm Recoilless Rifles (RR), two sections, and four
squads. When a Regiment went up to the front lines, generally two Battalions went up and
one Battalion remained in reserve. One each of our two sections went up with the forward
Battalion (one section = two squads, with one gun per squad).
The Battalion Commanders usually assigned the guns as the terrain and the enemy dictated.
The 75 was primarily an anti-tank rifle, but it was capable of destroying bunkers, trench lines,
and structures. When the company that our guns were assigned to was relieved for a period of
reserve times, the 75mm RR usually had to stay on the lines with the new relieving Company
or Battalion. So, we generally spent twice as much time on the lines as did the other troops.
If they stayed 30 days, we would stay 60 days, although this varied at times. We often ate
“C” rations for 30 days or more. We didn’t get many (if any) hot showers, during those times.

The Marine Corps began to try to feed its front-line troops one hot meal a day. We, the
attached units, were what I called “step-children.” The units we were attached to forgot about
us, and in two cases, we did not get any hot meals and only received two thirds of our “C”
rations. That meant not enough food for troops on the front lines in extremely cold weather.

After arriving at the Anti-tank Company, which was back of the lines about a mile or so, we
got all our gear squared away, got our final lectures, and were given our assignments. I was
assigned to the 1st Squad, 1st Section of the 75mm RR Platoon. We were then taken by truck
as far north as they could take us and unloaded at an ammo dump. When we got off the truck,
someone from the 75mm RR section met us. Up the hill we went, and now, we were on the
Front Line, the “MLR,” as it was called − the “Main Line of Resistance.” Everyone was
assigned a bunker, usually with two Marines to a bunker. Our bunkers were small holes in the
ground with very little protection over the top. We thought we were safe, until later, when we
saw what a direct hit from a 40mm mortar could do. At nightfall, we took our baths in a
mountain stream. The water was cold and refreshing in the heat of the summer.

Everything we owned was carried on our pack board. It was a tremendous piece of
equipment. The pack board consisted of a canvas back attached to a wooden frame. The
canvas backing could be tightened if it became loose. The pack board had a metal plate
attached to it, where we set our two rounds of 75mm ammo. The whole thing weighed about
fifty pounds. We strapped the ammo on, leaving them in their canisters in such a way that we
could pull the rounds out without loosening the straps.

Strapped to our pack board, we had a waterproof bag, which contained a complete change of
clothing, a winter and summer sleeping bag, our rations, extra shoes (boondockers, since we
didn’t have boots yet), and those World War I and II leggings.

Although I spent another year and a half in Korea and two years in Vietnam as an NCO, Staff
NCO (SNCO), and an Officer, I’ll never forget my first year in combat.

I wrote a couple of articles for Don Knox, the author of The Korean War, Uncertain Victory,
(pages 294-298). His book fills in dates, places, and additional statistics that I wasn’t aware
of. The next few pages contain some excerpts from the book:

Russell Hathaway (Martins Ferry, Ohio) and I shared a bunker. We were together almost all
of my first tour in Korea. The North Koreans looked right down at us − not a good position to
be in. I remember the first time that we received incoming artillery rounds. We would run to
our bunker at the first sound of an incoming round, then almost immediately, we would get
back out of our bunker, just to be driven back again with more incoming rounds. Each time
we did this, Hathaway would beat me into the bunker, but on one occasion, I jumped in just
before him, and he let out a yell. He had been hit in the neck by a piece of shrapnel. I
patched up my first of many combat wounds. Our section leader called down to see if we
were alright, and I told him Hathaway had been hit. In the process of trying to get to us, he
sustained a serious shoulder and neck wound. Both of them were sent back to what was
called “Charlie-Med” (C-Med), the first place one is sent when wounded. There you are
patched up, kept for a few days, and then sent back or evacuated if the wound was serious.

Right after I got on the front lines, I was told to go down to the ammo dump, where a truck
would pick me up on a certain day and time. My section leader didn’t know why and neither
did I. When I got aboard the truck, I realized that I was the only person picked up. We took
another wild ride for the next couple of hours. I couldn’t believe how recklessly the trucks
were driven. The drivers had to know their lives were also in danger. I was dropped off and
went to a tent. An Officer came out and said, “You don’t have a high school education, so
you will have to take a test.” The test was to get a GED. The test was so easy that it took me
about three minutes to finish it. One would have to be a real dummy not to pass that test. But
then, as I look back and recall how hard the classes were and how much I had to study at
Tupelo Junior and Senior High Schools, I can see why the test was easy for me. I also was so
surprised when I enrolled in college after my retirement. That first year was made up of the
exact same studies I had taken in the 9th and part of the 10th grades.

Our job was to neutralize certain bunkers on Hill 673. We fired on one particular bunker
every day and called in artillery and air strikes to help. By sundown of each day, we could no
longer see the bunker − it would be leveled to the ground. Each night, the North Koreans
would rebuild it, and when the sun came up, the rebuilt bunker was there on the hilltop.
Again and again, we would seemingly destroy the bunker by day, and they would rebuild it
each night.

We were assigned to Baker Company, 1st BN, 7th Marines, and Lt. Eddie LaBaron, who later
became quarterback for the Washington Redskins and then the Dallas Cowboys, was the
Platoon Commander. I think he got wounded about three times. Our guns were assigned to
his Platoon. He was an outstanding Marine. His Platoon had been shot up pretty bad during
one of their attacks on the North Koreans’ position and spent a day and a night finding their
way back to our lines. One night, as I was standing watch, some of them came up to my
position. I knew there were mines and booby traps out there, so I went out and warned them,
and they got all back in, as best as I can remember. I still can’t remember all that may have
happened that night. On my second tour in Korea, I also had to go out one night and lead a
Marine out of a mine field. I had been trained on laying and disarming mines and booby
traps.
We fired our 75 guns every day. I was an ammo humper, and we had to go down daily to the
re-supply point, pick up ammo for a 75mm RR, and pack it back to our gun position. One
day, after many trips, I was wearily making my last trip. All of a sudden, the North Koreans
began firing mortar rounds along our path to the supply point. I was knocked down by the
concussion, and when I got up, I had a hole in my hand. I wrapped my hand and continued to
the re-supply point. The North Koreans continued to fire on us. When I got to the ammo
point, I could smell exploded powder and another odor that was new to me. An incoming
round had made a direct hit on one of our Marines, and he was blown into small pieces,
scattered over the area.

Lighting up my “corn cob” pipe while on security watch

We pulled off the MLR early one evening and assembled in a wide open field and sat there all
night. It rained like I had never seen before in my life. The old ponchos we had then were
only good to act as a funnel, so that the water ran down the spine and out the seat of our utility
trousers. What a cold and miserable night.

When it rained in Korea − it rained! You could put your hand in front of you but couldn’t see
it. When the fog came in, you could even put your hand up against your face and couldn’t see
it. All of the weather conditions were extreme, compared to the weather in the States. It was
hot in the summer, my goodness, it was HOT!

We moved out early the next morning, wet and cold. To add to this misery, we had the
weight of our heavy packs − a pack board with two cased 75mm RR rounds, a “Willie Peter”
(WP) waterproof bag, containing our winter and summer sleeping bags, three days of ‘C’
rations, extra boondockers, and utilities. Plus, I was armed with an M1 rifle and plenty of 30-
cal. ammo, weighing about 70 or 80 pounds. The load was so heavy that when we would
stop, I had to position my pack board high above me on the side of the mountain so I could
get under it enough to stand up without falling backward. I was so tired and weary that I
don’t remember all that happened in those days. At times, we used the M1 rifle as a crutch to
help us get up those mountains.

As we came close to Hill 673 to begin our assault, the fire fighting became heavier and more
fierce. Friendly and enemy artillery kept sounding all day long with frequent air strikes. I
was so keyed up by now that I forgot about the weight of my pack.

Occasionally, the walking wounded came by us, all smiles − some were going home. We all
wished for a stateside wound without any serious loss of body parts. I saw one Marine who
had lost the front half of his right foot.

Late the first day of the attack, five of our M26 tanks came up to give us direct support. Just
their appearance and the noise they made was a real morale booster to all of us. That night,
we moved into the area where the tanks had fired some “Willie Peter” (WP – also signifying
white phosphorous). I remember how afraid we were of digging into that smelly white stuff.
One Marine cracked that night and his buddies had to hold him down.

Our gunner and me cleaning one of our guns.

 We started our assault
on Hill 673 early the next morning. I don’t remember whether it was here that we were
pinned down or what was going on. Suddenly, from behind us, we heard some real loud
noises − the firing of guns. I looked back, and a couple of Marine Corps Corsair aircraft were
coming in real low, firing at what I assume was a 50-cal. machine gun and 20mm cannons. It
looked as if they were going to shoot right on top of us. As they flew over, the empty shell
cases were falling all over us. What a great job they did by firing so close to us without
hitting us. A GREAT morale booster!

Our guns were to knock out the large machine gun bunker that we had fired at several days
before. This particular gun was so dug in and in such a strategic location that it had to be
neutralized or we were going to lose a lot of Marines in taking Hill 673.

My squad was assigned to move up as close to the bunker as we could, find a spot where we
could set up our gun, and fire at the machine gun. All of a sudden, the machine gun opened
up on us and all I could do was flatten out like a lizard − I was right under it, about 75 yards
away. Leaves from a nearby small tree were falling all

Members of our squad.(I’m kneeling in the front row, left side.)

 around and on top of
me.

There was a Marine just above me, and the first burst hit him. He was already lying down and
the rounds went right down his back and missed me, killing him. Our squad leader yelled for
the ammo up. He had already set up the gun and was ready to fire. We didn’t know it, but
our other squad, which was a hundred yards or so behind us, had already set up and was only
waiting for the fog to lift in order to fire at the same machine gun. Fortunately for us, their
gunner picked up an enemy’s machine gun muzzle blast well enough to fire. The first round
went right in the bunker. We never had to fire. Later, a flame thrower went up and finished
off the position. The bunker had twelve layers of logs, plus about ten feet of dirt on top of it.
That was why even our artillery and air strikes had never totally neutralized it. We captured
the hill and found some of the Marines who had been captured. They were tied up and had
been brutally murdered. I remember how mad we were. Some Marines were crying and
shooting any gook they could see as they stormed up the hill.

We moved upward, and I began to walk on the trails that the North Koreans had worn down.
The entire hillside was covered with mines and booby traps, but I found a trail that wasn’t
heavily booby-trapped. We lost a lot of our Marines by exploding mines and booby traps.
One Marine near me was blown up in the air and lost his legs.

That night, we sat our gun on top of the skyline in a bomb crater. Five of us moved back to
get off the ridge and found ourselves another hole. There were no trees, bushes, or even a
twig. The whole mountaintop was bare and the soil was just like silt, because it had been
bombed and battered extensively for so long.

We began to catch incoming rounds. We could hear the round go off in the tubes, and the
rounds began hitting on the ridge line to our right. They were walking the rounds toward us.
We would count as the round went off in the tube and then listen for the explosion. We soon
realized the rounds were hitting closer and closer to us. They would bracket the rounds from
their left to right, so as not to miss much of the ridge we were on. One round hit real close to
our open hole. They fired again, and the round went to our left about twenty yards. But they
started back to our right again, bracketing the rounds back toward us, and we thought they
would get us this time. All of us were praying out loud. One round hit very close by and we
heard a curdling scream. Someone started to run, and our section leader reached up and
grabbed him. We held him down, and by this time, the one that was to get us landed. I could
taste the powder and only remember a flash of light. The Marine we had pulled down was hit
again. We stayed there for I don’t know how long. The Marine that was hit was a Lieutenant.
He had shrapnel all in his back, legs, and head. He laid there until we moved out.

It was very difficult to evacuate our wounded. I recall, later in the war, of trying to carry a
Marine who had lost a leg down to a spot on the side of a mountain, so a helicopter could
MEDEVAC him. We must have fallen two or three times, and each time, he would fall off
the stretcher and tumble part of the way down the hill. We put him on one side of the copter
and put rocks in the basket on the other side to balance out the weight, so the copter could fly.

We received word later in the night that the 1st MARRGT was relieving us that very night.
We had lost too many men to be effective in continuing the attack. During the relief that
night, I got to talk to my home town buddy, Tommy Houston, who joined the Corps with me
and beat me out for Honor Man at Parris Island. I knew he was in heavy machine guns and
they were going right by us. I kept calling out his name. We only got to talk to each other for
a couple of minutes.

One section of Anti-tank Company 7 was attached to B/7. Hill 602 was finally taken by 3/7
the morning of 2 September 1951.

Four days of heavy, uphill fighting brought the Marines to their initial objectives, and on 4
September they were in full possession of line Hays, a series of ridges overlooking the entire
northern rim of the Punch Bowl.

Orders were then cut for the second phase of the attack, the advance to ridge line, 4,000 to
7,000 yards forward of the Marine positions on Hays.

On 9 September, the 1st MARRGT was to be released from X Corps reserve near Hongch’on
to Division control to be prepared to pass through the 7th Marines, when that regiment
secured its objectives. It was then to continue the attack to seize Objective CHARLIE, the
ridge line leading northwest from Hill 1052.

The 1st MARDIV moved to western Korea in March of 1952.

___________________________________________________________________

I don’t remember specifically the time or the Hill number we were on when certain events
took place. I am listing some of the events and things I best remember, but not always in
detail.

It seems as though we had been on the MLR about sixty days. It was in the winter, and I
started down for my monthly shower. On the way down the hill, I joined to help two Marines
carry a wounded man to a helicopter. Then, I continued on down the hill toward the shower
unit. Suddenly, I began to see what I would call shock waves, or ripples of vibrations,
moving out in front of me, each extending from one end of the horizon to the other. I was
scared, and didn’t know what to do. When I looked up in the sky, I saw so many B29s I
couldn’t count them. They were coming back after bombing North Korea.
 When I got to the
shower area, I went through the line, turned in all of my dirty clothes (except for my parka),
and picked up a towel and some clean clothing. I went in the tent, picked out a place with
many other Marines, and pulled off my dirty clothes all the way down − long johns, shorts,
everything − and put them in a pile with all of the other Marines’ dirty clothes. The water
was boiling hot, heated by gas-burning stoves. The tent flaps blew in the breeze, and the hot
water ran about ten to fifteen feet out of the tent and froze solid. What a smell − all of us dirty
Marines and our dirty clothes, mixed with the heat and the steam from the boiling water. All
we could do was stand close to the shower head, splash water on us, soap down, and splash
more water to rinse off. I then got dressed. When we all got outside, we checked the rank on
our sleeves (back then our rank was stenciled on our sleeves). The saying was, “I went in as a
Private 1st Class and came out as Master Sergeant.”

Getting ready to load the truck to go back up to the front line.

I then went further back to the rear to the Anti-tank Company Command Post, where I got a
hot meal − dehydrated chicken soup, crackers, and a drink. Breakfast was usually pancakes
and canned bacon − the saltiest bacon I ever ate. The syrup was jelly melted in hot water.
The Mess Sergeant gave me three or four dozens of eggs, two pound-cans of bacon, some
crackers, and some cooking gear. I went back up on the lines and started cooking the eggs
and bacon. I ate about 30 eggs and a half pound of bacon. That night I broke out in hives.
There were hives on top of hives all over my body. What a scare! The sleeping bag made
them burn and sting even more. The Corpsman said, “I’ll send you down to C-Med
tomorrow.” When I got there, the doctor looked at me, sat me down beside a 40-gallon jug of
calamine lotion, and said, “Take a bath.” He gave me a big bottle of the lotion and some
cotton balls to take back with me.

Many other things happened, but I can’t remember them all. I think it was on the first night of
our second time up on the front lines that Hathaway and I were assigned a crater hole about
halfway down the forward slope. There were some new Marines sitting on the skyline above
us. Of course, we were all a little nervous, and we thought all night long that we could hear
the gooks coming up to attack us. Hathaway and I began to hear sounds like hand grenades
rolling down the slope, all around our hole. Each time, he and I would flatten out in the hole,
but nothing happened. Later on during the night, Hathaway was asleep, and I just couldn’t
stay awake, so I thought, I will wake him up. I pulled a pin from one of my hand grenades
and laid it outside of our hole. When the thing went off, we both jumped up. We were wide
awake the rest of the night! I didn’t tell him until the next day that I had set off the grenade.
We found out the next morning that some of the new men, in their excitement, had forgotten
to pull the pins out of the grenades they rolled down the hill, and of course, they didn’t
explode. THANK GOD! Hathaway and I would have been blown away.

On our second night, I was assigned a little hole that was dug out on the reverse slope. I
crawled into it and had to pull my knees up under my chin to get all the way in. I was just
dozing off, and all of a sudden, I heard a noise. Dirt began flying in my face. Right away,
this ol’ country boy knew I was in a hole with a large rat. It was digging like mad trying to
tunnel away from me. I was so tired and sleepy, the only thing I could do, other than crawl
out of that hole, was to draw my 45-cal. pistol and shoot the thing. BAD CHOICE! Blood,
guts, and hair were blown right back in my face! What a mess. I don’t remember what I did
next, but I probably went back to sleep after wiping my face off. You do stupid things when
you’re keyed up and tired.

While we were up front one time, I was told to go down to such and such a place and a truck
or jeep would be there waiting for me. All the driver knew was that I was to go to C-Med
again. I don’t care where you are located in the Marine Corps, if you need to have a physical
or your teeth checked, etc., you get it.

The story is often told about a physical check-up. The doctor would say, “Sit down, open
your mouth, and say, ‘Ah-h-h.’” He would check your ears and your heart, then say, “Bend
over and spread your cheeks. Put your hand over your mouth and cough. Good. I’ll see you
next year.”

But this time, I had to go to the dentist. I had a tooth that needed filling. After I sat down and
the dentist had started drilling, I could hear a noise behind me. My chair kept vibrating as he
drilled my tooth. I stopped him and asked what that noise was. He let me look and see that
he was peddling this device, and the faster he peddled, the faster the drill would spin. It was
the same principle as the old Singer sewing machine.

We usually had to stand watch for four hours and twenty minutes every night and sometimes
all night. It was cold, and the little bunker I stood watch in was in the trench line with a big
opening to look out. It had some cardboard and dirt on top. The wind would whistle and
blow, and every way that I turned, it would hit me in the face. The Marines before us left an
old, worn-out winter sleeping bag. I would put my feet in it and pull it up over my parka as
far as I could. Without that bag, I would have gotten frostbite. While we were up there, the
thermal “moon boots” were sent up to us. Up until then, we only had boondockers and
leggings, as up to this time, the U.S.M.C. had not issued us boots of any kind.

One night, I was standing watch on the forward slope of the hill, and all of a sudden, several
rounds of incoming mortars hit all around my hole. I jumped out of the ol’ sleeping bag and
ran down the trench line to my bunker on the reverse slope. We always felt safe on the
reverse slope, especially if we were in what we thought was a safe bunker. I said to myself, I
have deserted my post, and I ran back. I could hear the rounds whistle as they came in, and
each time, I would get real low in the trench line and wait for the explosion. I began to realize
that over 75% of the mortar rounds were not going off. The next morning, I found thirty or
forty very small mortar duds around my position.

Speaking of duds, I was walking up to my bunker one day, when all of a sudden, a mortar
round stuck in the ground about six feet in front of me. A dud! One of my buddies told me
that my face was pale and I was shaking when I told them about my close call. I don’t
remember what they did with the dud.

I was standing an early watch one morning, when all of a sudden, four rounds landed right in
front of me. I was half asleep, but I must have jumped about four feet in the air when the
rounds exploded. This was some of the biggest stuff I had heard up until then. I later learned
that the rounds were four “short rounds” from our 4.2mm mortars Platoon.

There was a saying going around in Korea among the Infantry Marines: “One on the way,
George.” “One on the way, Howe.” “Short rounds, Corpsman.” As artillery batteries would
fire a round, such as G battery and H battery, they would call out to our forward, “One on the
way, George,” “One on the way, Howe,” and if any of our Infantrymen were hit with the
rounds, they would yell, “Short rounds, Corpsman” (bad “joke”!).

In the winter of 1951, we often replaced other Marines and inherited their bunkers, “C”
rations, etc. When the winter was over, we saw what those bunkers were really made of.
They were covered with small branches, “C” ration boxes with a handful of dirt in each, and a
lot of snow. And we had felt safe! I recalled a verse in the Bible in which the Israelites’
enemy said, “Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone
wall” (Nehemiah 4:3). That was how we felt after all the snow melted!

One day, I went over on the forward slope to visit my buddy, who was a sniper. I was sitting
behind him, and he was looking through his rifle scope, trying to find someone to shoot at.
All of a sudden, I heard something pop around my head and then hit the ground. The North
Vietnamese Army (NVA) snipers were shooting at me. I got out of there and never went
back.
On another day, our gunner and I were sitting back off the reverse slope, cleaning the 75mm
RR, and we heard a loud explosion. Some shrapnel sailed over our heads, making a loud
humming sound, as one large piece went down into the valley. It was the Navy again. Their
target was probably 100 miles from us! They were continuing to bombard Wonsan, a North
Korean port, north of our position. They bombarded that port for several months, and we had
gotten either a “long” or a “short” round from a 16-inch naval gun.

Our squad built a bunker large enough to sleep most of our squad, but some of us never got to
use the bunker. We stood watch overlooking the NVA on the forward slope. The Squad
bunker was covered with one layer of big logs from trees that we had cut down, two to three
layers of sandbags, and five feet of dirt. We took five direct hits one day, and none penetrated
the roof. The bunker was well used, until a couple of the troops brought back a 25-pound
empty coffee can and several pounds of raisins. They tried to brew “raisin jack.” The
outcome was that the brew spewed over one night and ran all over the bunker, leaving such a
sour smell that they couldn’t sleep there for a long time.

One Marine from Alabama and one of our Lieutenants would go out at night and slip up to the
enemy lines with bags full of black pepper. They would pull the bag over the NVA man’s
head (so he wouldn’t be able to yell because of the pepper) and capture him.

One night, I was standing watch all alone. All of a sudden, the sky lit up, bright as the sun.
This is one of the things that happened over there that gave me my gray hair. I didn’t know if
it was the enemy or some supernatural thing, and I didn’t know then how I stood with God.
Occasionally, the Army used searchlights to light up the front lines. The lights could be
banked off mountains or thick clouds and be reflected on our friendly positions. Finally, a
whistle came over the “sound power” and informed me what was happening. I had never seen
or heard of such an illuminating method until that night.

Usually, a Marine was assigned an area of responsibility on the MLR that really required two
or three men, and the nearest man to me was too far away to be seen or heard. So, it seemed
that I was all alone. All we had for communication between us were EE8s, “landline phones”
(just hand phones attached to a communication wire). “Can you hook up an EE8 to a TREE?”
“YES!” (Joke!)

While up there, some Chinese soldiers came in several different times at daylight and
surrendered. Their uniforms were cotton rags, and they wore tennis shoes that were full of
holes. They had frostbite and were half frozen and starved.

Every now and then, our airplanes would come in and bomb the enemy’s position across from
us. We would crawl up on the skyline and watch the show. One day, a couple of Navy planes
came in and started making runs on a hill in front of us. I noticed they did something our
Marine Corps Corsairs never would do. As they would peel off to make another run, they
would roll in toward us.

I was lying there enjoying the show, when all of a sudden, I heard the loudest screaming
sound and the most tremendous exploding I had ever heard, just off to my left. I looked over,
and all I saw was a lot of dust and what looked like someone sailing up in the air. I was so
scared that I ran into about three different bunkers before I found one that looked safe.
What happened was that as the plane turned toward our position, one of the pilots let go two
4.5-inch (or 4.2-inch?) rockets that landed near me and hit what we called a “flash-bang” unit.
It was covered with a poncho, and as it blew up in the air, it looked like a Marine, covered in
a poncho.

Our 75’s communication man would work under any circumstances. Nothing seemed to
bother him. He was from Indiana and was a real devout Christian. He was at the 7th
MARRGT Command Post one day and a Navy plane came in and bombed it. He had his
camera, and he stood up and took pictures of the plane. Through these pictures, they got the
number of the plane, and at the end of his tour, he got the Navy Commendation Medal for
several such heroic acts.

One night we watched a B29 fall. I’ll never forget the sound. It sounded as though it would
fall forever. We really felt for those guys that were in it, but there wasn’t anything we could
do but pray for them.

Two of my buddies and I were assigned to a real small bunker on the forward slope of the
front lines. This was one of the bunkers that I mentioned earlier. We had thought that we had
a sturdy bunker, until the snow melted and we saw that it consisted of only of twigs and
cardboard. While the snow was piled high on it, it had seemed like a safe roof. Someone had
constructed two small racks out of tree limbs. I could barely get in one of them. It was in
dead-cold winter. We would sneak gasoline, which was illegal to burn inside the bunkers.
The Marines before us had made a small stove out of a 50-cal. ammo can. I don’t have any
idea in the world how they cut a hole in the top of the steel ammo can and had connected
several “C” ration cans together to make a chimney that stuck out of the top of the bunker.
One of us would stand watch outside, while the other two slept in the bunker. We had to
continually pour gas in the ammo can, which was about three-fourths full of dirt. Every time
we would pour gas into the stove, a flame of fire would shoot out the chimney and make a
loud noise. We never thought about it, but I am sure the gooks thought it was one of our
weapons firing off − that is, until they didn’t receive any incoming rounds.

One afternoon, just before we were to leave the front lines, we were all told to move over to
the forward slope. They were going to fire a series of barrages of 4.5-inch (or 4.2-inch?)
rockets right over our heads. We could hear them firing far back to our rear. Shortly, we
heard the strangest sound directly behind us. Then we could see the rockets going over our
heads − just sort of floating and wiggling up and down in the air. When the rockets started
hitting, it was a sight to see and hear. I didn’t think they would ever stop hitting. We were
pulled off the lines the next day and moved back to our Company Headquarters.

Several nights later, without our knowledge, the same rocket launchers were set up about 100
yards down the road from us. When they started firing, all of us who had just come off the
front lines jumped straight up out of our racks and immediately started looking for cover. I
think most of us ended up underneath our canvas cots.

I recall in this same area how we would sleep, wearing just our long johns in our sleeping
bags in our tents. The temperature got way below freezing, especially at night. We were only
permitted to burn diesel oil in the stove. The oil would freeze solid and we wouldn’t have any
heat. We were told gasoline wouldn’t freeze, so every day we went all over the area seeking
gasoline, hoping we wouldn’t get caught.
Metal ammo canisters were put in the ground for us to urinate in. I’ll never forget having to
go out at night in that freezing weather with my parka over my long johns, and with my
unlaced moon boots on, just standing there to “freeze and pee,” as we called it.

During two of our tours on the front lines, we ate “C” rations for about fifty to sixty days.
Our daily meal of “C” rations consisted of three heavy (main course) meals and two light cans
in each box. In the light cans, there were cookies or candy, crackers, powdered coffee, milk,
sugar, sometimes cocoa, and fruit. The cocoa was so hard that we needed a hammer to break
it up before it would dissolve in hot water. One of our artillery Forward Observers wrote the
makers of the cocoa and told them how much we loved the taste of their cocoa, but that there
was a minor problem − we had to call in an air strike on their cocoa to break it up!

The heavy, as best I remember, consisted of three different meals − beans and franks
(everyone’s favorite), sausage patties, one can we called “meat and grease,” and whatever
else, I don’t remember. One time, when we were on the lines for sixty days, we were issued
only “C” rations, and during the last forty days, I ate beans and franks as often as I could get
them (there was no trading when it came to beans and franks). I acquired a taste for the
sausage patties and could trade to get them. At times, we were issued assault rations. This
was a small box with one heavy and one light, along with powdered coffee, milk, and sugar.
We always looked for the small can of fruit and cookies or candy and ate them right away.
We sure didn’t want to get killed or injured and leave the fruit, cookies, or candy behind.

While on the front line, it was my turn to get the squad’s water.

Later on, they tried to

feed us one hot meal a day and reduce our “C” rations to two thirds of what we had been
getting. We didn’t get enough to eat. On my third tour up front, it wasn’t feasible for each of
our squad members to go up and get a hot meal. It would take about four hours to get up
there, eat, and come back down. We literally dug up old “C” rations that the previous units
had thrown away.

While in this location, our guns were set up on top of a mountain overlooking a valley. My
squad was tied in with the South Korean Army (SKA). The North Korean Peoples Army
(NKPA − another name for the NKA) would attack the SKA, and they would spill over into
our position. We had one machine gun facing our front and one to our rear. I tried to sleep
with just my long johns whenever possible. One night, the NKPA came through our position.
I jumped out of my sleeping bag with only my long johns on and landed in the snow with my
rifle in the ready position.

On this MLR, the Korean Marine Corps (KMC) units were on the left flank of the Marines
and the SKA was on our extreme right flank. The NKPA wouldn’t attack the KMC or the
U.S.M.C., only the SKA. In doing so, they would spill over into our 75 positions. We
discussed this situation among ourselves, and our section leader said that we were in danger
of losing our 75mm guns. Fortunately for us, one of our guns needed ordnance repairs.
Another squad member and I were sent back to our Anti-tank Company Headquarters to
survey the gun.

What a trip − two men trying to carry a 72-inch gun weighing 114 pounds! As best as I
remember, three-fourths of the weight was the breech. We would drag it up the hill, sit down
and place the breech handles on each one of our legs, and slide down the hills. When we got
to the Ordnance, the barrel and the breech were packed full of snow and ice. The Warrant
Officer threatened to kill us.

While at the Company

Command Post, we gave a full report of the vulnerabilities of our gun and men in the position
that we were in. We then packed all the food that we could carry back with us. Our
Company visited our position, and not too many days later sent a helicopter in and flew us to
another mountain (Hill 1042?).

Another photograph of our squad on another hill up front.(Guess which one is me?)

I remember that while I was in Seoul on my second tour, the Ordnance Warrant Officer
inspected my guns − two 75s, a 50-cal., and a 30-cal. machine gun. My troops later told me
that he was delighted at the cleanliness of our guns and our trench line. The next time he
came to inspect our ammo, I was again in Seoul, and he made my troops open all the ammo
boxes and cases. We never thought to open up the ammo until we were ready to use it. He
found rust, and he screamed and yelled and asked my troops “Where is your Sergeant?” He
was ready to kill me. Fortunately, I was in Seoul.
I don’t remember much about this hill we were on, but out in front of us was what we called
“the rock.” We would send out patrols, and they usually ran into the gooks. We had listening
posts out in front of our trenches and occasionally the gooks would get by them and our
guards. One night, they got all the way back to the 4.2mm mortars, causing some harassment
and damaging some of the mortar positions. Again, we were spread so far apart we could not
talk to each other. We used the landline phone (EE8).

We were on the very top of the mountain (Hill 1042?), and guess where the mess hall was
located? It was down at the bottom of the mountain − a tiny speck to our eyes. They did try to
send up food to us by the Korean Service Corps, but the containers were empty by the time
they got to us.

One day, a couple of us decided to go down to get a good hot meal. They were serving hot
cakes, eggs, and bacon when we got to the mess hall. It was to be “All you could eat!” We
were told that a Marine held the record for the most eggs and pancakes eaten at one sitting − a
total of about 20 eggs and 30 pancakes. The Platoons that were down near the mess hall got
most of the hot food. Everyone else, I assume, got very little to eat during those weeks.
We didn’t stay there very long, and I don’t remember much about it, other than I think
Captain Bull Fisher was the Commanding Officer. He received the Navy Cross on Iwo Jima
and later made Colonel. Later on, I worked with Colonel Fisher at The Basic School. He was
the head of the Tactic Section. My story of the Harvest Moon operation in Vietnam includes
more about Colonel Fisher.

All of the sergeants in the 75mm RR Platoon.

 Two of my buddies and me.

I’ll never forget an incident that took place during my first tour. We were in a reserve area for
thirty days. We were told we could buy one case of American beer and all the Japanese beer
we wanted. Some of the guys bought cases and cases of Japanese beer. I remember the day
the beer came. I have never seen so much beer! The Japanese beer was in quart bottles, with
48 bottles to a case. They had cases stacked upon cases. I know that most of it was there
when we went back up on the lines.

5. The Cotton Patch, MS & Cherry Point,

NC (1952-1953)
I was transferred from A/T CO, 7th RGT on 9 August 1952. The night before I was to leave,
the Staff NCOs and Officers gave us a going-away party. I didn’t know then who else was
leaving, but since I was only a Sergeant, I’m sure it wasn’t just for me. When I went to bed
that night, I failed to put up my mosquito net, and by the next day, I had been eaten up by
mosquitos.

We rode to Ascome City to be processed back to the States. This was the city that we first
arrived in and had left all of our clothes, except field equipment, in 1951. A sprayer was put
under our clothes to fumigate us for lice. My dress uniform was cleaned and pressed and my
Sergeant Chevrons were sown onto my sleeves. This was the first time wearing them since
being promoted on 1 March 1951.

I brought along three foreign weapons, in hopes of taking them home, but one was taken away
from me. The Army personnel said, “You can’t take this model and make of weapon to the
States.” Of course, the weapon was put with their supply that they would take home with
them, still screwing the frontline troops. I could tell a lot of stories on this subject.

We finally boarded the ship that was to take us home on 13 August 1952 − the USNS General
John Pope. We arrived in San Francisco on 25 August.
Again, I made out well and was assigned to a special detail in charge of the crew that hosed
off the ship’s deck early in the morning. We got all the privileges that I had on my first trip
over to Korea. We were stashed in a hole with hundreds of Marines. The racks were thirteen
high. Each Marine slept with his head under the feet of the one above him. During the day,
all our gear was stored on each individual rack, and at night, everything was placed on the
deck below our racks. We walked all over the gear getting in and out of our racks.
Fortunately for me and my detail, we were near the stairwell that led topside.

One night, all hell broke loose. One Marine started yelling and screaming. He was dreaming
that his bunker was falling in on him. A lot of the Marines’ bunkers had caved in, and many
were seriously injured. Everybody was trying to scramble over each other to get topside,
which was impossible the way we were stacked up in the hole and with only the fire exit
lights burning. My crew and I got the lights on and settled the men down. That could have
been disastrous.

We landed in San Francisco, CA and again, we were barracked and processed to go home on
leave. Oh, it was much too slow for us. When we got liberty one or two nights, did we ever
drink up the milk! I think we almost cried when we got our first drink of milk.

The only uniform we had was our summer service “C” Khaki short sleeves. I have been in
San Francisco and Oakland several times, and it seemed it was always cold and rainy. One
night, we made the mistake of riding the ferry from San Francisco to Oakland, and when we
returned at about 0200, we were freezing in our short-sleeved shirts!

A buddy of mine from -tank Company, who also had volunteered to be a cook a couple of
months before I did, asked me to ride a train with him as far as Ogden, Utah. He was a ski
instructor from Connecticut or New Hampshire. He had corresponded with a girl from there,
and they had made plans to get married when he got back to the States. He got off the train,
and that was the last time I saw or heard from him. I traveled on to Tupelo, Mississippi.

While at home, I ran out of money in about one week. However, I had been sending almost
all of my money home, and Dad had bought a real sharp Chartreuse green 1949 Ford for me.
I went to work for a friend of mine who had one of the most popular restaurants and motels in
northeast Mississippi. I cooked breakfast and lunch meals for a couple of weeks.

There was a real mean place where it was legal to buy and sell booze, called the “Cotton
Patch,” which was on the county line. This was the meanest place that I have ever been in
during my life. The man that owned the Cotton Patch shot the local Sheriff in the stomach
one night, after the Sheriff attempted to close the place. The wounded Sheriff did recover.

I was to meet up with a couple of football buddies from my Tupelo High days and go down to
the Cotton Patch. We were all home on leave. Our meeting got sort of messed up, and I went
up to a gas station, where we all hung out. Since they were not there, I drove down the street.
As I was heading back to the service station, a car passed me, and I thought they were in it. It
turned around and got behind me. I turned off into the service station, and this car pulled in
right behind me. I was in uniform, and I had my tie hanging over the mirror. I grabbed my
tie, threw it over my shoulder, ran over, opened the car door, and jumped into the car − right
into the lap of a policeman! It was so funny that they let me go. I didn’t get down to the
Cotton Patch that night, which was good, because there was a big fight and both of my
buddies were beaten up so bad that they had to go to the hospital.
I missed that one, but I did go down years later with a friend of mine who was an Army
Airborne soldier. He was a big ol’ boy. We were sitting there and I told him, “You know,
these people are looking at us as if they don’t like us. We’re in uniform. We may be in
trouble.” He looked at me and said in a deep, Southern drawl, “They don’t want no part of
us.” I guess they didn’t.

I went down there every time I was on leave. By then, a friend of my brother, James, had
bought the place, and he had several body guards who would kill to protect him. So, I felt it
was safe to go down there. One night, while in uniform, I started to get into my car to leave,
and I felt a knife at my throat. A woman said, “I am going with you.” I told her to get in on
the other side of the car. As she went around the car, I took off and went home. That was my
last time at the Cotton Patch! Later, my two friends and their dads and uncles went down and
blew the bar clean out of the Cotton Patch with dynamite.

I left Tupelo early and headed to my new assignment − Cherry Point, NC, home of the 2nd
Marine Air Wing (MAW). Right after I arrived at Cherry Point, the base had an Inspector
General (IG) Inspection. I was the only one in our unit who could drill troops. Our unit had
won the drill competition, and I won every drill competition from then on while in the Marine
Corps. I was to cook there for about eight months. We fed thousands of troops, in ten serving
lines, from 0300 to 1400 each day. I started out as the Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge
(NCOIC) of the barracks, which housed all of the mess hall personnel. What a job! The
cooks, bakers, and staff personnel had their own time to get up. Only the mess men got up all
at the same time. I had to “try” to wake each of the personnel at the time they chose. The
barracks was shaped like an “H.” Those of you who have slept in this type of barracks know
how big they are. One or two might want to be awakened at 0400, and then, clear on the other
side of the three-story building, someone else wanted to be awaken at 0430. There was no
way I could be in ten or twelve different places at the same time to wake up the troops! If
some wanted to go back to sleep, they would tell the Mess Sergeant that they were not
awakened. So, the Technical Sergeant (TSGT) in charge of the barracks said, “Make them
sign a paper when you wake them.” Can you imagine getting hundreds of different signatures
at about 0400?

On Field Day night, everyone was responsible to clean their own wing and head, as well as
the SNCOs’ rooms. I was responsible to make sure the entire barracks was clean. The next
morning, the barracks was a mess. Everyone was going to work or was on a long weekend.
The barracks was never ready for inspection. The SNCO would run me up every Monday
morning. I was a former Infantry NCO and had as much or more combat time as any of the
mess staff. I had this job for thirty days.

I had taken my car with me and we ran the wheels off of it, putting thousands of miles on it.
When I wasn’t driving it, other Marines were. That car never sat still. I don’t know how
many sets of tires we wore out on it. The car had so much power, it would just sit still and
burn rubber. The guys would tell me, “Man, no car can take off as fast as this car.” So,
everyone raced it every weekend. Eventually, I went home and traded it in for a brand new
Buick Sentry − the first Sentry that Buick made. From then on, no one could borrow my car.

Our Personnel Officer called me and said, “Report on a certain date and time to take your
Staff NCO test for promotion.” I asked him if it was for a cook or Infantry promotion. He
said, “A cook.” I told him that I could never pass a cook’s test for Staff NCO. He said, “Take
the test and then come back to see me. I’ll transfer you back to the Infantry and change your
MOS” (Military Occupational Specialty).

BOY, WHAT A TOUR AT CHERRY POINT! There were no large cities within a fifty-mile
radius. I won’t tell about all I that got involved in while there, but there wasn’t much to do,
apart from getting into trouble.

6. Camp Lejeune, NC – 1st Tour &Puerto

Rico (1953)
My orders came in, transferring me back into the Infantry. I was to report to A/T CO, 2nd
RGT, 2nd MARDIV, Camp Lejeune, NC. The Battalion was getting ready to go to Puerto
Rico (my first of five tours to Puerto Rico as a Marine). We boarded the USS Sanborn APA
193 on 13 February 1953 and landed in Puerto Rico on 27 February. What a tour! We slept in
tents, took cold showers, and played a lot of softball.
 Puerto Rico was an
awful hot place. We did a lot of running and hiking with our weapons and packs. The only
reprieve was that often, without warning, a tropical shower would blow in. We would be
soaking wet in minutes, but refreshed. After the showers, it only took about one hour to dry
out and be sweating again.

First tour at Camp Lejeune, NC and my first trip to Puerto Rico.

I was a Sergeant assigned to A/T CO, 2nd RGT, and when we got to Puerto Rico, my 1st
Sergeant told me to go to the Regiment Command Post and take charge of about thirty
Marines. We were to go aboard a Landing Ship Dock (LSD) and unload the entire storage
hole and put all the gear on a Landing Craft Utility (LCU). We worked almost around the
clock for two days and two nights. The CO of the ship said, “I want this ship unloaded
ASAP.” I worked the troops unmercifully to get the ship unloaded. Finally, one of his
Officers came up to me and said, “You are going to kill these men if you don’t let up.” I said,
“No, your Captain will kill them with his thoughtless plan to get this ship unloaded ASAP.”
Of course, the Lieutenant didn’t know what to say or do. It was stifling hot in those storage
holes, but being Marines, we got the ship unloaded ASAP.

I was a fast-pitch softball pitcher. We won almost all of the Regiment sports events. Our
Company had a lot of good athletes in softball, baseball, football, and basketball. Our
Company Commander loved sports, and so did I. Sports was my god for years, even in the
Marne Corps, and it still was, up until not too many years ago. I was a pretty good basketball
player, having played Semi-Pro basketball in North Carolina. I made the All-Service Team in
softball, as a center fielder. The last time I

was in Korea, I was

pitching softball,

I was a fast softball pitcher starting in high school in Tupelo, MS and all through my twenty-
two years in the Marine Corps.

and something in my arm popped. I

have heard of these

things happening before, so I was reluctant to ever try to pitch again. Doing that could really
be “bad news.” So, I started playing center field and actually became a notorious center
fielder! I could really play that center field. We had a Marine Corps Team that went into the
All-Service Tournament somewhere in Virginia. We were in the final game, and I did real
good that day. I was selected for the All-Service Softball team. Later, I began playing
volleyball. My basketball coach in high school also taught PE and was the volleyball coach,
as well. He made us play volleyball, against our wishes. One day, he said, “We are going to
play volleyball today.” Well, we floundered around, hitting the ball here and hitting the ball
there. When the game was over, he said, “This side won and this side lost. Go in and get
your belts.” We got our belts, and as for the team that lost…guess what? We went through
the belt line. I mean they tore us up. I’ll tell you right now, I figured he would be locked up
for the way they beat us! The next volleyball game we played was a different story. We
fought like cats and dogs, as if the game was never going to end.

In the Marine Corps, we played a lot of volleyball. I had a terrible temper, but I was a good
volleyball player. There was a Marine from Hawaii that ran the gym, and he showed me how
to hit a volleyball. I was a good spiker and hustler. I made the Camp Lejeune team and was
also the coach of the 2nd MARDIV Volleyball Team. We went to Parris Island and played
the All-Marine Tournament there. I was selected for the All-Marine All-Star Volleyball
Team. I was in an organization at Camp Lejeune called “The Input Battalion,” where you
stayed for two years. The only way you got out of that Battalion was if you were hospitalized
or dead, so the Colonel wouldn’t let me go to Norfolk to play in the Navy’s All-Star
Tournament.

Our company won the regimental sports trophy.

 Our Company
Commander made a bet with our Battalion Commander − a fish dinner for the winners. He
said, “A/T CO could beat any other softball team on the Island.” The Colonel made
arrangements for us to play a team on the little island that we lived and trained on − Vieques.
The team was from the village of Isabela de Sagua.

When we got to the ball park (if you want to call it a park), we found out that the Puerto Rican
team was a baseball team. We told them we didn’t play baseball. They said it didn’t make
any difference to them − they would play us in softball.

They had never played softball, at least not fast-pitch softball. They would lob the ball up to
the plate and we would hit it all over the park. Still, we didn’t get many runs, because they
caught almost every ball we hit. The only thing that helped us win was that my ball was so
fast and would jump around quite a bit. I could throw the ball almost anywhere I aimed it.
My control was always unbelievably accurate.

The next day, Sunday, I was told to pick up a reconnaissance boat, take four or five Marines,
and go to a certain spot in the Caribbean Sea. When I arrived there, the Battalion Commander
was there. He told us to paddle the boat out to where he was pointing. He pulled out some
TNT and fused it with non-electrical blasting caps. He would light the fuse and say, “Back
off!” The TNT would explode − no fish. He tried one more time − no luck. He said the fuse
sputtering was scaring off the fish, so he then tried electrical blasting caps. We backed off,
and he used a ten-cap blasting machine. BOOM! Fish came up all over the place, and we
gathered them up. This is how the Colonel provided for the bet he lost.

Back with the 75mm RR guns again, my section made a training film for the U.S.M.C. while
we were there. One day, they took my section out to fire a demonstration. They called my
guns up and gave me a target. I estimated the range and gave the command, “Enemy target,
direct front, 1200 yards.” The gunner said, “Up.” I said, “Fire,” and the round went off. A
direct hit! The round completely tore up the target. Our Gunny Sergeant (Gunnery
Sgt./GSgt.) was so excited! It was a rare event to hit a target with the 75mm RR on the first
round fired, but he wasn’t ready to give a compliment to me and my men. He just yelled at
me and said, “Hamm, you know you are supposed to ‘bracket the target.’” Bracketing the
target was to fire the first round over the target, with the second round dropping about 100
yards. This would give you two reference points to get the exact range of the target. Since
the artillery, mortars, and 75s weren’t as accurate back then as they are today, I was as
surprised as he was! I yelled, “Out of action,” and we went back to the camp.

I was sent to San Juan, Puerto Rico as an MP (Military Police). I was assigned a jeep with a
driver and a Navy Shore Patrol. What a rough place at night, with hundreds of drunken
Marines, Sailors, and Seabees on liberty in the same bars. My assistant and I would walk
around inside our assigned bars, never letting anyone get behind us. My primary assignment
was the largest bar in San Juan. On the first or second night, a fight broke out. We tried to
break it up, but there were too many men in it. So, I began swinging my club. After I
knocked down several of them, the fight stopped.

I was sent over to St. Thomas and St. John for duty and spent a couple of days and nights on
each island. I was really taken with the palm trees, the sand, and the deep blue water. When
we got back to Camp Lejeune, I asked the 1st Sergeant to put me in for a tour of duty in San
Juan. I wanted to go back to Puerto Rico − I loved that place! But before I got orders for
Puerto Rico, I decided that I really wanted to go back to Korea, so my orders to Puerto Rico
were cancelled, and I got new orders back to Korea.

On 21 April 1953, we boarded the USS Latimer APA 152 at Vieques, Puerto Rico and arrived
at Onslow Beach, NC on 5 May 1953. During this voyage, our ship was sent to Havana,
Cuba for about four days. I met a Cuban man who wanted to be a correspondent buddy with
me. I only wrote him a couple of times, and later on, I regretted that I didn’t keep in contact
with him.

In Cuba, there were a lot of bars and all of the other stuff that goes with bars, cigar stores, and
coffee shops. Most Cubans would drink only one demitasse, a very small cup of syrupy,
sweet milk and coffee, but we Marines would drink four or five cups. The locals looked at us
strangely. I now grind my own coffee beans and have drunk café con leche for about thirty
years. As I spent many months in Puerto Rico over a period of about nine years, I really got
addicted on café con leche and still love to make my own coffee.

On our way back from Puerto Rico, I ran up on my foxhole buddy, Russell Hathaway, of
Martins Ferry, Ohio. We were together in Korea during parts of 1951 and 1952. I don’t
remember what unit he was in at Camp Lejeune, but he and I were on the same ship coming
back to the States. Russell won a few hundred dollars on the way home, and he shared
everything with me. So, we got around quite a bit in Cuba, and we enjoyed it.

While at Camp Lejeune,

I decided to reenlist early. My first enlistment had been for three years, and I reenlisted for
four more years. I got $300 in what they called “mustering out pay.” This pay only applied
to the first reenlistment. The $300 certainly didn’t last long.

Russell Hathaway and me. I patched up Russell’s neck wound when he was wounded during
the first week on the front lines in Korea.

I went home on leave before I went back to Korea for a second tour. I didn’t tell Mom and
Dad where I was going, again due to their grief after my brother was killed in World War II.
When I had come home after my first tour in Korea, Dad met me at the door and cried and
cried.

7. Korea (1953-1955)
I returned to Camp Pendleton, CA to what was called a “Staging Regiment.” It was similar to
my training on my way to my first tour to Korea. This time, I joined the troops who had just
finished ITR. My Company consisted of a Commanding Officer, (I don’t remember his rank),
a 1st Sergeant (1stSgt./MSgt.) and a Gunnery Sergeant (GySgt./TSgt.). I was a Sergeant and
Platoon Commander of eighty Samoan troops − an interesting crew. I trained my Platoon
mostly in PT and drill. We entered a base-wide drill competition and took first place. I wore
those men out drilling day and night! I was involved in many drill competitions throughout
my years in the Marine Corps. As best as I can remember, I won all of the competitions.
 My Company Gunnery
Sergeant was a former boxer from Brooklyn, New York. Before we left Camp Pendleton, he
was teaching me to box. He said, “All you have to do is build up your shoulders, and you’ll
be fine.” He told me he would get me some fights when we got to Korea.

I played on several different sports teams at Camp Pendleton, CA

My radio operator at Camp Pendleton was in Hitler’s Youth Army at the end of World War II.
His grandparents owned a brewery in Berlin. They raised him after his parents were killed
during the bombing. He said the first American he saw was a black American soldier. His
grandmother told him to go to the basement and change from his uniform to shorts and a shirt.
He said the soldier came through the basement window, just said, “Hi,” and continued to
search the house. I met a German lady years later, and she told how cruel the Russian soldiers
were to the German people and how the Germans all wanted to be in the American Sector of
Berlin. She said nylon and silk hose and American cigarettes were very big items on the
black market.

Before we shipped out, all of the units went to Pickel Meadows, in Bridgeport, CA for cold
weather training. This was the same place I went before my first trip to Korea.

After finishing our training at Camp Pendleton, we got aboard ship and my Platoon was
assigned (you guessed it!) mess duty. Once again, it was a real good deal, especially for me.
I had the run of the ship with my little special detail badge. I didn’t see much of my men
aboard the ship, except at night, when they would come and get me to go down to their bunk
area to eat with them. They were given all of the leftover food. They would fill several
gallon cans. Boy, those guys could eat! One of the men told me that his family would eat
twenty chickens at a time. I can’t remember what else he said they ate at one meal, but it was
a lot. The Samoans were very large and tough people. I don’t know how I got away with
training them the way I did. They were good Marines. I really enjoyed my month or so with
them, but I never saw them in Korea. I would love to see them again.

Korea Anti-Tank Company

When I got back to

Korea, we landed at Inchon, this time. As we disembarked, I noticed the smell again. I guess
a lot of things had changed, but not the smell. I remember years later, I met a South Korean
Officer, who said, “You wouldn’t know Korea now if you went back.” After what I saw of
Seoul on my first tour, I could hardly believe what I saw on my second and third tours. I was
assigned to the same unit that I had been in − A/T CO, 7th MARRGT, in the exact same area.
It was the same 75mm RR Platoon, but now I was a Section Leader. Mom and Dad knew
from my first letter that I was back in Korea.

Back in A/T CO, 7th RGT, 75mm RR, we manned the Old Kansas Line that the U.S. Army
had manned earlier in the war. We trained, drilled, and did PT, just as we did in the States.
My Section manned two 75s, a 50-cal. and a 30-cal. machine gun. We kept our trenches and
fighting hole up to snuff − everything by the books.

I slept back in the Company Command Post. I don’t know why. I had two Squad Leaders in
charge of the guns on the MLR positions.
One time, we were training with 3.5-inch rocket launchers and it was freezing cold. The first
crew loaded the rocket launcher, aimed, and fired. The 3.5 makes a big bang when it is fired,
but this explosion didn’t sound just right to me. The propellant that projects the rocket to the
target didn’t all burn up as it would have in a warmer climate. The gunner turned and looked
at me. What a sight! Blood was popping out all over his face. The propellant that didn’t burn
flew back in his face, as small fragments of flying steel. I stopped the firing, and we went
back and devised a shield from an aluminum coffee can. We mounted it on the launcher and
continued to fire.

All the things my troops and I did in my last two tours in Korea do not stick out in my mind
like the things I did on my first tour. It was nowhere near as exciting. We fired our guns for
practice. That was about all we did for excitement.

One of the things that does stick out in my mind is going up on the MLR to inspect my men
and guns. I had a long talk with my troops. We discussed a paperback book that I had found,
The Greatest Story Ever Told. I wanted, for some reason or other, to discuss the book with
my troops. They all were very interested in the book, and I left it there for those who might
want to read it.

After one of my inspections, the troops wanted me to go with them to the mess

We had five of the M26 tanks andfour 75mm RRs.

hall of the unit they

were attached to and have an evening meal. When we got back, it was dark. I headed down
to the gate and was about to walk through it, when one of the troops said, “Sir, you can’t leave
here without a special permit.” I noticed that another Marine, a PFC, was standing behind
me, wanting to leave also. When the guards said that I had to get permission to get out, this
Marine turned back up the road. I said I’d go and get permission to leave. As I turned back, I
noticed that the trooper had turned off the road into the bushes. I went after him and saw he
was part way out into a field. I yelled for him to stop and told him that he was in a mine field.
I wanted him to wait for me, so that I could try to get him out. I had been trained in mines
and booby traps during my first tour at ITR, Camp Pendleton, CA. I was praying that I could
remember what a color of tape represented − was it a clear path, or one with the mine still
intact? Well, the Good Lord guided us out to the road, and we talked a little. Then, as we
were walking down the road, all of a sudden, I didn’t see him anymore. He had to have
turned off somewhere.

I hadn’t been able to call my Platoon Commander, and wouldn’t you know, the Company
Commander had a night roll call of the whole Company. The Company Commander had
been alerted that several men were missing. Everyone that missed roll call was to report to
the Commanding Officer the next morning.

I was the senior Marine who missed roll call. Boy, was my Commanding Officer screaming
mad. I stood there at attention and explained to him why I missed roll call. I was written up
under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). I just knew I was going to lose a stripe.
Sometime later, the Company office clerk told me that the Regimental Legal Clerk was told
not to put the incident in my record. I never had a bad mark put in my Service Record Book
throughout my Marine Corps career. Instead, I was put in for an award, which I never got. It
was a pretty high award, I guess. My Commanding Officer was told to promote me instead.
However, I didn’t get promoted either. The Marine Corps was cutting back in personnel.

Me and one of my friends.

On one occasion, when I went up to inspect my troops and their equipment, we were required
to carry our T/O & E (Table of Operations & Equipment) weapon. Mine was a 45-cal. pistol.
Normally, I carried my pistol in a holster, which was attached to a pistol belt, along with a
magazine pouch, where I carried one clip of ammo. One of my buddies from the Tank
Platoon had given me a shoulder holster to wear when I had to carry my pistol. The holster
didn’t have a place to put a clip of ammo, so I put the clip in the pistol. The weapon would
then be loaded with one clip of ammo. One day, I came off the MLR and walked into my
tent. It was so cold that the other 75 Section Leader was sitting on a five-gallon water can,
hugging the heater, trying to get warm. I went through all of the normal procedures to clear
the pistol. I raised the pistol in my right hand with the muzzle pointing in the air. I then
pulled the slide to the rear, without visually checking the chamber to see if there was ammo in
it. I didn’t do this because I had forgotten that I had put a magazine in the pistol. I let the
slide go home (forward) and squeezed the trigger. We always performed this procedure. It
was as automatic as the sun coming up and going down. When I squeezed the trigger, the
pistol went BOOM! It sounded like a one pound block of TNT had exploded. My buddy fell
over backward on the deck. The bullet went through the top of the tent and out the metal
grommet holding the stove flue in place, knocking it clear off the tent. All of our troops were
going into or leaving the mess hall, which was right behind the Sergeant’s tent. As always,
their mess gear was banging together, and with all of the other noise, no one heard the pistol
go off, except those of us in the tent. There were other times that I could have gotten into
serious trouble by making such stupid mistakes.

I acted as a MP at times, and one night, I went out on my own to patrol a house of ill repute.
Wearing my MP helmet, I walked in and yelled, “Everyone out.” That was not a smart thing
to do. I could have gotten shot or killed. Those men didn’t want to get court marshaled. If
one of them had shot me, no one would have known who did the shooting. I just wanted to
get them back to camp.
 Standing outside my bunker on the front lines.

During a training exercise, one of our tank crew was going ashore, riding in a LCU, which
could only go so far in without getting stuck. The LCU operator ordered the tank chief to
drive the tank off in fifty feet of water. Well, after arguing for awhile, the LCU operator
threatened to court-martial our Sergeant, so he gave the order to drive it off. He did take the
50-cal. machine gun off before driving it into the water. All of our tanks had just been
completely overhauled, even with new radio systems. Our Company Commander blew his
top. He was raving and ranting mad. What a stink came out of that. Also one of the 75mm
RR Squad Leaders lost his 75 rifle sight. Again, the Company Commander went raving mad.
My Section went out later for the same training, and I made an all-out effort not to lose
anything. We didn’t, and the Commanding Officer was well pleased with my Section.

I was one who liked to travel around the countryside. I borrowed a sub-Thompson machine
gun (actually, it was called a “grease gun”) from the tankers. The paratroopers carried them
in World War II. I loaded up several magazines and went off looking for a place to shoot it. I
found a dirt bank and started shooting into it. It would only fire semi-auto. I unloaded it and
started taking it apart. It was a simply-made weapon. I had never fired one before. I found a
small spring, which was a steel rod with a curved end on it. I took it out, put it back, and
reassembled the gun. Then I loaded it up, pulled the trigger, and it began to fire full-auto. I
shocked some of the troops back in camp, who thought one of our Marines was out looking
for a fight. I took the weapon back to the tankers and found out that when I put the spring
back in, I had put it in upside down − the very thing that had to be done to make it fire full-
auto.

One of my Squad Leaders told me he had a trooper who wasn’t showering or washing his
clothes. I told the Squad Leader to give him a shower the old Marine Corps way. Later, I
took him down to the creek with all his dirty clothes. He had to break the ice to fill up the
large coffee cans we used to wash our clothes in over an open fire.

We had what looked like my mother’s old lye soap. It took him all day to wash and rinse all
of his clothes. He had to rinse them out in the cold stream. Then he hung them up to dry, and
they just froze. I made him do that for the next three days. It took several days for them to
dry. This Marine was one of the Marines that the Department of Defense was experimenting
with – those with NO education.
 This kid couldn’t read,
write, or even carry on a conversation. All he would say to the Inspection Officer was, “Yea”
or “N-o-o-o.” He couldn’t even say, “Yes,” and “No.” Well, bless his heart, we taught him to
talk, read, and write a little. When he left the Marine Corps, he was an altogether different
person.

Me!

There were three Indian troops in my Section from the state of Washington. They were
woodsmen. The older one was as strong a person as I had ever seen, even though he was
small in stature. The other two tried to do as little or nothing as they could get by with, but I
broke them of that habit. They hated me so bad that whenever they got a little firewater in
them, they always wanted to kill me. The older one kept them at bay by coming down at
night and just sitting and talking with me, until they passed out. Finally, I told him not to
come to my tent anymore. I told him I had a loaded M1 rifle hanging on my rack and that I
would use it.

One night, one of the troopers who was being harassed by some of the other men got drunk
and went to one of my Squad tents and started shooting his rifle inside the tent. Of course,
everyone headed for the tent and got his rifle away from him. The next day, one of my troops
showed me a couple of holes, just above his air mat. Fortunately for him, his air mat was flat,
or he would have been shot.

In my travels, I used to go to the Army units and scrounge food and any kind of gear they had.
There was an artillery unit three or four miles from our camp. I made friends with the Special
Service NCO. He asked me to get up a team and play in their basketball tournament. They
had a large gym and big guys! I went back and told our Executive Officer, who was a great
basketball player and golfer who had coached at the University of Miami in Florida. We
mustered up six players out of our small company. One Marine had played Semi-Pro
basketball in Indiana, one had a scholarship at Notre Dame, and I had played Semi-Pro in
North Carolina. We won the tournament big time. We were then set up to play their division
team. I scored 58 points (my average was 19, but I couldn’t miss!), and we almost beat them.
Even in practice, I couldn’t miss a shot. I never played that good in my life.
I was in charge of the Enlisted Club and bought all of the drinks for the Staff NCO and
Officers Clubs. The trooper who worked for me at the Enlisted Club told me that someone
was stealing drinks from the Club after he closed up at night. I figured out how they were
stealing the drinks. We had a wire cage where we locked things up at night. One night, I
stayed in the Club and sat down in the cage. Shortly, I heard two of the men breaking into the
cage. Were they ever surprised when they saw me sitting there! We didn’t lose any more
drinks.

Marilyn Monroe came over to Korea during one of my tours. A big platform had been built
for her, and we had to ride in trucks on the long trip over to see her in freezing weather. She
was several hours late. When she finally came in, she sang ONE song, “Diamonds are a
Girl’s Best Friend.” She then got on the helicopter and flew off. Needless to say, there were
several hundred angry Marines.

Our tankers were required to rebuild and update all their tanks a few months before the Army
unit was to replace the 1st MARDIV. They were to move in and take our tanks, 75s, and all
else. The Army refused the tanks, saying that they were worn out, and they told us to throw
away our old 75 guns. Most all of the Marines’ equipment had been used during the four-year
war and was worn out.

Two of my “wild ones” back in a reserve area.

The tankers had just put rebuilt engines in all of the tanks, and when they first fired them up,
one of the engines backfired. Flames shot up all around the tank. One of the troops was
standing on the platform, just above the engine, and his clothes caught fire. His clothes just
literally exploded. The tankers worked out in the cold, and, of course, they wore their parkas
all the while. Their parkas and clothes were always soaked with gas and oil fumes. He
jumped off the tank and ran for our tent, where the Corpsman slept. We finally got his clothes
off, and the Corpsman used up all of his burn ointment and gauze on him. He was later taken
away by an ambulance, as best as I can remember.
Some of us had dogs. Mine was a small, fluffy German shepherd. I went up for my last trip
on the MLR, and when I came back, the Company Commander had allowed some of the local
Koreans to take all of our dogs. Our Korean interpreter told me they would eat the dogs. I
was raving mad, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

I went on R&R (Rest & Recuperation) a couple of times to Seoul, and we had to ride in the
back of a truck. It was about two hours one way. We would be almost frozen when we got
back. One time, I unloaded all of the troops and ran them several miles back to camp − a
good way to warm up and sober up.

When my second tour was up, I extended for a third tour, remaining continuously in Korea.
Three or four months later, the 1st MARDIV came back to the States.

8. Cyprus – State Department Duty (1955-

1956)
In March of 1955, the 1st MARDIV returned to Camp Pendleton, CA. We failed our first
combat readiness test and inspection. Headquarters Marine Corps poured it on us to get in
shape. We spent the next months, day and night, Monday through Friday, in the field. After
Friday’s p.m. inspection, we were given liberty until Sunday p.m. Thus, the 1st MARDIV
was driven hard for the first year back in the States to get us back into the training mode of
being Stateside Marines. I was still in the 75mm RR Platoon as a Section Leader.

I learned a lot and became a better leader during this period of time. I was recommended for
the Army Ranger School and the Marine Corps Security Guard School to become an Embassy
Guard. I was assigned to the Security Guard School, which was very strict and demanding.
We had to be in good shape and extremely SHARP as Marines. The Marine Corps Security
Guard School was located at the Marine Barracks in Washington, DC.

I was the senior Buck Sergeant in the class, but another Sergeant, whose name I won’t
mention, came to the school a couple of weeks early and hung around the office. Somehow
he got the job as Platoon Sergeant.

We spent hours, during the day and night, being trained by the State Department personnel
and Marine Instructor. I really got motivated there. I sometimes changed clothes three or
four times a day. Our shoes and boots had to be highly spit-shined around the clock. During
one of our personnel and barracks inspections, we were told where to display our boots. I was
the 1st Squad Leader, and I had my Squad’s boots displayed where we were told to put them.
The other two Squads did the same. The Inspection Team usually inspected my Squad first,
and without any cause, this Tech Sergeant yelled out, “Why are your men’s boots under the
rack? The boots are supposed to be in their wall lockers.” I told him to look around and see
that all in the Platoon have their boots where they were told to place them. The 2nd and 3rd
Squad Leaders quickly had their troops put their boots in their wall lockers.

I was Honor Man up until the last screening board. I knew I was in first place when they
asked me where I wanted to go. I said, “Hong Kong, China.” They said, “We can’t have two
Honor Men at one post.” As I was leaving from our last screening board, one of the SNCOs
said, “Hamm, didn’t I tell you to get rid of that belt?” The clothing store did not have any web
belts while we were there, so I had to buy one from the PX (Post Exchange). The belt turned
yellow in color when I washed it. I didn’t make Honor Man because of the belt incident. I ran
into only four seniors that didn’t like me, and he was the first of the four. I could never get
these men out of my mind, for I couldn’t believe these things could happen in the Marine
Corps. I thought, Why am I being treated so badly? But all things worked out for the best.

The main reason I am writing this book is to tell the things, good and bad, that happened to
me. I hope it will help someone else to get through tough times and not be bitter. I learned
from these things, and I proved to myself that I could make it, if I tried hard enough.

After State Department School in 1955, I was assigned to the American Consulate in Nicosia,
Cyprus, an Island in the Mediterranean Sea.

Historically, in 1925, following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Cyprus was made a
Crown Colony. Between 1955 and 1959, EOKA was created by Greek Cypriots and led by
George Grivas to perform Enosis (Greek, “union”) of the Island with Greece. However, the
EOKA campaign did not result in union with Greece but rather an independent republic, The
Republic of Cyprus, in 1960.

The Turkish Cypriots were only 18% of the Cypriot population. However, to safeguard the
participation of Turkish Cypriots in state affairs, the Constitution allowed the Vice President
to be a Turkish Cypriot and 30% of Parliament to be Turkish Cypriots. The Greek
Archbishop Markarios would be the President, and Dr. Faxil Kucuk would become Vice
President. The Turkish Cypriots could manage their own municipalities in the big towns.
This article of the Constitution was never implemented by the Republic and President
Archbishop Makarios. Internal conflicts turned into full-fledged armed fighting between the
two communities on the Island, which prompted the United Nations to send peace-keeping
forces in 1964. The only country to formally recognize the “Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus” was Turkey.

Between 1955 and 1959, there was a period of Struggle for Liberation − a referendum that
organized the Church in 1950, with the majority being Greek Cypriots. The outcome was a
violent revolt, which began in April of 1955. Nicosia, as the seat of government, constituted
the main theater of political conflicts. Discussions between the Governor Sir John Harding
and the State Department Duty Archbishop Makarios began in the hotel Ledra. Fighting
broke out in October of 1955, and Archbishop Markarios was sent into exile. Violence and
fighting continued, and the declaration of emergency in November of 1955 changed Nicosia
into a fighting capital, with armed forces of safety. At-home restrictions, barbed wires, sirens,
murders, and arrests were the everyday routine of life. The road Ledra, the commercial road,
became “the mile of murder.”

This assignment was another rough one. The first night that three other Marines

After my third tour in Korea, I was recommended for the Army Ranger School, the Sea Going
School aboard the USS New Jersey, and the State Department School in Wash DC (Embassy
Duty). I was selected for Embassy duty and assigned to Nicosi, Cyprus where I met my future
wife—“What a find!”

and I arrived in Cyprus, we were moving into the Crown Hotel. All of the Marines were
called out on alert. A bomb had been tossed into a restaurant in Nicosia, and about six or
seven Department of State

personnel were seriously

injured.

I was the senior Sergeant and our NCOIC, a Tech Sergeant, headed our team. He hated my
guts. I gave out more security violation slips during my first year there than all of the other
Marines put together, from the beginning of the security service at the Consulate and outposts.
He and the State Department Security Officer were big buddies. The security violations had
to be reported back to their Headquarters in Washington, DC. When my SNCO promotion
warrant package came in, it was thrown on my desk, where I was standing watch by the
NCOIC, and was I told, “This is yours.” This was the second of my run-ins with my seniors
in the U.S.M.C.

Pat and me outside the Crown Hotel in Nicosia.

The post started out, I believe, with ten Marines. I brought three other Marines with me,
which made fourteen Marine Guards. We had four posts, which we maintained 24 hours a
day, seven days a week. The biggest problem was that we didn’t get much, if any, time off
between watches. To man the four posts, twelve Marines were required every 24 hours. That
left the NCOIC and his assistant, and neither stood duty, as best as I remember. The Sergeant
did most of the NCOIC’s work, so I guess, he didn’t stand watch.

All I know is that our days were full of standing guard duty. For example, if you worked
from 2400 to 0800, generally you would go back on watch at 1600. There were eight hours to
sleep, in order to get ready for another watch.

The Regional Marine Officer from Cairo, Egypt was told by one of our men on his way back
to the States of the situation on Cyprus. He came out and sat down with all of us to try to
figure out a way to solve this mess. The only solutions were: (1) the NCOIC and his SGT
would also stand watch (that went over like a lead balloon!), (2) get more Marines, or (3)
downsize the number of posts.
One night as Pat (my future wife) and I were eating in the dining room of the Crown Hotel,
we heard bombs going off. One of the hosts came running in the front door and got behind
his desk. We always felt he was involved with the organizations that were killing British
soldiers and civilians who were serving on Cyprus.

Clowning around with a hotel employee, some of Pat’s co-workers,and a Marine security
guard.

Another night, Pat and I were on our way to an Armenian restaurant, The Soho, frequented by
the Americans. The Americans attached to the Consulate were told to refrain from going to
Turkish or Greek restaurants. On the way, we met a group of other Americans who were
going to a movie, and they asked us to join them. While in the outdoor theater, we heard a
bomb go off and then the ambulance sirens. After the movie, we all headed for The Soho but
found out that it had been the very site of the bombing! One American was killed and several
were hospitalized.

During a briefing after arriving in Cyprus, we were told which places were relatively safe.
One rule that was emphasized was to never sit in front of a doorway of any building.
Unfortunately, the American that was killed that night sat at a table directly in front of the
doorway, and the bomb that was thrown into the building landed on the table and bounced
into his lap. He couldn’t escape before it went off.

There were many curfews and we were confined to our homes, with the blinds pulled and the
doors locked. One day, Pat tried to go to the garbage can, just outside of her apartment
building, and a British soldier sent her quickly back inside. The terrorists would ambush the
British soldiers driving on the highways, even with their wives and children.

I was standing watch one night at one of our posts in Nicosia. One of our local guards from
outside the building knocked on my door. We, the Marine guards, were locked in the building
during our watch. He said there was a British lady injured outside of the fence. I brought her
into the building, bandaged her wounds, and called the British authorities. She was riding her
bicycle on the way to visit one of her friends who was pregnant. Both of their husbands were
up in the mountains, fighting the terrorists. Some young Greek boys had stoned her, knocking
her off her bike.

All of the Marines were invited to visit the British Royal Marine Command, stationed in the
Troodos Mountains. Another Sergeant and I drove up one day and stayed a little while. A
British Army General would often come to the Crown Hotel. He would invite all of the
Marines who were not on duty to meet him at the bar, and he bought the drinks, for as long as
they could stay. We all enjoyed the time with him.

Pat and me!

 Just me.

9. Cairo, Egypt (1956)

While on duty in Cyprus, I had met my future wife, Pat, who worked for the State
Department. We got married just before we came back to the States. The State Department
routed our trip back to the U.S. via Cairo, Egypt, providing us a week there for our
honeymoon. This is where the Regional Marine Office was located, and Pat had several
friends working in the American Embassy.

At that time, Egypt had recently been taken over by a new President, and there were many
signs of the battles that had taken place. Of course, all of the former President’s statues were
still lying in the streets.
We were housed in a hotel overlooking the Nile River. We saw Muslims worshiping all over
the city during certain hours each day. It was our first time seeing them bow down toward
Mecca.

On our way back to the States, we were scheduled to stay in Cairo for a week.

We were on the veranda early one morning and watched some men wading out into the river
to a barge. As they waded out, they would pull their tunics up above the water, wrap them
around their heads, and begin to swim out to get aboard the barges that they worked on. In
the evening, they would reverse the procedure. Their timing had to be just right to catch the
barge in the morning. If not, I guess they missed their work that day. Someone told us the
barge wouldn’t wait, slow down, or stop for them.

Everyone wanted a tip for anything they did for us. During the first couple of days, we made
the mistake of giving them too much. We gave what looked like a quarter and later found out
that it was more than a day’s wages for them. We couldn’t walk out the door without
someone there to offer us their help! We finally were told by our friends how much we should
tip. After that, we couldn’t find anyone to do anything for us. We carried our own luggage
out the day we left.

The Marine Corps Officer In Charge of the American Embassy guards in Cairo and the
Sergeant Major took us on a boat ride down the Nile. We had our evening meal during the
ride. One of Pat’s friends took us out on a barge that was tied up at the dock. We ate pigeons
and threw the bones on the deck, which was loaded with pigeon bones. We made some
tremendous buys while there − camel saddle seats, hassocks, and other pieces of furniture.
 The Marines hired a
guide for us for a one-day tour in and around Cairo. He took us in a taxi to several sites − the
rock quarry where they cut the stones to build the pyramids, King Tut’s museum, the Sphinx,
and the Great Pyramids. I took a camel ride. Wow! Can they run! The owner of the camel
took me a long way out from everyone else and then stuck his hand out for money. The guide
had told us not to give anyone money, saying that he would do the tipping. I finally made him
understand that Mohammed, our guide, would tip him. He led me and the camel back to our
guide. I couldn’t believe how large the Great Pyramid is! I took a shot of the top and then had
to get in the car and travel out a distance to get a picture of the lower half.
The day we were to leave Cairo, the Airport was bombed and we had to stay an extra week.
We boarded a military flight to the states via Tripoli, Libya and the Azores. We landed in
Dover, DE.

After we visited Pat’s parents in Pennsylvania and bought a car there, we drove to Mississippi
to visit my parents. We then headed for the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia.

10. Quantico, VA - The Basic School (1956-

1959)
I was ordered to Quantico, Virginia and then to The Basic School, located at Camp Upshur,
where all new 2nd Lieutenants received their basic training. One year later, The Basic School
moved into the newly-built Camp Barrett. We trained foreign Officers from around the
world, right along with our 2nd Lieutenants. Some of the foreign Officers were of higher
rank than our 2nd Lieutenants.
 Another Staff Sergeant
and I arrived on a Friday afternoon. We were told to report to the Weapons Section. I won’t
mention the Captain’s name, but he was one of the best Officers I ever worked for. He said,
“By virtue of the fact that you are SNCO’s, you will teach the BAR, starting Monday
morning.” WOW! Were we shocked. The BAR was one of the most difficult weapons in the
infantry arsenal to teach. Fortunately for us, they were not teaching the BAR the next week. I
took all the training material for the BAR home with me (even a big mock-up of it) and
studied all weekend. The only other time I had my hands on a BAR was in ITR, at Camp
Pendleton, CA in 1951, when we all got to fire it. I was trained as an anti-tank assault man −
flamethrowers, rifle grenades, 2.36-inch rocket launchers, mines, booby traps, and the 75mm
RR.

Mug shot of me when I was first recommended for the rank of Second Lieutenant.

I was assigned as an Enlisted Instructor (EI). The Enlisted Instructor Company was not
housed in the new buildings but in Quonset huts. This was the beginning of one of the best
assignments in my entire Marine Corps career. I was Platoon Sergeant, and later the Platoon
Commander, of the Individual and Special Weapons Platoon. I was in charge of the Mines,
Booby Traps, and Demolitions Schools for three years. I worked with the Tactics Section
under Colonel Bull Fisher. My senior Weapons Officer was Colonel “Wild Bill” Gately. I
worked with some outstanding Officers, Staff NCOs, and Enlisted men there for three and a
half years.

This assignment as an Enlisted Instructor at The Basic School, training new 2nd Lieutenants,
along with my two and a half years in Korea and two years in Vietnam, were my most
informative and important assignments in the Marine Corps.

There is an old saying, “This is where I made myself,” but I say, “This is where the Marine
Corps made me.” It was just what I needed to become a GOOD Marine. I give credit to all of
the SNCOs and Officers that I worked for while I was at The Basic School. Many had made a
name for themselves in World War II and some later on in the Corps. Some of the 2nd
Lieutenants later became high-ranking Officers and received some of the highest awards as
combat Marines.

As Individual and Special Weapons Instructors, we taught the 1911 45-cal. pistol; the 30-cal.
M1 rifle; the 30-cal. BAR; the flamethrower; hand and rifle grenades; the 3.5-inch rocket
launcher; the 75mm RR (an anti-tank rifle, later replaced by the 106mm Recoilless Rifle); and
the Ontos tank, which mounted six 106mm RR.

One of my Officers and I were sent to Ordnance School and trained on the 106 and the Ontos.
We then came back and taught my Platoon. He and I wrote several training pamphlets and
handouts together. He was a great Marine Corps Officer. We worked closely together, and
he was “all business,” just as I was. I fired the 106mm RR during the demonstration phase of
the 106 training. If you knew your stuff, you couldn’t miss the target with this weapon. It
was equipped with a 50-cal. spotting rifle, which made hitting the target relatively easy.

We had to know every aspect of all of these weapons and demolitions. When we were in a
period of “slack time,” all of the Instructors were in school, taking refresher courses to learn
more about our weapons. Our Officer sections would call the weapons manufactures and ask
for more information that we could teach about their weapons. It was a very busy three and a
half years, and it was all worth it! I got some of the best training I ever received in the
U.S.M.C. It helped me be a better leader in combat and it taught me how to better train other
Marines for combat. I received a Meritorious Mast from the Commanding Officer of The
Basic School for the years that I taught there. I was promoted to Tech Sergeant in December
of 1958.

Later on, I remember meeting one of the former 2nd Lieutenants that I had taught. He had
won the Navy Cross, and I was really floored when he said to me, “It was you and the other
Instructors at The Basic School that helped me get this award.” My senior Enlisted SNCOs
were the BEST, and many retired as Sergeant Majors and Master Gunnery Sergeants from the
Corps. The Enlisted Instructors were the BEST Weapons Instructors in the Marine Corps, as
our Company Commander stated in an article written about our Company in the Marine Corps
“Leatherneck Magazine.” The BEST applies to all the Platoons in the Enlisted Instructor
Company. Most of our troops in that Company were the BEST that I ever had the pleasure of
working with.

I also worked on several JCOC (Joint Civilian Orientation Conference) demonstrations. I

taught and trained Marine Corps Reserve Unit students and many other groups that came to
Quantico. Another subject that I taught was the Techniques of Rifle Fire − good things to
know for Infantry Officers and Enlisted personnel.

I met several 2nd Lieutenants who had been All-American football and basketball players.
Since sports was my god then, I could write many things about these great athletes. In fact, if
I wrote about of all my experiences at The Basic School, that in itself would fill a book.

I also played a lot of sports while at Quantico. I practiced with some of the Quantico
Basketball Team for three years. They won everything while I was there. The Quantico
football team won the All-Service Championship. I played in the All-Service Softball
Tournament and made the All-Star Team. It was at Quantico that I really learned how to play
volleyball. Later, I made the Marine Corps All-Star Volleyball Team, while stationed at
Camp Lejeune, NC.

I was in charge of the Mine, Booby Trap, and Demolition Range for three years, as an
additional duty. I was asked to stand in for one of our Demo men. I was to set and blow a
demonstration shot for two different classes. After the first shot, I found I was short some
TNT for the second shot. I called the OIC, and he said to use what I had. I dug a hole (the
size of a five-gallon can) in the ground and put a pound of TNT, along with a WP grenade, in
the bottom of the hole. Then I inserted a five-gallon can, filled with gas. With the detonating
cord, I made a circular ring and laid it around the top of the hole. Then, I hooked all of these
items up in a series circuit and set them off with a ten-cap blasting machine. When I set this
one off, it had an unusual effect. It looked like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. It
formed a large, black circular ring in the air and remained for about half an hour, before
floating off.

I was thoroughly trained at The Basic School in every aspect of the U.S.M.C., and I was even
taught how to become a good Christian. However, living the Christian life was slow in
coming.

As a Weapons Instructor in my Platoon, we had to be able to teach all the outside

nomenclature, give the general data, and be able to disassemble and rapidly reassemble each
weapon. After we disassembled every weapon, we would put all of the parts in a poncho and
shake them up. Next, we would pick out each part, tell which weapon that part came from,
name all of the working surfaces on each part, and explain that part’s function when the
weapon was being fired. We also had to be able to describe how to remedy any misfire or
malfunction that could occur in each weapon.

I recall an incident that happened when I was an Instructor at The Basic School. I was
assigned to train some Marine Corps Reserves on a Saturday. We had four or five “short
rounds” with the 81mm mortars. Thank God, none of the rounds exploded. There is always
some danger in MC training, and many fatalities have occurred.

Outdoor map class.

 All of the Instructors
there knew their jobs better than most Marine NCOs. There were many other outstanding
Marine Instructors in the Corps, and I marveled at their teaching. I spent two years with two
other branches of service and could well compare the different branches of the services, but I
won’t do that, since that is not what I am trying to accomplish here.

When I was at Fort Bragg the first time, one of the outstanding Instructors (an Army Major)
told me and some other Marines that during their Inspector General inspection that year, the
Inspector General made the comment that they needed to improve their Instructor Corps. In
response, the Base Commander said, “If you want better Instructors, give us more Marine
Instructors.” I personally thought that all of my Instructors were excellent − those at Special
Warfare Training, Fort Bragg, NC; Airborne School, Fort Benning, GA; and at the Navy
Diver School, San Diego, CA. I also attended other schools which had excellent Instructors,
but I have to say, out of my twenty-two years in the U.S.M.C., it was hard to find better
Instructors than the ones in the Marine Corps, especially at The Basic School.

The following is quoted from an article in The Marine Corps “Leatherneck Magazine” by
Acting Master Sergeant (AMSgt.) Clay Barrow:

It is NOT beyond the realm of possibility that the man destined to lead the Marine Corps into
the 21st Century is now a student at Quantico’s The Basic School.
The man who may become Commandant of the Marine Corps in some future year could have
been the officer-student whose six uncles were Marines and who asks blandly, “You mean
there are other services?” Or he could have been the son of the Marine Lieutenant Colonel
who gave his life (and won the Medal of Honor) in the skies over Guadalcanal. He could
even be the fun-loving young officer who is called “Charlie Brown” by all his classmates.
Whether the 21st Century’s Commandant is any (or none) of these men is unimportant. What
is important is that they, like the officer-students who preceded them and those who will
follow, receive the finest training from the best Instructors the Marine Corps has.
The responsibility for preparing these Lieutenants for the ‘burden of command’ rests on the
shoulders of approximately seventy Officer/Instructors who must accomplish their formidable
assignment in 450 periods of instruction over a 30-week span.
But these Officer/Instructors do not (probably could not) do the job alone. Working with
them are 178 Enlisted men of the Enlisted Instructor Company, who supplement the
instruction offered to the students. The 178 Enlisted men include a Company 1st Sergeant, a
1st Sergeant, and a Master Sergeant as training Staff NCOs and many other Enlisted Marines.
Anyone who has ever heard about the Marine Corps knows what a DI is and does. But
probably not one Enlisted man in a hundred, including those stationed at “Mainside” in
Quantico, knows what an Enlisted Instructor is and does.
The Company Commander, when I was in Enlisted Instructor Company in 1955-1959, was
formerly Enlisted before getting his appointment to Annapolis. He summed up the Enlisted
Instructor with this statement: “Our men are just ordinary Marines yet no one could hear him
say it without detecting his limitless confidence in ‘ordinary Marines.’ Of course, from these
ordinary Marines we expected, and got, extraordinary performance.”
No single group of Officers in the Corps today will exercise a stronger influence on the
growth of the Corps in the critical years ahead than these neophyte Officers. No group of
Enlisted Marines exercises a stronger influence on these Lieutenants than the men of the
Enlisted Instructor Company. The Enlisted Instructor Company draws its enlisted men, like
The Basic School draws its Lieutenants, from all walks of life and all points of the compass.
But there the similarity ends.

The Company Commander of The Basic School made this comment: “To round out the
picture, a unique class called ‘Officer-Enlisted Relations’ has become an important part of the
curriculum. One of the four senior Enlisted men of Enlisted Instructor Company straps on a
microphone and, in his own words, tells a student company what he thinks an Enlisted man
expects from his Officers. Afterward, there is a discussion period which never turns out to be
dull.”
 When I reported in to
the Enlisted Instructor Company, there were four Platoons: (1) Tactics Platoon; (2)
Marksmanship Platoon; (3) Individual & Special Weapons Platoon; and (4) a Crew-Served
Weapons Platoon, primarily the U.S. 30-cal. “light” machine gun.

Live machine gun fire.

Throughout their period of instruction at The Basic School, officer-students come in almost
daily contact with Enlisted Instructors. A Marine can gain more professional knowledge in
one year here than in five years anywhere else.

The following article from the “Marine Corps Leatherneck Magazine” explains in detail
the duties of an Enlisted Instructor at the Basic School at Quantico, Virginia:
11. Camp Lejeune, NC − 2nd Tour (1960-
1962)
My next assignment was with the 2nd MARDIV, Camp Lejeune, NC − the home of
“Expeditionary Forces in Readiness.” For more than a half-century, Camp Lejeune has been
the home base for II Marine Expeditionary Force, 2nd MARDIV, 2nd Force Service Support
Group and other combat units and support commands. During 1994, Camp Lejeune also
became home to the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Atlantic (MARFORLANT), the Corps’ most
senior command in the Atlantic region. It remained at Camp Lejeune until June 30, 1997,
when it relocated to the U.S. Naval Base, in Norfolk, VA.

Today, as in the past, Camp Lejeune’s mission remains the same – to maintain combat-ready
units for expeditionary deployment. Camp Lejeune had its beginnings in the early 1940s,
when a selection board decided on the New River area of North Carolina as the most ideal
location for a new Marine training base.
The following quote is from the Camp Lejeune & Marine Corps Air Station New River 1998
Guidebook:

The 2nd Marine Division is the combat infantry division and the ground combat element of II
MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force). Its backbone is the individual Marine Infantryman,
whose basic mission is to locate, close with, attack, and destroy or capture the enemy.
The division is comprised of over 15,000 Enlisted Marines and Sailors and 1,000 Officers
who form the 2nd, 6th, and 8th Marine Regiments (Infantry), 10th Marine Regiment
(Artillery), 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Combat Engineer
Battalion, Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion, and 2nd Light Armored
Reconnaissance Battalion.
Formed in 1941, division units began regular deployments to the Mediterranean as landing
forces for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. The units have also deployed to Korea as replacements during
the Korean conflict and to the Middle East to evacuate.
The training offered to Infantry Marines does not stop at ITB (Infantry Training Battalion).
Advanced Infantry Training Company 9AITCO offers two courses for the advanced infantry
Marines − an Infantry Squad Leaders Course and the Infantry Platoon Sergeants Course.
AITC supports the 2nd Marine Division by providing two advanced leadership courses − the
Advanced Mortar Leader’s Course and the Advanced Machine-gunner Leader’s Course.
Additionally, AITC conducts MOS qualification for Close Combat Instructors.

I was assigned to the 3rd BN, 2nd MARRGT, where I was then assigned to Headquarters
Company. I reported to the 1st Sergeant, an outstanding Marine who later became the
Sergeant Major of 1st or 3rd MARDIV in Da Nang, VN. I was a Tech Sergeant, which was
later changed to Acting Gunnery Sergeant (AGSgt.). He looked at me and said, “I have just
the Platoon for you. I want you to be the Platoon Sergeant/Platoon Commander of the 81mm
Mortar Platoon.”
 I wanted to be assigned
to a Rifle Company, as our Battalion was going into what was called an “INPUT” outfit. An
“INPUT” unit would be totally equipped with T/O & E, meaning that the Battalion would
start with 100% manpower, with every piece of equipment we rated. This was to last for two
years. Our Battalion, along with other Battalions, would be put on immediate standby, 24-
hour standby, 48-hour standby, or seven-day standby, and if anything happened anywhere in
the world that required American troops to be called out, we would be on our way.

Lt Tully, my weapons platoon commander, and me aboard the USS Chilton APR for a six-
month deployment in the Mediterranean Sea.

We thoroughly rehearsed the deployment plan. We would be trucked to Cherry Point, NC,
where the 2nd MAW was stationed. There, we would board airplanes, usually C114s or
C117s. We would each be given a reserved parachute, and the plane would take off. After a
short flight, we would return, land, and board our trucks back to Camp Lejeune, NC. No one
would be transferred or leave the unit unless it was a dire emergency.
Our Battalion was a Re-enforced Infantry Battalion or a Battalion Landing Team. We had a
full complement of men, supplies, and all the necessary support units, which included air
liaison teams, tanks, the Ontos tanks, Amtracs (Amphibian or Amphibious tractors or LVT –
Landing Vehicle Tracked), and many other support units − everything a Marine Corps
Infantry Battalion would need to land and be self-supporting for thirty days of combat.

While the Battalion was forming in 1961, I was sent to the Mountain Warfare Training Center
(MWTC) in Bridgeport, CA. Our training at Pickel Meadows consisted of a course in
“Movement over Mountainous Terrain in Snow and Ice.” We were primarily on skis as we
learned mountain climbing and rappelling and some glacier climbing and rappelling.

12. Bridgeport, CA - Mountain Warfare

Training Center (23 Feb – 14 Mar 61)
Although I attended many other schools, this was probably the most physical school I ever
attended in all of my twenty-two years in the Corps. The Mountain Warfare Training Center
(MWTC) was located in Pickel Meadows, within the Toiyabe National Forest, twenty-one
miles northwest of Bridgeport, CA. It was rougher than the Airborne School at Fort Benning,
GA; the Navy Diver School in San Diego, CA; and the training I had with the Royal Marine
Commandos, during the Med Cruise on the Mediterranean Sea, with the rocks, the daytime
heat, and the freezing night temperatures of Bomba, Libya.

We flew to California in the 2nd MAW Commander’s airplane, and I experienced my first
and last sandstorm while in flight. That was some experience! No one knew if the sand would
kill the engine (a prop job) or not. We landed and stayed overnight in Albuquerque, NM on a
Saturday. We didn’t have any civilian clothes to wear to the Enlisted Club to eat and drink a
little. Some of the Air Force troops loaned us some of their clothes. What a sight − you
wouldn’t believe what we looked like! Feeling the cold, one ol’ tall and lanky Marine was
wearing his long johns − top and bottoms. Both his trousers and his shirt sleeves were too
short. You could see his long johns top and bottoms sticking out from under his trousers and
shirt. At the Club, the Airmen and their wives or dates were in semi-formal dress. It was a
special banquet. After awhile, I got up and “told” the band to play the Marine Corps Hymn,
and they did. Everyone there stood up while they played it.

After returning to the Barracks and sleeping in a stinking hot room that was steam heated, I
woke up the next morning with a sore throat and a high fever. I kept the fever all through the
training. We lived in tents and were a mile from the mess hall. Our Instructor told us we
were on our own as to whether or not we did physical training in the morning. We were all
NCOs, SNCOs, and 2nd Lieutenants.

We got up between 0400 and 0500, worked out and ran to the mess hall as a group, and ran
back on our own. I couldn’t believe how hard it was to breathe in the cold air at a 6,000-foot
elevation. When I got into the mess hall, I could also hardly breathe, because of the heat and
the smell.

I still had a high fever, but I never told anyone. In the Marine Corps, if you dropped out of a
school, especially one of another branch of service, they would write in your Service Record
Book that you “failed the course,” even if you were sick like me, or had broken a leg, or
whatever. You were out of luck in getting promoted that year. I found this out when I was on
a twelve-week Promotion Board in Headquarters, U.S.M.C. The same thing applied if you
failed to qualify with your personal weapon, rifle, or pistol. “UNQ” (Unqualified) is a bad
designation in the Marine Corps.

We trained in the Base Camp for about a week. One cold night, some of us went for a
shower. I was in my underwear with a parka over it. The trooper who was to get the water
hot was late. The sides of the tent flapped in the breeze as we tried to get the stove working,
without success. Finally, the PFC fired up the water heater and the water got scalding hot. I
had just gotten in the shower and was soaped up, when the compressor shut down. I was
standing there with soap all over my body and no water. I ran back to the stove, but it was
colder than I was. WOW! We were ready to kill that jarhead. He finally got the machine
running, and I rinsed off and headed back to my tent.

We then went up to about eight or nine thousand feet to the ski-tour area where we pitched
our pyramidal tents (six-sided). There is a special way of doing this on the snow and ice. We
laid out our ponchos on the snow, and then laid our rubber air mats on them. We had winter
sleeping bags, which were warm enough to get some sleep. We could only light the stove at a
very early hour to cook our morning meals and once again after dark to cook our evening
meals. Other than that, we had no heat!

We were issued skis and ski boots. The boots were the same as Frankenstein’s Monster wore
in the movies − hard as steel. We had to wear three pairs of the heavy Marine Corps socks,
changing them morning, noon, and night − yes, nine pairs of socks per day! We had to dry
them before we started out. We skied every morning, afternoon, and night. We got very little
rest. I was still running a high fever and was getting weaker each day.

My skis were 7’2” in length, and the bindings couldn’t be adjusted, so I couldn’t pick the toes
of my skis off the snow. The steel runners on my skis kept coming loose and would collect
snow under them. Consequently, I really never had control of my skis. Our Instructor ran
around with four-foot skis, good bindings and runners, and pretty little shoes, yelling at us for
falling so much. Because my skis were so long, I couldn’t do a step turn with them. Any
time you fell, you had to get up on your own. No one was allowed to help you.

Things got worse each day − and so did my fever. When we were doing cross-country runs,
we set our cross-country bindings so that our boot heels would move up and down. My feet
continually slipped back and forth in my boots, and finally, both of my feet were bleeding
through the three pair of socks. Our Corpsman came down each night and tried to take care of
my feet. Know this − that Corpsman was going through the same course, just like the rest of
us, but he had to treat all of us during the entire course. He should have gotten the Honor
Man Award!

The OIC (Officer In Charge – in this case, a Captain) came to me one night and said, “You
have to go down. I am dropping you from the course.” I said, “I am not going down. I will
make it the rest of the way.” He said, “You fall more than anyone we have ever had go
through this course.” I said, “Captain, when you get to the bottom of this mountain, I will be
right behind you. I may be a snow ball, but I’ll make it.”

I think we started out with about 44 men and ended up with about 14. With broken bones,
sickness, and overall weakness, those that dropped out didn’t just give up and quit − they
COULDN’T go on! When we came off those hills (especially at night), some of the men hit
trees full force, and you could hear the grunts! The snow at night would ice over, and we
would just fly down those mountains.

I started with five other Marines in my tent, and later it came down to only a Sergeant and me.
Some of those guys were so weak, cold, and tired. I saw tears in their eyes at times. I think I
was the only one left in my tent when we broke camp and started down the slope. We each
had to make it all the way down to graduate. My buddy, another Tech Sergeant from the
same Battalion at Camp Lejeune, NC had a broken hand. It was really swollen up, and I knew
it hurt, but he would not quit. He had won a Silver Star in Korea − quite a story. Other
trainings that I had gone through were awfully tough, but this was the toughest. I don’t know
how I made it.

The last night of our final exercise, all the Lieutenants and the other Tech Sergeant were
declared “captives,” so I had to plan the final attack. It was getting late, and I only had about
five or six other “good” guys to attack the camp of the “bad” guys. We had to simulate
knocking out the two snow track vehicles (called “otters”) or we would lose. I made the plan,
set up our 30-cal. machine gun and sent two men with smoke grenades up above the camps.

I waited until it got real dark, and the Instructors were getting a little impatient with us. They
thought we would attack earlier, get killed, and it would be all over. I instructed the machine
gunner as to when to start firing, and then the rest of us opened up with M1 rifles. Of course,
we were firing blanks. This was the signal for the two Marines at the higher elevation to ski
down and put the grenades on the otters. It was a real cowboy and Indian show, but we got
the job done.

The next morning, we were to ski back down to the base − about 3,000 meters. I was put at
the rear column with one of the Instructors, and everyone took off. He looked at me and said,
“Go!” (Remember, I couldn’t control my skis.) There was a small tree right in front of me,
and I tried to ski around it, but one of my skis hit the tree. I ended up suspended in the air,
straddling that tree. The Instructor took off and left me hanging on there. I had to get
untangled by myself. Finally, I was free and I got started down the snow-covered road to
camp. I was picking up a lot of speed when suddenly, my right ski hit a dry spot in the road
that was nothing but sand and rocks. I thought my right leg was going to be ripped off!
Again, I got upright and started down the hill once more, bound to make it. All of a sudden, I
saw a ski slide into a ditch on my left. I remember chuckling a little to myself, thinking,
Somebody has lost a ski, and he is in real trouble. I looked down and saw that I only had one
ski!

When I went back up and got my broken ski, the binding was bent. I finally got it back on my
foot and continued down the hill. I MADE IT BACK TO CAMP!

After graduating, I returned to Camp Lejeune, NC, and discovered that I had lost twelve
pounds. At 6’2,” I had weighed about 170 pounds when I started the training at Pickel
Meadows.

I look back at that school and all the others that I either attended or was in charge of in the
Corps, and I marvel that so many of us made it through.
While on one of my tours at Camp Lejeune, NC I was sent to Airborne School, Fort Benning,
GA. I creamed in on my 4th jump − my most serious injury during any of my trainings. I hit
the ground so hard I was almost knocked out. I was the plane Captain and 2nd jumper to exit
the aircraft. The wind wasn’t very strong, so I don’t know went wrong. Along with the
instructor who had jumped just before me, we came up with a couple of ideas as to why I hit
the ground so hard. I didn’t say anything to him or anyone else, but I was HURT! I got back
to my room and got my clothes and boots ready for the next day’s inspection. I felt I couldn’t
make it to the mess hall, so I showered and laid down. Later, I felt a need to go to the head. I
sat down but couldn’t get up because of the pain and the stiffness. I crawled on my knees to
the bedside and laid part of my body on the bed. I passed out and didn’t completely wake up
until just before chow. I got dressed and walked to the mess hall. Later, we fell out and
started double time to the jump area. We always had to make one practice PLF parachute
landing fall before we made a jump. I just ran on and didn’t make a practice PLF. I knew I
would never get up. I formed my troops for inspection, because our morning exercise was
next. I knew I couldn’t do the exercises, but what I did know was that as soon as they found
out I was injured, they would immediately drop me from the course. Fortunately for me, they
called my name to write up a critique of our third week (jump week). All I had to do to finish
was to get in my chute and out the door of the plane. I MADE IT! I didn’t turn in to sick bay
until I got back to Camp Lejeune, NC. My hip was black and blue to the bone! I also injured
one of my ankles.

13. 81mm Mortar Platoon

When I returned to Camp Lejeune, NC in March of 1961 from the Mountain Warfare
Training Center in Bridgeport, CA, I took charge of the 81mm Mortar Platoon.

Part of my 81mm Mortar Platoon

 Pat and our children
joined me at Camp Lejeune, and we lived in Sneads Ferry, NC, a little town on an inlet
waterway which ran north and south on the East Coast of the U.S. The fishing, crabbing, and
flounder gigging were great. We were struck by a very powerful hurricane while there, and
we had to leave our home when the eye of the storm went over us. The Division’s Adjutant (a
Captain), a Navy Warrant Officer, and their families went with us. We had to drive through
the trees and debris on the roads to get to the main road and then to the pastor’s house. We
stayed there the rest of the night. Another family that lived down the road from us left earlier.
It was good thing, because the water flowed right through their home.

The 81 Mortar Platoon T/O & E was to be manned with two Officers, one Tech Sergeant, five
Staff Sergeants, eight guns, a FDC (Fire Direction Center), and eight mules (flat-bed, 4-wheel
vehicles that carry the guns and the equipment). When I took over the Platoon, it was rated as
being an average-trained and undisciplined Platoon. Prior to our first trip to Puerto Rico and
after we got there, my primary goal was to have the best Platoon in the 3rd Battalion.
I started out with no Officers, so I was the Platoon Commander. I told the Platoon, “Welcome
back to Boot Camp,” and I ran a Boot Camp, until they began to shape up. We started at 0300
and went to 1900. Finally, the 1st Sergeant said, “You are going to get in trouble. Slack off.”
I did − somewhat! Shortly thereafter, we were to head for Puerto Rico. I still had one or two
troopers who needed some special encouragement. I won’t relate what this was or how I
handled it.

We got a new Company Commander for Headquarters Company before going to Vieques,
Puerto Rico. He thought I was too young to be a Tech Sergeant. (I did get promoted quickly
from Private to Tech Sergeant − five promotions in seven years.) We then prepared to sail to
Puerto Rico.

We landed and took off in helicopters several times while at sea.

After arriving in Puerto Rico, we had a rigorous training schedule. Our living, eating, and
training was like living and training in the field − tents, very cold showers, and being awake
from early a.m. to late p.m. I had several SNCOs, and I wasn’t pleased with some of them. I
asked our 1st Sergeant to join us at a meeting, and I told each of the troops his good points
and bad points. The 81s required a lot of effort to train all the new men. One of my SNCOs
was sent to us from the Artillery Battalion. He was well trained in the function of the FDC.
The 81 is a very complicated weapon.

I didn’t have any trained mortar men except one SNCO. He wasn’t any help to me in training
the Platoon. This SNCO and I were destined to bump heads, and we did! I thought the only
real mortar man I had would pitch in and help me train the Platoon, but I was wrong. The
FDC man was the only SNCO who would help me train the men. My Section Leaders and the
FO (Forward Observer) were all SNCOs. Some of them could be described as not knowing
the 81s, some were not interested in learning, and some were simply not cable of training the
men.

During our first tour in Puerto Rico, the 81 mortar range was quite unique, in that we had to
fire the guns in terrain that allowed the men to watch the rounds hitting the ground, rather
than firing the gun from a reverse slope. What we called “indirect fire” required a FO to
adjust the rounds on the target.

There were a few other things that happened with my Platoon during the Battalion’s first tour
in Puerto Rico, some of which I do not want to discuss here. My men began to respect me for
my abilities and knowledge. I had just come from The Basic School in Quantico, VA, where
I received the best training that I had ever had during my time in the Marine Corps.

During one of our operations (training), a Staff Sergeant that I knew flew off the USS Boxer
with part of his Weapons Platoon, and the copter crashed into the water. Everyone got out
safely. The Staff Sergeant, his men, and the copter crew were picked up in a boat and taken
ashore. On their return to the Boxer, the copter they were then in also crashed! Again, they
escaped with no injuries.

We had a big brawl one night after a day of drinking at a field meet, where each Company’s
troops competed in physical training sports drills. Just about everyone was loaded and mad
about the outcome of the field meet. Almost all of the troops got into the brawl, which lasted
until after 2400. It was a real bad scene.

One night, we were rapidly moving out on a night training exercise and I felt a sting on my
thigh. I reached down and felt a big cactus spring leaf sticking in my leg. I was the Company
Gunnery Sergeant and didn’t want to say anything.

After returning Stateside to Camp Lejeune, NC, one of the biggest parts of training was
practicing what we were to do when an alert was sounded to ship out. We would load all of
our equipment and men on trucks and travel to Cherry Point, NC, 2nd MAW, and load aboard
the aircrafts. We would take a short flight, then return to the airport, and board the trucks to
return to Camp Lejeune. We went through this procedure many times.

We had one of the best Battalion Commanders − a real tactician in the Corps. We were rated
as one of the best combat-ready Battalions, according to the IG inspection. The Colonel had a
lot to do with being the number one Battalion.
During this stay at Camp Lejeune, we had a Battalion field meet. I prepared my 81 Platoon to
participate in the “Battalion Drill Competition.” I worked them every day during the times
when they were not training and then sometimes at night. They were GOOD.

The troops decided the night before the competition that we would wear the old pioneer
uniform. As the leader, I had a solid black outfit, and someone brought in a live chipmunk on
a leash. I put him on my shoulder during the drill competition. It all went over big! We took
first place.

The Division had a volleyball tournament, and some of us were selected to go to Parris Island,
SC to participate in this Marine Corps event. The Division Special Services Officer appointed
me as the 2nd MARDIV Coach. After the tournament, I was selected to the U.S. Marine
Corps All-Star Team. My Battalion Commander couldn’t let me go to play in the Navy All-
Star Tournament, as we were still in control input mode.

There were a couple of Company Commanders who wanted me in their company. I was
reassigned to “K” Company. Our Company Commander was a mustang Officer (a former
NCO) and another great tactician. I learned a lot from him. He wanted me to take the
Weapons Platoon − 3.5-inch rocket launchers and machine guns. He said, “That Platoon is
the best in their field training, but one of the worst in other areas of their duties.” Then he
said, “Take charge, and don’t run anyone up to me. You square them away.” This meant he
would back me up, and that is exactly what I wanted. I became known as a “mover and
shaker.” I was assigned to poorly-performing outfits to make bad units into good ones.
Knowledge of the Marine Corps and being physically fit were the keys to success.

14. Puerto Rico − 2nd Tour (1961)

On March 15, 1960, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the CIA (Central
Intelligence Agency) to use their Special Activities Division to equip, train, and lead Cuban
exiles in an amphibious invasion of Cuba to overthrow the new Cuban government of Fidel
Castro.

Consequently, just prior to our second tour in Puerto Rico, the Battalion Commander called
my Company Commander and me into his office. He said, “If we go into Cuba, I want Gunny
Hamm’s Platoon to be responsible to get to the American Embassy in Havana and escort all
the Americans to safety.” I can’t disclose the number of forces that were being readied to go
into Cuba, but I was with “K” Company, the assault Company for the Regiment, and we had
been practicing amphibious landings for about a month.

The former Platoon Sergeant had lost total control of this Platoon. After talking to him, I
could sense they had more or less run him off. He said, “You won’t make it either.” Well, I
had news for him. This “mover and shaker” always believed in addressing the problem and
getting it straightened out, and that is what I did!

There was one Corporal who had taken charge of his Sergeant and some other troops and
made himself the “leader.” I will never tell exactly how I became the leader. It is a long and
detailed story, but I used my old tactics to handle the situation. I may have been young, but I
knew what I was doing. One day, I broke out my “entrenching tool” and I let the Corporal
know that I meant business. My Mess Sergeant and his assistants also helped me to square
away some of my other troops. The final straw was the incident that happened one night in
the port city of Isabela de Sagua. Three of my troops approached me in a bar and said, “We
are going to get you.” They didn’t know about the part of the country that I was raised up in.
I broke a beer bottle and thrust it up close to the face of the one doing the talking. They left
the bar in a hurry and never again tried to “get me.”

All the time we were training in Puerto Rico, the Battalion Commander assigned our company
a lot of the support elements. One big unit was the Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT or
Amtrac). There were about eight Amtracs in all, and my Company Commander did an
excellent job of maneuvering all of our supporting units around after we had made our
amphibious landings. As the assault company for the Battalion, our Company usually
boarded a Landing Ship Dock (LSD), where the LVTs were housed when at sea. Our troops
would go down and load our equipment into them. Sometimes we had to sit in them for up to
an hour or more with the hatches battened down. Was it ever hot! Finally the LVTs would
roll out of the LSD into the sea and form a line. Then, we would head for the beach. Our
Battalion was practicing to put on a big amphibious landing exercise for some VIPs from all
over the Caribbean area.

My company, “K” Company, 3rd BN,2nd Marrgt as Honor Guard for the Secretary of
Defense McNamara.I carried the U.S.M.C. Colors.

We went aboard the ship

early in the morning and had “lunch.” What a joke! After the sailors got fed, the Marines got
what was left. We never had mess gear. The Sailors said, “Well, we don’t have time to clean
the mess gear after the ship crew eats.” We literally stuck out our hands and they put our food
(mashed potatoes, gravy, etc.) into our hands. Sad, but true! Every day, it was the same
problem. I never figured out why we didn’t take our own mess gear with us.
 We practiced
amphibious landings for about a month. During the times we weren’t practicing landing, we
trained in Marine Corps tactics with our weapons and did a whole lot of hiking. Every night,
some of the guys tried to drink up all of the booze that was in the small SNCO club. We ate
all the sandwiches in about thirty minutes. The ones that got drunk (especially on DON Q
Rum − 161 proof), were hung over and sick the next morning. For the first hour or so in that
hot humid heat, there were some SICK troops. We didn’t hear a peep out of any of them until
noon chow time.

One day, the Battalion conducted a field firing exercise. Each troop in the Battalion was to
get a chance to fire most of the Battalion’s weapons. While my Platoon was firing 3.5-inch
rocket launchers, one round went out a few yards and exploded. The 3.5 HE (High-
Explosive) was a potent round. Several of my men were severely injured. I was running the
45-cal. pistol range when this happened.

I taught underwater swimming (SCUBA) at Camp Lejeune, NC.

On the machine gun range, one machine gunner experienced a malfunction and was going
through the procedures to clear it. He stepped in front of the muzzle, intending to insert a
steel rod in the barrel to dislodge the round that was jammed. However, because the gun was
so hot, the round exploded first and went through the Marine’s leg. This is called a “cook-off
round.”

On one occasion, we were waiting for darkness, in order to do some night training. I was the
Company Gunnery Sergeant and was driving the Company Commander’s jeep. As I was
sitting in the jeep, I heard a “pop” and I knew immediately that it was a 45-cal. round that had
fired. One of the Weapons Platoon troops had put a round in the magazine of his pistol during
practice that day and had forgotten about it. He took his pistol out and handed it to one of his
buddies, saying, “Look at my new 45.” The other Marine took the pistol, not knowing that it
had a round in the magazine. He pulled the slide to the rear, put the muzzle against his
buddy’s shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The round went through the Marine’s shoulder, up
to his spinal cord, and stopped. The Marine was a big man, so the round didn’t reach his
spine. We put him in the jeep beside me. Our two Corpsmen sat in the back, and one stuck
his finger in the shoulder wound to stop the bleeding. I took off for about a three-mile trip to
sick bay. I just hit the high spots in the road going in. They had a helicopter there by the time
we arrived. They flew him to the Roosevelt Roads Naval Hospital in nearby Ceiba.

Another of my close calls was with a LVT. While we were up on the side of a big hill, one of
our troops broke his leg. The Company Commander made connections with one of the LVTs
and told me to run back and guide the Amtrac up to where the injured Marine was located. I
met the LVT and told the driver to follow me. I ran out in front of it, until it was time for the
Amtrac to turn left and pick the Marine up. I jumped aside into real high and thick grass to let
the driver make the turn. However, the driver abruptly turned left into the grass, and I was
trapped! This vehicle was over six feet high. The driver couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t
move. The Amtrac went sailing by − only inches from me. I just stood there in the grass,
completely out of sight of the driver. If you can imagine a person run over by a tank, that’s
how I felt.

One night, near the end of the Battalion’s tour and after returning from one of our amphibious
practice landings, the whole Battalion was about to leave Puerto Rico unexpectedly. I was
driving the Commanding Officer’s jeep. I had dropped him off at his tent and continued to
drive up to the 1st Sergeant’s and my tent. When I went into the tent, it was empty. Every bit
of our gear was gone. I went back to the Commanding Officer’s Command Post. The
Captain said, “We are going to the beach to get aboard ship. Something is happening.” We
didn’t know where we were going or why. On that same evening in February of 1961, the
Company Commander told me that Pat’s dad had died, but I couldn’t make it back to the
States, with everyone having to go aboard the ships.

Our Company and one other Infantry Company went aboard the USS Boxer, a World War II
Aircraft Carrier converted to a Marine Corps Helicopter support ship for U.S. Marine
Helicopters and Infantry troops. One morning, I was awakened by a lot of commotion on the
deck of the ship. The other Company was all geared up with live ammo. As I recall, they
went to another country, not Cuba, but we sailed around the Caribbean for several more days,
not knowing if we were going to attack Cuba.
 The actual Bay of Pigs Invasion came in April of 1961, three months after President John F.
Kennedy had taken office. It was an unsuccessful attempt by the CIA-trained force of Cuban
exiles to invade southern Cuba. Our Company was not involved in any way.

We returned to Camp Lejeune, NC and began preparation for a Mediterranean Cruise (13
September 1961 through 6 February 1962). I took the Marine Corps tests for GySgt (E7) and
maxed both of them. I was told that most of the other Tech Sergeants had such low or failing
grades that the Marine Corps rewrote the tests. I didn’t have to retake the tests. I thought
they were easy, because of what I had learned in the Enlisted Instructor Company at The
Basic School in Quantico, VA.

The Marine Corps came out with what they called “proficiency pay,” and I was on the first
list to receive it. I remained on the list until I made Gunnery Sergeant and was no longer
eligible for the pay. At my next duty station, I did just as well on my tests and did not have to
attend any training classes. The Battalion Sergeant Major told me to set up and run a
Regiment Machine Gun School, which I did.

It was then time to sail out of Morehead City, NC on our way to the Mediterranean Sea.

15. Mediterranean Cruise (13 Sep 61 − 21

Feb 62)
I was reassigned from Company Gunnery Sergeant back to the Weapons Platoon. A new
Company Gunnery Sergeant, who was senior to me, took over as Company Gunnery
Sergeant. My Platoon Commander was assigned a special detail while on the Mediterranean
(Med) cruise, so I became the Platoon Commander of the Weapons Platoon.

The following is a quote from the book, Landing Force Mediterranean, 2-61 − 3rd
Battalion, Reinforced, 2nd Marines:

With the end of the war in September, 1945, the 2nd RGT, 2nd MARDIV, CLNC, was landed
at Nagasaki, Japan, where they served nine months as Occupation forces.

Next, the 2nd Marines returned to Camp Lejeune, NC, its present home. As part of the Fleet
Marine Force, Atlantic, and the 2nd MARDIV, the regiment has been constantly on duty to
provide the Atlantic Fleet with Marine amphibious forces.

During the Korean Conflict, Officers and men of the 2nd Marines continually went to the Far
East to reinforce the 1st MARDIV and other Marine forces in that part of the world.

While in the Mediterranean in 1958, the regiment was the first to hit the beach at Lebanon for
the protection of American lives and property.

Continuing its role as a “force-in-readiness” with the United States Sixth Fleet, the 3rd
Battalion (Reinforced), 2nd Marines, is presently deployed in the Mediterranean area as
portrayed herein.

Our primary mission is that of maintaining the status of the Marine Corps as our Nation’s
“Force-in-Readiness.” This is a combat-ready BLT (Battalion Landing Team), prepared to
carry out any operational mission assigned in a moment’s notice. By our very presence in the
area, we show the enemies of freedom that the Armed Forces of our country are capable of
defending our democratic way of life. That we, as the Marines that have preceded us, are
willing to sacrifice our lives for the preservation of our freedom, as well as that of our friends
and allies.

We are also charged with a training mission. As combat-ready Marines, we must maintain the
high standards and traditions which have been the trademark of the Marine Corps for the past
186 years. We will accomplish this mission by a series of amphibious landings. These
landings will be made in fair weather and foul, by day and by night. This training will be
further supplemented by vigorous shipboard training.

Last, but of equal importance, is our mission of serving as good-will ambassadors in support
of the President’s “People-to-People” program. Our country is judged by the actions of our
personnel overseas.

My Platoon left early to help load the ship, an “Attack Personal Assault” ship, named the USS
Chilton (APA-38). We departed the continental U.S. on 13 Sept 1961. We passed the Rock
of Gibraltar as we entered the Mediterranean Sea and landed on the Isle of Malta.

We trained with the Royal Marine Commandos during our stay on Malta and later on Bomba,
Libya. They were good troops. The Marine Corps and the British Marines have an exchange
program, and we would send some of our Officers and SNCOs to train with them. They in
turn would send some of their troops to train with the U.S. Marines. This often entailed being
a Company Commander, an Intel Officer, or a training Officer in each other’s armed forces.

When I was on my last tour at CLNC, the Division Commander invited me to a reception for
a new British Marine Captain who was attached to the 2nd MARDIV. The General told me to
set up a parachute jump for him. I arranged a jump with 2nd Force Recon and was the
Captain ever nervous! He evidently hadn’t made many jumps. He was in my stick (a four-
man jump, in this case) and we just cleared a row of trees. I landed on a road just before
going into some more trees. Everyone landed pretty close to each other, and no one hit the
trees. After we saddled up, I took him back to Division Headquarters and told him that when
he got ready to make another jump, just call me. I never heard from him again.

We landed with the British Marines on Bomba, Libya, and was it ever hot! I was surprised to
see so many rocks. We had to walk on them all day long. I had so many stone bruises on the
bottom of my feet. I had bad feet when I went in the Corps, and I still do.

Finally, we hit the hot desert sand. Our Company Commander told me not to have the troops
carry any blankets. What a mistake! It got very cold at night, and we didn’t have anything to
burn up to warm ourselves. Fortunately, the Battalion Commander came by in his jeep and
saw what we were confronted with. He left and came back with our tanks. We would get up
on the tanks, just above the engines, and thaw out. It got so cold that night that we could have
gotten chilled and sick. I had experienced the same thing early in my training, during three
tours in Korea.
We went back to Malta and had some competitions with the British Marines. (Later in my
career, I worked with some Australian troops in Vietnam, and they reminded me of the British
Marines − real fine troops.)

The Marine Corps had the responsibility of developing Amphibious Warfare, and I spent
many days and nights, even months, aboard ship, making amphibious practice landings. This
was the toughest part of my Marine Corps training. I won’t go into detail, for there was too
much involved in this training. We would put everything on our backs that we would need to
be ready for combat. The last thing was the ol’ “Mae West” life jacket. This was the dirtiest
and bulkiest piece of equipment, but it was supposed to enable us to float. We made many
amphibious landings, up and down the nets.

We would climb over the side of the ship and climb down the net into a “Papa” (“P”) boat, or
any other type the Navy was using. It was dangerous, especially in high seas. The “P” boat
would rise and fall, and if a person got caught between it and the ship, serious injury could
occur. Those in the “P” boat would try to keep the net pulled away from the ship.

When everyone was on the boat, it would pull away, line up with the other boats, and head for
the beach. We never knew how close we would get to the shore line, but whenever that ramp
went down, you had to jump off the side of the ramp, trying not to get caught under the ramp.
Usually the water was pretty deep. We would go ashore and run up the beach, hit ground, and
continue on toward the objective.

I couldn’t count the number of amphibious landings I have made. When we were to go back
aboard the ship, we had to climb up the net. Those of us who were in heavy weapons would
have to lower the weapon over the side of the ship and later pull the weapon back onto the
ship. There was a lot of vomiting while we were in the boat. Everyone got a taste of each
other’s vomit.

While on the Med Cruise, we made practice landings on several of the islands and countries in
the Mediterranean Sea. We were allowed to go on liberty in some of the cities.

Sometimes we would go aboard a LSD and then board a LCU or a “Mike” boat (“M” or
Landing Craft Mechanized/LCM). Sometimes, it would be after midnight, and the only place
we could sit was on the deck of the ship. We would freeze!

Then we would go down into the deck well and load aboard the LCUs. There were three
LCUs in a LSD. They would fire up the engine before they flooded the LSD deck well, and
we would breathe the diesel fumes for hours before we were back out of the LSD. We would
be sick as dogs and soaking wet before we even got to the beach. I know I did this 70 to 80
times during my stay in the Infantry unit, and each one was about the same. Although I got
seasick many a time, I never vomited on any ship or boat ride. It must have been mind over
matter. One time, when I was aboard a ship, a baker that I worked with said, “When you feel
sick, eat bread or crackers.” When I could get some, I guess that worked for me!

After that night on the LSD and after the practice landing, my Platoon came back and got on a
LCM. I asked the Coxsman, “Where is the Chilton?” He said, “Do you see that little spec
way out there?” The USS Chilton was a two hour trip, and the water was rough!
By the time we got to the Chilton, all of my troops had been lying in the bottom of the boat
for about two hours in their vomit. The boat would rise straight up in the air and fall back
down in the water. I got up on the ramp and held on, until we got back to the ship. They had
to lower the net over to us with a crane, and the troops would just hang on until they were
aboard the ship.

That experience reminds me of another incident − a liberty run ride to Sardina from the
mainland. It was in a Hydroplane. What a rough ride that was!

A Marine Captain (the Embarkation Officer) and his driver were making a run in Spain to
pick up our mail. They were in a serious auto accident and the Captain was killed. My
Platoon Commander replaced him for the rest of our time on the Med Cruise. I became the
Weapons Platoon Commander again.

I had studied the

Spanish language before leaving the States and could order food and drinks for myself and the
other men. On our last liberty run in Spain, one of our SNCOs was missing when we sailed
out. The Spanish authorities later found his body floating in a river.

A friend and me on a liberty shipwhile in Spain.

On one operation in Greece, it was raining and cold. I was “K” Company Gunnery Sergeant
at the time. I came down with a real bad cold. I had to go back aboard our ship to get a shot
of penicillin. Then, I had to find my way down to the landing dock and hitch a ride back out
to the ship. After the Corpsman gave me the shot, he told me to gargle with Merthiolate (a
medication similar to iodine). He gave me a bottle of it and told me to gargle as needed.
Then he said, “Don’t tell anyone I gave this to you.” I went back ashore and found my
Company. That night, I laid down on my side on a rock and leaned back on another rock, so
the rain would run down under me.

After about two hours of this, the CO CMDR woke me and said, “Gunny, wake up the troops.
We are going back to the ship.” Later he said, “Gunny, you are the only one that knows the
way back. Lead out.” I sure was praying that I was going in the right direction. It was
raining so hard, I could barely see. I finally got down to the road and just hoped I turned the
 right way back to the dock. It was a fairly easy trip for those of us up front, but not for those
further back. The slope got as slick as ice, and they were slipping and sliding down the slope
carrying their packs, helmets, and weapons.

We were heading back to the States when Colonel Glenn made his orbital flight. A Sailor
said to me, “They sent up a Sailor (Commander Carpenter) to make sure it was safe for a
Marine. (I knew that after Carpenter went up, they sent up a monkey.) I said, “No, they sent
the Sailor up to make sure it was safe for the monkey.”

That is like an ol’ WW II Gunny Sergeant’s yarn. He was telling the troops that his Dad was
in the Army, and his Dad told him, “You Marines think you have always won the wars.” He
told his Dad, “No, we didn’t win them all, we just shortened them five or six years.” His Dad
had lost an arm in World War II and would tell everybody that he was waving at the Marines
to stop retreating and the Japanese shot his arm off. The Gunny Sergeant reminded his Dad,
“There weren’t any Marines on that operation, just Army. You were waving goodbye as you
headed for the rear.” This was just a story, and of course, the Gunny Sergeant and his dad
were the best of friends. They just loved to harass each other.

At the end of the Mediterranean Cruise, I was recommended for Drill Instructor’s School,
Recruiter School, and Inspector and Instructor duty. My orders came in assigning me to the
Inspector and Instructor Staff at the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Training Center in
Parkersburg, WV.

The following is the record of my Mediterranean Cruise:

COMPANY “K”, 3RD BATTALION, 2ND MARINES, 2ND MARINE DIVISION, FMF,
CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA

TechSgt Troy B. Hamm, Weapons Platoon, CMD “K” Co. 3-2

Mediterranean Cruise 2/61

Dep Continental Limits U.S. 13 Sep 61

Arr Continental Limits U.S. 21 Feb 62

Embarked aboard USS CHILTON (APA-38) at Morehead City, NC on 12 Sep 61 and sailed
there from on 13 Sep 61 for duty with the Sixth fleet in the Mediterranean area.

27 Sep 61 Arr Pollensa Bay, Mallorca Island, Spain (Participated in turn-away exercises)

30 Sep 61 Dep Pollensa Bay, Mallorca Island, Spain

20 Oct 61 Arr Naples, Italy (Port of Call)

9 Oct 61 Dep Naples, Italy

11 Oct 61 Arr Vallette, Malta (Port of Call; Also embarked British Royal Marines for training operation in
Libya)
14 Oct 61 Dep Valletta, Malta

17 Oct 61 Arr Bomba, Libya (Participated in training exercise WHITEBAIT II)

21 Oct 61 Dep Bomba, Libya (Operation WHITEBAIT II completed)

28 Oct 61 Arr Alicante, Spain (Port of Call)

3 Nov 61 Dep Alicante, Spain

6 Nov 61 Arr Barcelona, Spain (Port of Call)

13 Nov 61 Dep Barcelona, Spain

16 Nov 61 Arr Aranci Bay, Sardinia (Participated in assault landing exercise)

23 Nov 61 Dep Aranci Bay, Sardinia (Assault landing exercise completed)

24 Nov 61 Arr Genoa, Italy (Port of Call)

1 Dec 61 Dep Genoa, Italy

6 Dec 61 Arr Porto Scudo, Sardinia (Participated in assault landing exercise)

14 Dec 61 Dep Porto Scudo, Sardinia (Assault landing exercise completed)

18 Dec 61 Arr Piraeus and Athens, Greece (Port of Call)

26 Dec 61 Dep Piraeus and Athens, Greece

29 Dec 61 Arr Reggio di Calabria, Italy (Port of Call)

4 Jan 62 DepReggio di Calabria, Italy

8 Jan 62 Arr Pilos, Greece (Participated in training exercises)

19 Jan 62 Dep Pilos, Greece (Training exercises completed)

24 Jan 62 Arr Golfe Juan and Cannes, France (Port of Call)

29 Jan 62 Dep Golfe Juan and Cannes, France

4 Feb 62 Arr Porto Scudo, Sarinia (Participated in training exercise MEDLANDEX 1-62)

6 Feb 62 Dep Porto Scudo, Sardinia (Training exercise MEDLANDEX 1-62 completed, also relieved by
3rd Bn [Rein], 8thMar.)

Know ye all that the above named person served on the USS CHILTON (APA-38) and
participated in the Mediterranean Cruise 2-61, and that said vessel, officers, members of the
3rd Bn (Rein), 2nd Mar, and crew be remembered for the good will and security that was
spread and provided through the various Mediterranean countries mentioned above, during
our period of stay in this area.

16. Parkersburg, WV – Inspector &

Instructor Duty (1962-1965)
I arrived in Parkersburg, WV with Pat and our three children in early September of 1962 for
Inspector and Instructor Duty (I&I).

I was assigned to be the Training NCO for the 104th Reserve Rifle Company, where I was in
charge of the Armory. During this time, I was Recruiter for the Reserve Unit, taught physical
training at the Catholic High School and St. Margaret Mary Parochial School, and worked one
day a week at the local TV station. I was also the staff photographer, and I learned to develop
negatives and make prints, using a 4 x 7 speed graphic press camera that was easy to operate.
I was assisted by two SNCOs and three able Sergeants.

One of the Sergeants

developed a very fine flag presentation that we presented in high schools and colleges, at
business conferences, and to statewide police organizations, veterans organizations, and many
other groups. This flag presentation was so meaningful to me that I count it as my highlight
while on staff there. The I&I Staff member carried the flag in many parades and other
ceremonies while we were in Parkersburg.

I was the reserve recruiter for the inspector instructor staff (I&I Duty), Parkersburg, WV. A
three-year tour, we trained a reserve infantry unit. We won the citychampionship bowling
tournament.

Members of the I&I staff got along very well. There were seven of us who bowled in the City
League. Our shirts were labeled, so everyone knew we were Marines. One year, we won four
league trophies and seven individual ones. I also became active in the Judo training program
at the Reserve Training Center.

A couple of months after I got to Parkersburg, I had to take a Marine Corps- wide test,
regarding general Military subjects of the Marine Corps and a technical test for my MOS (03
Infantry). I passed with flying colors, as I had on my test for GySgt (E7).

I took my two sons several times to some fishing holes in Ohio. These were strip mine holes,
left when the State mined for coal. The mining company stocked them. I have never seen
larger fish or as many different kinds of fish anywhere else, and I had done a lot of fishing.

In my office, I&I Recruiter!

The Reserves trained two days a month (on weekends) and spent two weeks a year on active
duty. Although I was given the overall responsibility for setting up the training programs for
the 104th Reserve Rifle Company, my counterpart (a Reserve SNCO), the I&I Staff, the
Reserve Company Commander, and I set up an unusually well-planned training program
together. The program included a lot of field training exercises.

There was a 75-foot cement holding wall near the Reserve Training Center. It restrained the
waters of the two rivers that ran together at the Center. Often, many of the homes were
flooded to the very top. This happened during two of the three years I was there.

With all my background training, especially at The Basic School, I learned that if an Infantry
Marine would master the Squad Manual, he could be tactically qualified to lead an Infantry
Company, having enough knowledge to do so. I taught from the manual each Friday night,
during their monthly drill. They were asked to study and prepare for the test on their own
time. This may not sound like a very important training program, but of all the schools that I
ran in the Marine Corps, I would put this course near the top. I would highly recommend that
all Infantry units teach this manual and make it compulsory for all Infantry troops to pass it. I
really felt the training program we set up was responsible for the 104th becoming a much
better-trained and disciplined unit.
One of the highlights each year was the “Toys for Tots” program. The program was totally
different than it is now. We would advertise the program and people would call in and tell us
they had USED toys and where we could pick them up. We would go all over the city, every
day, and pick up mostly JUNK. Many were toys we had given the year before to the
Salvation Army. Sometimes, we would have to take an entire truckload to the dump. This
went on for two to three weeks, with all of our staff members trying to restore the ones that
looked somewhat repairable. We worked almost around the clock. It was a very tiring job.
Sadly, we were not toy repair mechanics! But we were always pleased when we saw the faces
of the children who got the toys. It was a welcome policy change when they began to take
only NEW toys.

The Civil Defense

Rescue Training Director came to Parkersburg and used our facilities to conduct a course in
the mid-Ohio Valley. The Civil Defense Program was taught all over the U.S. This course
would train rescue workers from West Virginia and several neighboring States to be Rescue
Instructors. The Director asked me to join the class, and I did so. He was the former Fire
Chief of the New York City Fire Department. He was very sharp and fun to work with. What
a course! When we were finished with the training, he set up the final test in a three or four-
story building in Parkersburg that was being torn down. He had selected Parkersburg because
this building was available for his training program and there were a lot of rescue people that
came from all around that area of West Virginia. What an elaborate setup. He used 55-gallon
and 5-gallon cans to build fires in. The building looked as though it had been hit by a bomb!
Everything was so authentic. It was outstanding.

My family, Pat, Bob, Tom, Linda, and me.

About one hundred high school students were used in the final phase of the program. They
were spread all throughout the building. Most of them had marks put on their bodies to
resemble wounds. We were loaded in a Civil Defense emergency vehicle, with all the needed
equipment, and were given our assignments before we left. I was to tie the knots to lower the
students on stretchers from the third floor to the ground. I was glad that I could be counted as
a good rope handler! We tore down the street with lights and alarms blaring. When we got
there, the first thing we were to do was perform First-Aid on ALL the simulated casualties.
We were all well-trained in First-Aid.

The local TV station had cameras and mikes all over the place. The Civil Defense Director
explained everything that was going on. After the exercise, we went to his hotel room and
watched it on TV. We then returned to the Reserve Center.

As I was going to my car, I slipped on the ice. The fall almost knocked me out. I was the last
to leave and had locked up the building. When I finally got to my car, I was really hurting.

Throughout the Marine Corps, I think I got injured in every school that featured physical
training. I got hurt in the Mountain Warfare Training Center, the Airborne, the Diver’s
school, and a couple of others.

I was trained in Judo and self-defense classes by a red belt Judo Instructor. He was a Military
Air Policeman (MP in the Corps) and was real good. After a couple of years, I knew all the
throws for being a black belt (without ever having gotten the title) and became his assistant.

We often taught high school students, police, State Police, and those in other organizations in
and around Parkersburg. We did many, many flag ceremonies and parades. We were called
on to be judges in children’s competitions in the area, with the highlight each year being the
Soap Box Derby.
 Pat and me.

Each Fourth of July, the I&I Staff and the Reserve Unit would set up static displays of Marine
Corps arms, equipment, and other Marine Corps gear. One year, I was able to borrow about a
dozen Japanese uniforms and weapons for my display. On another occasion, the unit trained
for an “attack on a fortified position.”

The I&I Major would narrate the exercises, and I would run the exercises. The Major was
well into his narration when one of the flamethrower men ran up to me and said, “The
pressure tank is leaking badly.” I called the Major and explained the situation, adding, “I
have to start the exercise right now.” He said, “Go with it.” There isn’t much of a
demonstration without the ol’ flamethrower! It was what people came to see. This was just
another of the things that gave me gray hair during my twenty-two years in the Corps.
I was quite often invited to go out with the two regular Recruiters in Parkersburg. They were
tops in the State of West Virginia and among the top all over the U.S. When we went to the
different high schools, the three other branches of services would lead off. They had a lot of
“give away” programs to get recruits. Then one of the Marine Gunnery Sergeants would
stand up and say, “The United States Marine Corps promises you two things − a rifle and a
foxhole. If you want to be a Marine, meet us at the table with the Marine Corps motto, ‘The
Marine Corps builds men.’” The kids would line up in front of the Marine Corps Recruiting
table, but the Marine Corps was very particular about who they recruited. If a recruit failed
Boot Camp because of the lack of knowledge or because of being physically unfit, the
Recruiter was held responsible for the failure.

The two Recruiters recommended me to replace one of the Gunnery Sergeants whose time
was up. It was a great honor for them to do this, without my going to Recruiting School. The
State Officer In Charge of Recruiting told me by phone that he would give me three years in
Parkersburg as a Recruiter, and after that, if I wanted three more years there, I could have it. I
never saw him personally, but he was my Executive Commanding Officer when we were in
“K” Company at Camp Lejeune, NC, where I was the Weapons Platoon Commander and
later, the Company Gunnery Sergeant.

One night, a house of ill repute across the street from our Reserve Center was bombed. The
police called us and wanted to know if we had a demolition man on our Staff. Having run the
demolition, mines, and booby trap school at The Basic School for three years, I went over and
found where the charge was set and determined the approximate number of pounds of
dynamite that was used. The police published my report in the news media, withholding my
name.

One Sunday night, I saw a Marine who had on only half of his uniform − jacket and barracks
cap, with civilian trousers and shirt. Pat and I were on our way home from a night of
bowling. I took Pat home and told her, “I’ll be back in a little while.” I drove back and yelled
at the PFC, “Are you a Marine?” He said, “Yes.” I told him to get in my car, and I took him
to jail. They locked him up and notified his unit in Norfolk, VA. I received a real nice letter
from his Colonel, who was the type that drummed Marines out of the Corps.

An Army Special Forces Officer (a Captain) came in to our Training Center and had a long
talk with us. He was a former Enlisted. He said, “I am partly responsible for the Marines
being sent to the SVN (South Vietnamese) forces (MATA − Military Assistance Training
Advisor Course).” He said the Army had lost so many top-notch NCOs and Officers in
Vietnam as Advisors that he suggested that the Army enlist MC Senior Enlisted and Officers.
He went to Vietnam, and about a couple of months later, he was back at his home in
Parkersburg, paralyzed from the waist down. His Enlisted Advisor had been killed at the time
he was wounded.

I called and talked with his wife. She said he was determined to walk. When I asked her if I
could come by and see him, she said, “He is pretty down right now. I’ll talk to him and see if
it is OK for you to come out.” She called back and said he would see me. I continued to visit
him often before I left for Vietnam.

I set up a training night for the Reserves, so the Captain could come out and show his slides of
Vietnam and talk to the Marines. I was working one day a week at the TV station in
Parkersburg. I talked to someone at the station about filming the Captain while he spoke with
the Marine Reserve Unit. The TV station was excited to do it. It went over real big with
everyone.

While I was there, he was working out every day with weights. He would lie on the floor and
lift weights that I might have had trouble with. The Gunnery Sergeant who replaced me wrote
me later and said that he and the Captain were enjoying each other’s company. The I&I Staff
and the Reserves were really taking good care of the Captain. The Gunnery Sergeant said the
Captain and his family were going to church and that the Captain had become a new man.
This was a great and satisfying story to me.

The 104th Reserve Rifle Company went to Puerto Rico for two weeks of summer training.
There was a lot of hiking, sugar cane eating, and sleeping with thousands of bats in old World
War II ammo bunkers.

Tom, Linda, Bob and me on the day I left Parkersburg for my first tour of duty in Vietnam.
 One day, we were on a
long and hot force march, and everyone was worn out. I had told them to eat a lot of sugar
cane. Later, I told the Company Commander to turn off the road, so we could take a swim in
the Caribbean Sea. He said, “OK.” The troops stacked their M14 rifles, took off all of their
clothes, and started running to the water to cool off. Suddenly, I spotted hundreds of floating
sea urchins, and I yelled to the men to stop, but it was too late! Several of the troops had
already hit the water. They had so many spines in their feet that they later had high fevers and
swollen hands and feet. Some had to stay in their racks until it was time for us to go home.

Almost everyone had bought several pints and quarts of liquor to smuggle back to West
Virginia. The Customs Agent stopped us on the air strip and searched everyone and all of the
boxes. There were gallons and gallons of liquor lined up on the airstrip. We had all kinds of
fruit, which we had to leave behind. Those who had liquor had to pay customs or leave their
booze behind also. Only the Company Commander had enough money to pay the customs. I
guess the men repaid him after they got back.
While in West Virginia, I received orders to Vietnam, but first I was to go to Fort Bragg, NC
for Special Warfare School and Vietnamese language school. I would become an Infantry
Weapons Advisor to the SVN Army in the area of, I Corps, SVN.

The following is a letter of appreciation from the 104th Reserve Rifle Company:
17. Fort Bragg, NC – Special Warfare
School (1965)
As a Gunnery Sergeant, I was sent to Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, NC. I was in the
Military Assistance Training Advisor Course from 11 April to 21 May 1965. All of us were
to become Advisors to the SVN forces and were trained to be a part of the Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam (MACV), housed in Saigon.

This course consisted of all ranks from Colonel down to the Senior Enlisted of each branch of
service.

The school curriculum was mostly classroom work, and each afternoon, we were taught the
Vietnamese language. It was a hard language for me to comprehend. Most everyone went on
liberty on the weekends, but several of us stayed around the barracks, studying and working
out.

We had PT every day. I was a good runner and got high marks in the PT classes. The
running groups were assigned by ages. I asked if I could join the first group − the young
ones. I never came in first, but I came close to the top runners most of the time. A Marine
Lieutenant and I came in first on the map and compass course.

We went to the medical clinic to get our gamma globulin shots for the Japanese encephalitis
flu. There was a long line of Special Forces Troops in front of us. A doctor came out and
asked if any of us had ever administered shots before. My Gunny Sergeant buddy said,
“Raise your hand, and we will get to the front of the line.” I told him I had never given a shot,
but he said, “Don’t say anything. Let’s go.” We went up front, and they gave us our shots.
Then they took us into another room to give the Special Forces Troops shots. Well, I didn’t
do a very good job of bleeding the air out of the needle, but I was a good dart shooter! He and
I stuck all of the Special Forces Troops, then left. The doctor didn’t want us giving shots to
the high-ranking Officers.

The Gunny who coaxed me into giving shots had gone through the Embassy School at
Headquarters in Washington, DC, one class before me. I was first in my class at the time of
our last interview board. The Colonel asked me, “Where do you want to go?” I said, “Hong
Kong, China.” He said, “Our last Honor Man went to Hong Kong. We can’t send another
Honor Man to the same station.”

I recall a humorous event that happened while I was at Fort Bragg. One Saturday morning,
everyone who was jump-qualified had to make a parachute jump. One of our Marine
Captains told some of the jumpers that he would like to make a parachute jump. They told
him to meet them at the airport on Saturday and they would chute him up and let him make
his first parachute jump. He started to put the chute on shortly after he got there. He was told
to wait until the plane was ready to fly, but he insisted on putting his chute on about an hour
early.

He was walking around all chuted up and the jumpers who did not know he wasn’t a qualified
jumper were wondering what he was doing. Finally, everyone got aboard the plane and it
took off.

In a fixed airplane, you have to vigorously exit from the aircraft. When he came out of the
aircraft, everyone on the ground knew he was not a qualified jumper. He looked like a
ruptured duck coming out of the plane, and he landed like one also. He hit the ground without
executing any sort of a proper PLF (parachute landing fall).

Monday morning, at the beginning of our first course of instruction, the Army Colonel in
charge of the school came on stage and then called up the Captain. The Colonel explained
what had taken place the day before. He said, “Captain, I have half of a jump wings for a
half-assed jump by a half-assed Marine.” Everyone just cracked up.

I made a lot of new friends and acquaintances at Fort Bragg. I buddied up with several
Special Forces SNCOs and was invited to some of their homes to share a meal and visit with
their families. Back then, the Special Forces was a much smaller unit than what it later
became. The SNCOs that I buddied with were the Army’s best − very mature and
professional soldiers. I enjoyed getting to know them and their work. We finished the six-
week course and received our assignments throughout Vietnam.

I went on leave and stayed with Mom and Dad a few days. I didn’t tell them that I was going
to Vietnam. Pat and the children went to Washington, PA and lived near her mother while I
was in Vietnam.

18. Vietnam (1965-1966)

I checked in at the MACV Headquarters in Saigon, Vietnam. I stayed there for about a week
and then flew up to Da Nang, where I joined the 1st BN, 5th RGT of the 2nd ARVN DIV
(Army of the Republic of Vietnam Division). There was a Marine Captain (the OIC), an
Australian Warrant Officer, and me. This Battalion had been wiped out before I got there. It
had reorganized with mostly all new troops.
I joined my Battalion a couple of days later. I had to fly in by helicopter, as the Viet Cong
(VC) had cut out large trenches on either side of the road, reducing it to travel by bicycle
only.

I was assigned with the Battalion Commander at Company Headquarters. We were set up in
an old French-type fort. The trenches and bunkers were relatively safe. There were hundreds
and hundreds of booby traps all around it. There were bamboo pungi stake trenches all
around, also. They had a 105mm artillery gun sitting right in the middle of the fort. They
never fired it, and I don’t know if it was capable of firing.

There was a village about 500 meters from our location. The VC hit them almost every night,
and our troops never even assisted the village chief, who also was a Captain, with a few
soldiers under his command. We had been told while at Fort Bragg, NC that over one third of
the men who joined the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) were actually VC. We often said
the VC knew when and where we were going on an operation before we did.

Every time a re-supply helicopter came in, we had to surround the helicopter pad and fight off
people by the hundreds. They wanted to get out of the village. There were wounded women
and children, and some of them were very badly injured. We took as many of the wounded as
we could put on the copter. The pilots did all kinds of maneuvers to get their copters in and
out of the village. The VC would try to shoot them down.

I noticed how rusty and dirty their weapons were. I told my interpreter to get me a BAR and
some cleaning gear. Before I cleaned it, I test fired it, and it wouldn’t fire properly. I tore the
weapon apart with all of the troops watching me. After I cleaned it, I tried again, but it
wouldn’t fire full-automatic. I reached up under the barrel and made a gas port adjustment. It
then fired both semi and full-automatic.

Each day, I would get another weapon and do the same thing with it. I had a 30-cal. machine
gun which barely fired one or two rounds and then jam locked. I cleaned and adjusted it, and
it fired properly. I then played “a shave and a haircut,

I am on a road clearing operation.

 six bits” with it and
showed them how to tighten up the search and traverse mechanism.

You wouldn’t believe what happened the next day. The troops had ponchos laid out every
place they could put one and had every weapon torn completely apart, cleaning them. I said if
the VC could only see this, we would have immediately come under attack! I don’t know how
long we stayed there at the fort, but we later moved back outside of the Regimental
Headquarters and became a strike force unit. I played volleyball with the troops, and they
really liked me all through my first tour.

We were always going out on operations, making helicopter landings right in on the VC. We
could hear the pinging sound as the bullets hit our copter. One day, I was on a VR (Visual
Reconnaissance) flight, and after landing the copter, the pilot called me over and said, “Do
you see that big hole in the blade? That was a 50-cal. machine gun firing at us. We are very
lucky. Usually, the wind builds up inside the blade and the blade blows all to pieces and
down we would go.”

My first combat operation with the SVN Forces involved riding on an APC (Armed Personnel
Carrier). We made contact with the VC. The Battalion fought its way into the village, and
the VC scattered into water ponds and disappeared, using reeds to breathe with and tunnels to
escape through. The APC that the Captain (Battalion Commander) and I were riding in was
the one that SVN troops had assassinated their President in earlier that year. I saw all the
bullet marks inside.

I watched our troops torture the VC. Our Battalion had captured about five or six VC, as we
were leaving. They had tied their hands behind them and blindfolded them. They gave them
cigarettes and told them to squat down. The Regimental Commander radioed down, telling
the Battalion Commander to kill them.

The troops told them to stand up and put out their cigarettes. They aimed their rifles and shot
each of them in the head. Our Artillery Forward Observer made a vow to eat the heart of any
VC he killed. The VC had killed his wife and children. Some young men of the Buddhist
faith were taken prisoners. They had special uniforms on.
We returned back to our bunker, outside of the 5th Regimental Company. We had rats as big
as cats in our bunker that ran around at night. Our troops would kill and serve them with our
rice for supper. I sent my wife and kids a picture of me eating in the field with chopsticks. I
had lost weight, and with my shirt off, she could see my ribs sticking out. I was skin and
bones. My weight had always been between 168 and 172 pounds, but my 6’2” frame was
now down to 152 pounds.

Eating with chopsticks while in the field.

We now had a new

Senior Advisor, a Special Forces Captain. We had orders from General Westmoreland that
every Advisor was to spend at least three days a month back in Da Nang to eat American
food. When I went into the hotel, where each Enlisted Advisor had a room, I would get
cleaned up and head for the Take Ten (the Army SNCO club) to eat steaks, French fries, and
good bread, until I couldn’t eat any more.
Vietnam was extremely hot. So, while running around the sand dunes and rice paddies, I
wrapped a towel around my carbine to keep the sweat from running all over my rifle.

I carried three canteens of water on my belt, and the Vietnamese would laugh at me. At
times, the only water we could get came out of old, half dried-up wells and mud holes. My
canteens were sometimes full of slime. I used up a lot of water purification tabs over there.

As a strike force Battalion, we were always out on operations. We got the word one day that
an Army Advisor had been killed by the VC. They had impaled his head on a pole and were
carrying it around in different villages, showing it off. We made a couple of helicopter
landings trying to retrieve his head, but we never found it.

I had been asked earlier by the Senior Advisor of the 37th Ranger Battalion to be his Assistant
after I left the 1st Battalion. Gen. Lam, Commanding General of the 2nd ARVN DIV and his
Advisor, an Army Colonel, said, “You have had enough combat. You are going to the rear.”
Being a strike force unit, my Battalion (the 1st) was often called out to confront the VC.

Before I left the Battalion, we went on an operation and ran into several VC. Our three-man
Advisor team was on this one. The Battalion Commander turned and went in another
direction. I pointed and said, “The Viet Cong are back there” and he said, “VN NGUY
HIEM” (Vietnamese, “very dangerous”).

Our Advisor Team (I am not pictured): an Australian warrant officer, our team leader (a
Marine captain), and the battalion commander (a special strike force unit).
 Later in the day, we
went through a village and stopped in a cane break before crossing a rice paddy to get to the
next village. Just as we got in the paddies, the VC opened with machine gun fire and mortar.
They even fired a 75mm RR at us. I had been a 75mm RR leader four years before. My
Captain was hit in the neck. I patched him up and called in a MEDEVAC chopper. The SVN
Army Colonel, who came up during the firing, called in an air strike (SVN aircraft). They
blew up most of the village. The Regiment Commander and I took off across the rice paddy
and were the first ones in the village. I set my ol’ carbine on full-auto. What a surprise when
I started to fire at one of the hutches! It would only fire one round at a time. There were a few
dead and wounded VCs and civilians. The wounded begged for help, but the Battalion
Commander wouldn’t let anyone help them.

An Australian and I left one day on an operation. One of the Companies up front started
shooting, and the Australian took off to see what was going on. I had to go with him. We
never went alone when on an operation. By the time we got there, the Company had moved
out. We went back to find the Battalion Headquarters, and they were gone. Fortunately, I
knew how to find our way back, but if the VC had seen us, we would have been killed.

On another occasion, we boarded trucks before sunup to go on an operation. We got to the

debarkation spot. I got off with all the troops and took off. I began to look around for an
Army Lieutenant who had come out to get a little combat time. He was nowhere to be found.
I ran back to the trucks, which hadn’t taken off yet. He was still sitting in the back of the
truck, asleep. We went to find the Battalion, but I didn’t have any idea where the Battalion
went. Luckily, I finally found them. Just about the time I found the Battalion Commander,
rifles and machine guns opened up. I didn’t hear any rounds popping over my head or around
me, so I took off running, dragging my Radio Operator, to see what was going on. When I
got there, the sun had just begun to come up, and I could see what had happened. I got so
mad; I just wanted to start shouting. Our troops had opened up on a group coming down the
road in black clothes (almost all Vietnamese wore black clothes). They

My Senior Advisor and the Vietnam Battalion Commander near theCambodian border.

were women and

children of all ages. Some were dead and others were wounded and screaming and crying. I
don’t remember if our Battalion helped them, but I doubt it. I had to get away from that
scene. I called our Army Senior Advisor at the Regimental Command and informed him. It
was then up to him to see what the Regimental Commander wanted to do. I found out later
that the VC knew exactly where we were and had sent the women and children down the
road, keeping them between our troops and the VC.

One of the ways we bathed.

 The Battalion formed up
and started out. We came up on a big open field with railroad tracks running parallel to our
right, in the same direction we were moving. It looked dangerous to me, knowing there
certainly were several VC out there somewhere. Before long, I spotted a couple of helicopters
flying back toward. I called and asked them to run a recon mission for us and place some
rocket rounds (or whatever they were armed with on the choppers) into a wooded area in front
of us. The chopper crew said, “OK” and headed for the tree line. All of a sudden, they turned
back toward us and circled around. They called and asked me if we had any camouflage
troops out where they were. I asked the Battalion Commander and he said, “No.” One of the
pilots told me that there were seventy or eighty camouflage troops right in front of us. I told
them to fire, but they said they were completely empty of arms and fuel and had to go back
and load up, saying, “We will be back.” We and the pilots were so disappointed. The VC
then began shooting at us. I recall there were several cows between them and us.
I grabbed the gunner and his machine gun, wanting him to set up his gun on the railroad
tracks and let me fire it. I thought that if he would do that, we probably would kill most all of
them. Guess what! We didn’t kill a single VC − only about three cows. I sent my report later
that day to the Regimental Headquarters, stating, “Spotted between seventy and eighty Viet
Cong. We engaged them by fire, 300 to 400 yards away. No Viet Cong KIA or WIA, but
three dead Viet Cong cows.”

This was the usual story of our engaging the VC. All Advisors will probably tell you the
same stories. Every chance we got, we told every Officer in the higher echelon that the SVN
units will not fight. They will run! Their philosophy was: “Tomorrow I die. Wait until
tomorrow − then I fight.”

I was in visiting the 1st MARDIV Headquarters. I had been recommended for the Marine
Corps Warrant Officer/2nd Lieutenant Programs. The promotion list was out. As I walked by
the office of Colonel “Bull” Fisher (with whom I had served in Korea and The Basic School,
Quantico, VA), he yelled, “Hamm, come in here.” He showed me a map and said, “Where is
the enemy?” My Battalion, the Vietnamese 1st BN, 5th RGT, 2nd ARVN DIV, had recently
gotten into a real “hot spot.” I told Colonel Fisher that this was the hottest spot we had been
in within our area of operation. I later learned that my Battalion and the 37th Ranger
Battalion (Vietnamese) were going on a joint operation with the U.S.M.C., the first of its kind
in Vietnam. The operation was laid on with the U.S. Marines and the SVN units.

All of the Advisors from the units involved in the operation were called into the 1st Marine
Division G3 Headquarters concerning the operation which was named “Harvest Moon.” I
stood up at the end of the briefing and warned the Marine Colonel (G3) that if we came under
heavy fire, all of our troops would run. All of the other advisors agreed with me. This
warning went for not.

After engaging the enemy, my Battalion along with 37 Ranger Battalion broke and ran. Our
Regiment Commander was killed, and all of our battalion officers were either killed or
wounded. I later visited the wounded in the hospital; they were badly shot up.

A high ranking U.S.M.C. officer later told me that the operation took all of their body bags.

Somehow, I had punctured the instep of my right foot, and it had gotten infected. It appeared
that the hole was getting bigger each day, so I couldn’t go on any new operations until it
healed. I went to the 2nd ARVN Division Medical Clinic for treatment. While I was getting
worked on, an Air Force pilot came by and asked if I wanted to get in some flight time. I
said, “Yes” and he said, “Let’s go.”

We (Advisors) often felt sick from eating the Vietnamese food, and even though I was really
feeling bad, I still went with him. We took our weapons and loaded into a Spotter Aircraft.
He said, “We are going to look for some VC targets. I have four jet aircraft coming out,
looking for some VC to kill.” We found some VC positions, and my pilot gave the jets a
heading and the target location. They made about four passes each. We flew down low, and
he and I made an assessment of the damage and gave it to the jet jockeys.

During the bombing mission, my pilot flew the spotter aircraft on its left side, with the left
wing pointing at the target while flying around in a circle. I started getting sicker and sicker.
As we were flying back, the pilot yelled, “What is that?” Then he turned the plane into an
almost straight down dive. Well, that was all I needed. My breakfast came up all over the
back of the plane. Knowing how sick at my stomach I was before we went out, I wasn’t too
sure about taking the chance to go up that day anyway. I think the pilot was playing games
with me, but I got him back. I would not wash the plane out. Later on, during my second tour
in Vietnam, I was designated as an Aerial Observer. I flew hundreds of hours in all kinds of
aircraft. I never got sick again.

As I mentioned, the Warrant Officer and 2nd Lieutenants lists were out. I was selected for
2nd Lieutenant. The day before Harvest Moon, I was called in to fill out my acceptance of
the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. I missed the Harvest Moon Operation. I later spoke to my Senior
Advisor, an Army Special Forces Captain. He told me all about the battle, some of which I
have written about. I didn’t go back to the field. I was assigned as the Operating Chief at The
Tactical Operation Center for I Corps, South Vietnam.

The bouncer at the Take Ten became a good friend. One day, he said, “Why not take my job
as the Operations Sergeant at Tactical Operation Center at I Corps Headquarters?” He was
going home. I said, “Man, I have never worked in an Operations billet.” He said it was an
easy job. Before I knew it, he had recommended me for the job. This was a large group, and
I would be working with all those that were a part of I Corps Operations. My main job was to
assist the Army Colonel who briefed all the Generals and Admirals each week in the War
Room. I set up and posted all the operations for the I Corps and did the pointing for the
Colonel.

I reported in and found a good group of Officers to work with. The Colonel was one of the
best Officers I ever been associated with. His father was a Four-Star General during World
War II. The Colonel said, “Since you are a Marine Gunnery Sergeant, you are in charge of all
the Enlisted.” Many were senior to me. I talked with them, and they said it was OK with
them. I never really had much to do with those in the Administrative group. I did my job,
and they did theirs. Everything worked out fine. General Walt, who later was promoted to
Four-Star General and became the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, was often in
attendance. I had worked with him earlier. He was the senior Marine Officer over all of the
Marines in Vietnam. I had no problem with this part of my assignment. I set up the maps
with all of the operations going on in I Corps with the SVN Forces. I was familiar with most
of them. I pointed out on the map as the Colonel talked, and at times, he asked me questions
on some of the operations. Of course, I had gathered all of the information before setting up
the War Room. This was very valuable training for me later on in the U.S.M.C.
Later, I was assigned as the Operations Chief of the Tactical Operations Center, 1st Vietnam
Corps in Da Nang. I manned the War Room and the 1st Corps alert radio system.

I manned the Tactical Operation Center’s radio for I Corps. I was on the radio with the
Special Forces (U.S. Army) when the A Shau Special Forces Camp fell to the NVA. I was
talking to their 1st Sergeant, who said, “This is an inside job. Our own troops are trying to
kill us.” He said, “I have got to go and try to close the gate.”

I visited him later at the Da Nang hospital. He said he was fragged by a hand grenade thrown
by one of his Vietnamese troops. Their unit was called a CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense
Group). I never knew how many of our Special Forces were killed or wounded. They were
trying to escape and evade the enemy. These U.S. Special Forces were working with the
mountain people.

One of my saddest memories is that of my buddy, the Gunny, who gave shots to the Special
Forces Troops with me at Fort Bragg, NC. He was killed during my first tour in Vietnam. He
was assigned the Provincial force − the most dangerous job in Vietnam. We worked in the
same area, and we saw each other on different occasions. He was really loved by the
Vietnamese and was teaching English to the Vietnamese in his village. He could speak the
language very well and had been first in our language class at Fort Bragg. His Radio
Operator stepped on a land mine, and it killed both of them.

I was called into the Army Headquarters and was told of his death. He and I were close
buddies. I said, “I want to escort his body to Saigon.” The Sergeant said, “We can’t find his
body.” He suggested that I call the Senior Medical Officer of the 1st MARDIV.

When I called the Officer, he said, “Wait a couple of minutes.” He came back and said, “We
know where his body is. It will be at Da Nang Airport tomorrow.”

The Army Headquarters called back and said that they had found one of his two brothers
(both of whom were also serving in Vietnam) and that there was no need of my going. I said,
“I want go to.” The next day, his brother and I met at the airport. The plastic bag that held
the Gunny’s body was laid right in front of us. A reporter was sitting near us, and he started
to ask questions about my friend. I told him to get on the other side of the plane and keep his
mouth shut. When I got to Saigon, the reporter jumped up and was about to take pictures, but
the Air Force personnel grabbed his camera and ran him off.

When we got inside, the doctor came out and quietly asked me if I would identify the body.
He did not want his brother to see him. When I went into the room, the Gunny’s body was
lying on a table, with blood running out of every wound that he sustained in the mine blast. I
said, “Yes, that is him.”

The Gunny received a very high Vietnamese award and the American Legion of Merit. It was
unusual for an Enlisted man to receive the Legion of Merit Award. (On my last tour, I was
put in for this award as a Captain, but the ruling was that an individual had to be a Major or
above to receive it.)

My buddy was an Honor Man in all that he did. He was twice given Purple Hearts for
wounds that he sustained in Korea, and, upon his death, a third Purple Heart was awarded
posthumously.

Before the end of my first tour, one of the Army Ranger Majors asked if I would be his
Operations Sergeant. He was to set up the Operations group of U.S. Rangers who were
combining all the SVN Ranger Battalions in Vietnam. I said, “Yes.” After he put in his
recommendation, he was asked if I had been through the Army Ranger School. I told him I
had not been through the school. They said I wasn’t accepted because I wasn’t Ranger-
trained. He wrote back and said, “He’s a Marine Gunnery Sergeant and has had plenty of
training. He is well qualified.” I still wasn’t accepted for the job.

As a part of a host team for four or five Pro-football players, I hosted Johnny Unitas. What a
great man. We sure enjoyed all of them. They were very much interested in what we were
doing in Vietnam. At one time, I knew of almost every Pro-football player. There weren’t
many back then. I would sit and tell them of how many games I saw each of them play and
what had happened to them during these games, etc. They were really pleased to hear my
recollections and asked the USO (United Service Organizations) to allow me to tour Vietnam
with them. The request was refused.

General Victor Krulack, Commander of the Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, HI, came to Vietnam
twice while I was there on my first tour.

General Krulack and General Lewis W. Walt, Commander of the 3rd Marine Division and of
the III MAF (III Marine Amphibious Force) invited all the Marine Advisors to the SVN Army
Forces to III MAF Headquarters for a meal and talked to each one of us individually.
While General Walt (whom I had served with before) was talking to me, he had tears in his
eyes as he said, “They (VC) are killing my boys.” A couple of days earlier, his Marines had
started Operation Starlight and were still battling the VC. From my unit’s location, we saw
the flares and heard the shooting. We knew something big was going on. Operation Starlight
was the first Regimental-size operation since the Korean War. I later read that the Marines
had suffered 45 KIA and had killed well over two hundred VC.

Before we left, they said to all five of us, “We know you are out there serving under the U.S.
Army and we haven’t forgotten you. All of you are doing an outstanding job. Godspeed.”
This shows the Officers and Enlisted men’s relationship in the U.S. Marine Corps.

I had met General Krulack only once before, during an IG Inspection at Camp Lejeune, NC.
General Walt became a Four-Star General while he was the Assistant Commandant of the
Marine Corps. I strongly felt General Walt should have been the Senior General Officer over
all of the U.S. Forces in Vietnam because of his adopting the “balanced strategy” of counter-
guerrilla, pacification, and search and destroy operations.

General Krulack’s son, Charles C. Krulack, became the 31st Commandant of the Marine
Corps (July 1995-1999).

19. Quantico, VA – Officer Candidates

School (1966-1968)

At the end of my first

tour in Vietnam, I was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant. All of my paper work was sent to my
home in Mississippi. While on leave, I had to go to Memphis, TN, the nearest Marine Corps
Command, to be sworn in as a 2nd Lieutenant.

I was again assigned to Quantico, VA as a troop handler andan instructor at the Officers
Candidate School.

My orders were to report to Quantico, VA, where I was assigned to Camp Upshur as a
Platoon Commander with the Platoon Leaders Class (PLC) for College Juniors interested in
becoming Marine Officers. I was in charge of training two different Platoons at the Officer
Candidates School (OCS).

Our first Platoon trainees were all from the State of Washington − a great group of candidates.
I told my Gunnery Sergeant and his assistant Sergeant that I would stay out of their way,
unless I wanted to inject my ideas on the training.

These two Instructors did a fabulous job. Our Platoon took first place in ALL events. The
candidates all passed their first physical fitness test, a rarity with “boots,” or PLC troops.

One day, my Gunny came to me and said, “Sir, the M14 Rife Instructor did not show today.
What shall we do?” I said, “Get me an M14 and form the Platoon on the drill field.” Another
Platoon Commander asked if his Platoon could join our class. I was a well-qualified weapons
Instructor, having taught weapons at The Basic School for three and a half years.

Later on that week, I got a call from the OCS Instructor, section at Mainside, and was asked if
I would teach with the OCS Instructor Section. This turned out to be something I was not
prepared to do.

They didn’t put me in the Weapons Section. I was to teach General Military subjects. This
wasn’t my bag. I was to teach two hours of Interior Guard Duty, The History and Tradition of
the Marine Corps, The Officers and Enlisted Uniforms, and two hours from the platform on
the compass. These subjects were the ones no one else wanted to teach. The new Lieutenant
got the job.

First off, I made up charts to be used with a couple of different kinds of overhead projectors
for the Interior Guard Duty and the Uniforms classes.

Two hours from the platform of instruction on the compass is not the ideal way to teach the
compass. Anyone who knows the compass knows it is best taught in the field, using practical
application procedures. Well, my teaching was not at the top of the class. All the students (a
thousand of them) had to critique the Instructors, and I became the low man on the totem pole
at OCS.

My first platoon was the Honor Platoonof the Platoon Leaders Class.

The Commanding Officer of OCS had a board behind his desk, and my name was at the
bottom of the list. Of course, this didn’t faze me too much. You know the old saying,
“Before, I couldn’t spell ‘Lieutenant’; now I ‘aire’ one.” But I did know my subjects and the
Marine Corps.

I was sent to the Officers Orientation Course for about two weeks. This was probably my
worst two weeks in the Corps. We took a written test to start off with. I was at the bottom in
writing and grammar. Every day, they would call on us to give an impromptu speech. I was
not familiar with most of the subjects.

We had to talk on a TV monitor, and the class would critique each of us. Every day, we had
to be prepared to give a speech on certain assigned subjects. Our final presentation was to be
on a subject of our own choice. I chose electrical and non-electrical demolitions explosives. I
made up a small simulated bunker, which I set up prior to my presentation. I used a “squid”
(a small blasting cap) to blow the bunker for my attention gainer, and it worked very well. I
had wire, fuses, inert blasting caps, and empty TNT cartons all over the place. No one but me
knew what was going on. I finally got an excellent mark for that class.

During our two weeks training, we were to read a book and write a paper. I turned that
assignment over to my wife and got an “A” on the paper.

My platoon lining up and marching to a classroom.

The final written exam

was the same test that we took at the start of the class, and the Instructors were amazed at how
much my grades had improved. There were several Officers that dropped out of the course.
They couldn’t handle the instructing phase of the course.

One of the best Instructors at OCS told me to assist him in critiquing the Officer Candidates
students. He introduced himself, then me. This Captain was sharp. He taught twenty hours
on First-Aid − a “biggie” in the Marine Corps. He said, “Any questions you have on First-
Aid, ask me, and any other question on the Marine Corps subjects, ask Lieutenant Hamm.”
Well, I knew the Marine Corps, and after our critique, all the candidates had a different
opinion of me. Many of them who had stated, “Lieutenant Hamm is the sorriest Instructor we
have here,” changed their minds. I wasn’t a charismatic Instructor, but I knew the Marine
Corps subjects.

The only high grades I received were from the former Enlisted men. As an Enlisted Instructor
at The Basic School for three and a half years, I got all excellent to outstanding marks and
received a Meritorious Mast at the end of my tour. I was then assigned to be the Executive
Officer of Headquarters and Service Company.
There were about six hundred Officers and Enlisted men in OCS. I wasn’t in charge of any of
the Officers. Our Company’s job was administrative. I was responsible for all the supplies,
building and grounds, and the mess hall − a BIG job. Later, the Company Commander
retired, and I became the Company Commander. I received orders for my second tour in
Vietnam shortly thereafter. I made 1st Lieutenant while at OCS.

Pat and I bought a new home near the base, and we started going back to church. There were
many interesting things that happened to me at OCS, I have only touched on a few of them
here. OCS was another helpful tour for my career in the Marine Corps.

I volunteered to go back to Vietnam to work with the Vietnam Marines. I really wanted that
job. When I opened my orders from my monitor at Headquarters Marine Corps, I was to go
back to Fort Bragg to be trained as a Psychological Officer (political warfare). I called my
monitor, and he said there were no openings in the Vietnam Marine Advisory Group. He
said, “When you get to Saigon (Military Assistance Training Advisor Headquarters −
MATA), call the Marine Colonel in charge of the Vietnam Marines Advisory Group and tell
him you want to work with his group.” Another Lieutenant and I called the Colonel, and he
said he just didn’t have any openings.

I left my family again. It was difficult to do, for I knew what lay ahead of me.

I went through the training at Fort Bragg, where I had trained a couple of years earlier as an
Infantry Advisor to the SVN Army. This was a good training course. Again, I came out very
high on all of our runs and field work. There were Officers from the Army, the Air Force,
and the Marine Corps, with ranks from Lieutenant to Full Bird Colonel.

20. Vietnam (1968-1969)

At the end of my last tour at Quantico, VA (OCS) as a 1st Lieutenant, I requested a tour with
the Vietnam Marines. Since there were no openings, Headquarters Marine Corps assigned me
to a billet where I was needed. The billet was with the U.S. Marine Advisory Team #43. I
was again sent to Fort Bragg, NC for training. This class consisted of Officers from all
branches of our Military − from Colonels on down to Lieutenants. I had no language
instruction this time, which I wanted.

On my way to Vietnam, I visited my mom and dad. Pat, our three children, and her mother
(who was living with us at that time) stayed in our home in Virginia for several more months,
until Pat sold the house. They then moved to Florida, near one of their relatives. During the
previous winter, Pat had been working in the church office. One day, when it started to snow,
she started home and the road was very slippery. After sliding off the road, she walked to a
gas station and waited for six hours before someone could come to get her car on the road
again to drive home. This was an experience she did not want to repeat.

My new assignment was to replace the PSYOP (Psychological Operations) Officer in Nha Be
in the Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ), east of Saigon. Our team came under the U.S. Navy
and worked with the South Vietnamese Navy.

The following is a quote from “Navy News Release” Number (47F-68):

THE UNIQUE MARINE ADVISORY TEAM SERVED IN RUNG SAT SPECIAL ZONE
ATTACHED TO TF116

NHA BE, South Vietnam − Ten miles southeast of Saigon, between the capital city and the
South China Sea, sits some of the nastiest real estate in South Vietnam. The complexity of
the terrain, the character of the enemy, and the difficulty of situation make it the magnificent
challenge which has always appealed to the United States Marines. And the Marines were
there.

But in Rung Sat, the Marines have been assigned a different and challenging role: their
principal mission was to train the Vietnamese Military forces and advise the Military
Commander of the area.

The Marine Advisory Team 43 was a tightly knit group of three Officers and seven Enlisted
men. As part of the Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam, the team operated independently of the
other Marine Advisory units who worked exclusively with Vietnamese Marines.

Team 43 worked and lived in a small one-story, 3-room French-built house in the Vietnamese
Regional Forces compound outside the Navy base at Nha Be. Within this setup, Marine
Advisory Team 43’s main purpose was to provide specialized advice to Vietnam
Commanders of RSSZ. There were four officers on Team 43: an Infantry Officer (Senior
Captain); an Intelligence Officer and his assistant, a 1st Lt.; and me, the PSYOP Officer.

The Infantry advisor, as with the Political Warfare and Intelligence Advisors, had the primary
job of advising the Rung Sat Commander and the Senior U.S. Navy advisor who helped the
SVN Commander.

The team worked primarily with the thirteen Regional Force Companies which comprised a
part of Vietnam’s home guard.

One of the most spectacular accomplishments of the Infantry section was the establishment
and training of the Rung Sat Commandos (Xung Kich), made up of the highest qualified
representatives of the thirteen Regional Force Companies in the Rung Sat. This elite 25-man
Platoon was headed by a Regional Force 1st Lieutenant.

The Xung Kich, the Rung Sat Commandos, was the product of Marine Advisory Team 43
training. This elite reaction force, the only one of its kind, had become the most efficient
fighting force in the Rung Sat. During its existence, it won for itself a reputation for
competence and enthusiasm which inspired and won the hearts of the residents of the area,
while throwing fear into the hearts of the Viet Cong. Their successes are increasingly evident.
And as for acceptance by the Vietnamese forces, Lt. Kham of the Commandos Platoon
describes it: “They are wonderful men. We think of them not as Americans, not as someone
apart from us, but as Vietnamese. We all work together, we all share the same dangers, we all
can get killed together. We are friends.”

That feeling of friendship is returned by the Marines. Friendship, acceptance by their

Vietnamese counterparts, and the overall success of their entire program sum up the mission
and accomplishment of U.S. Marine Advisory Team #43.
The primary jobs of the Commandos were reactions and ambushes. To assist the Infantry
Officer, there was one SNCO and one NCO. They assisted in the training and advising the
Xung Kich (XK). In many cases, such as demolition and communications training, they did
the actual instructing, while a XK Officer translated.

The Intelligence Advisors, headed by a Captain, one Lieutenant, and one Staff Sergeant,
worked with their Vietnamese counterpart in gathering and disseminating intelligence
information to U.S. and Vietnamese units going out on ambushes and reaction operations.
The Advisors then participated in these operations to gather more information. They also
assisted in training and operational deployment of the Rung Sat Intelligence Squad. This
included deploying agents to gather intelligence information and coordinating Intelligence
Squad activities with Regional Force reaction units and ambush operations.

As with the other Marine Advisory Team Officers, the Intelligence Captain served on the staff
of the senior U.S. Advisor, a U.S. Navy Commander. In this capacity, he provided
intelligence assistance to all U.S. Military forces in the Rung Sat, as well as to U.S. and allied
Advisory teams in sub-sectors adjoining the area.

The challenge, the variety of experiences, and the people with whom I worked, all combined
to make this tour an outstanding one.

Captain Brown, whom I replaced and Thieu Lop, my counterpart and interpreter, on a trip to
our thirteen villages.
 I was the PSYOP officer for the thirteen villages of Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ).

The enemy took a great deal of overt action in the form of direct attacks on merchant ships,
because the Rung Sat had one very important strategic value: it surrounded the meandering
Long Tau Shipping Channel − four rivers which wind for forty-four miles from the South
China Sea to the crowded supply docks of Saigon. It had been the aim of the VC to sink a
ship in the center of the Long Tau and block the river to traffic.

When a pre-planned operation (a quick-reaction operation or an ambush) was set up, the
Political Warfare and Intelligence sections joined the Infantry section in the operation.
Almost every operation had been an unqualified success, due to the training and advice given
by the Infantry section.

The objectives of my
section (Political Warfare) were all interconnected with the other team members and designed
to build the morale of the Vietnamese Forces in the Rung Sat, aid the local populace, and gain
support for the government of the Republic of Vietnam by demonstrating that the government
was behind the people.

15 miles east of Saigon, my aerial observer flight over one of my villages

All of this was accomplished, to a great extent, by my Polwar (Political Warfare) Team. My
assistant was a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant. The team was a combination supply train,
camp show, medicine wagon, and movie theater. The team was always accompanied by my
assistant and Advisor.

One of the primary missions of our team, which was assigned to the U.S. Navy, was to help
the U.S. Navy and SVN Navy keep the waterway open for shipment.

Almost all of the villages were located on or near the Long Tau River, the main waterway
into Saigon Port. Foreign ships from all over the world brought supplies and equipment for
U.S. forces.
Three or four times a month, the team moved out, alternately touring the upper and lower
sections of the Rung Sat, visiting all of the villages on the circuit. We would visit three or
four villages, distribute wheat, oats, salad oil, and other commodities, sing a few songs, and
move on to the next village.

Transportation from village to village started out by Vietnamese landing craft, but as the
streams grew narrower, the team switched to rented sampans. I later scrounged two Boston
whalers (sixteen-foot boats) and a couple of 70hp outboard motors.

The Water Buffalo was a very dangerous animal.

We also checked with

the village chiefs, provincial health representatives, and school teachers to see if there was
anything special they needed − pencils, writing tablets, or light bulbs. If they wanted them,
we would see what we could do to get the requested items.
Much of the food came from in-country agencies, such as the World Health Organization
(WHO), Catholic Relief, World Vision, CARE, and USAID. Clothing and soap came from
private organizations in the United States, such as the Masons, fraternal organizations, and
churches.

Leaflets drafted and designed by the PSYOP team were translated by a member of the
Vietnamese team and printed by the U.S. Army in Bien Hoa. During one month, 301,000
leaflets were dropped in the RSSZ.

Another aspect of Political Warfare was the Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP). A
Vietnamese doctor and Corpsman accompanied us, and sometimes American doctors would
go with us. One of our Navy dentists and his assistant pulled about one hundred teeth in one
day in a single village. The Vietnamese never flinched, moved, or batted an eye as the dentist
pulled their teeth. Their teeth were so bad that some of the roots of the teeth protruded out of
their faces. Now that was good PSYOP − one day they were in a lot of pain, and the next day
they felt no pain.

Many good things were accomplished while I was there. My main object was to train the
Vietnamese to the point that their Officers and troops could run every aspect of the PSYOP
program. Marked results had been made in the first few months. Eventually the Polwar
Section (VN) became completely functional without the U.S.M.C. Advisors.

We seldom knew if this guy in black clothes was a friend or an enemy.

 We accomplished this
object during the first six months that I was there. My Vietnamese counterpart was 2nd Lt.
Loc. His father was a millionaire, by Vietnamese standards, and Lt. Loc was one of the most
honest Vietnamese that I knew in my two years in Vietnam.

I made a lot of contacts with some high-ranking Officers when I attended PSYOP training at
Ft. Bragg, NC. Lt. Loc and I visited several of them in Saigon. One was a Marine Colonel
who told me, “Hamm, the only thing I can help you with is Vietnamese money. Can you use
a million dollars?” Lt. Loc spoke up and said to me, “Sir, don’t take money. Vietnamese
soldiers’ families will never receive it.” He took over all aspects of the PSYOP program and
was doing an excellent job when I left.

My predecessor had begun a program of training the Vietnamese medics, and we continued
that program. With the U.S. Navy doctors and medics, the SVN medics were doing a good
job of taking care of the Vietnamese soldiers and the population in RSSZ.
I saw my first snake in Vietnam while on a search and destroy mission. It was a hot and
murky day. The Advisors were too heavy for the mud to hold us. We continually were
sinking into the mud and pulling ourselves out. About mid-day, as I was about to go into
some thick jungle growth, I saw a big green snake (Bamboo viper?). It ran right in front of
me, and I went right in behind it, but I never saw it again.

Preparing for night operations.

I was never afraid of snakes, but we all dreaded encountering the jungle ants. They were big
dudes that nested in large balls in the vegetation. If you walked in under the nest and
disturbed the ants, they would cover you. This could literally be fatal, unless you had
someone behind you to beat them off.

Generally, I led the Regional and Provisional Forces on operations which we called, “Cub
Scouts and Boy Scouts.” We also called them “the rough puff outfit.” I had some very
interesting operations with them day and night. Sometimes, I worked with the elite troops.
 We were inserted on most of our operations in the PBR because RSSZ was mostly all water
and jungle.

I planned an ambush one night, but it was called off because one of the PBR (Patrol Boat
River) troops had a terrible accident. I was in the first PBR load of troops, and as we were
sitting in our ambush position, we received word to come back in. On the other boat, one of
our Commando’s hand grenades fell off his cartridge belt. The pin had rusted off. The
grenade exploded, killing him and wounding several others. The U.S. Navy 50-cal. machine
gunner on the bow of the boat lost an eye from the explosion.

Another night, I took out about twelve Vietnamese Commandos and a couple of our Marine
Advisors with me on an ambush. I gave the briefing just before we went out. I coordinated
my plan with the Navy’s Seawolf (helo gunship). The U. S. Air Force said they would be
available if I needed them. Also on call were the U.S. Army 175mm Howitzer artillery guns
and all the Naval groups in Nha Be. A Navy Chief who was in charge of a mike (“M”) boat
which was loaded with all kinds of weapons said, “I have an 81mm mortar that I can support
you with.” All of this was fine with me. He and I planned out how he could support me.
 Lt Khuan, Platoon Commander of the Commando’s Sung Kich Trung-Doi.

I had the Commandos Platoon Commander (a very reliable 1st Lieutenant) and about twelve
of his troops. These Vietnamese Commandos knew exactly what to do to set up an ambush.
They had done this many times before. They could set up the ambush in complete darkness in
this new area that I had chosen. We went in by PBR after dark, unloaded, and moved to our
ambush site to set up. After about two hours of waiting, I spotted some VC sampans coming
our way. I had a night BC (Ballistic Coefficient) scope, which was good up to about one
hundred yards. I had earlier told the Platoon Commander that I would spring the ambush by
firing my M16 rifle. I opened up when they got right in front of me, about 20 feet away.
When I fired, everyone opened up. We had two M60 machine guns and about ten M16 rifles.
Within a few minutes, I yelled, “Cease fire.” I ordered the troops to throw several hand
grenades into the stream. The Lieutenant sent some of his troops into the water to bring out
what was left of the sampans and the items that were in them. I never got involved in head
counting, so I never knew how many were killed or what was found. No one could have
survived all the lead we fired.

The Navy Chief with the 81mm mortar started firing some illuminating rounds, just about the
time we opened up. He was right on target and gave us illumination until our troops got all
the gear ashore.

I called our Tactical Operations Center and told my Commander that I would like to stay out
there the rest of the night. My Vietnamese Commando Lieutenant agreed with me. But his
Vietnamese superiors back at the Tactical Operations Center said, “NO! Bring it in!”

I called an Air Force flare ship and a Seawolf to come over to our position and help us get out
and back to the PBRs. We would have to come out by walking through mangroves, water,
mud, etc. I asked if anyone could read a compass at night, and no one volunteered, so I broke
out my ol’ trusty compass. I took my Radio Operator and we started out. It was so dark that I
couldn’t see anything clearly around me. I called for the Air Force to drop some flares to
illuminate out in front of us and gave them the compass reading that I was coming out on.
They stayed with us until they ran out of flares.

The Navy Seawolfs came over to our location and I gave them my compass reading. I was
able to follow the light of the helicopter out to the river where the PBRs were waiting for us.

The Navy gunships, the “M” boat Chief, and the U.S.A.F. flare aircraft (A/C) were an
immeasurable help to us. I recall that one of the Chiefs on one of the PBRs said, “I’ll come in
and get you. Stay where you are.” I said, “No way, man. The VC would be waiting on you
with their RPGs” (rocket-propelled grenades). The PBR troops and all the other support
troops that I had that night were a great bunch of men.

500-pound water mine that exploded and killed the entire EOD team and wounded many
other troops.

One night, the Seals

were in their boats in the river and they found a 500-pound water mine. They brought it in for
their Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Technicians to disarm. All of Marine
Advisor Team #43 were in their racks or out in the village. I had just gotten asleep. There
was a loud explosion, and I was almost rocked out of my rack. I put all my fighting gear on
and headed for the base. I thought we were under attack. As the EOD team tried to disarm
the mine, it exploded, and the whole team was killed. Many other troops were hit by the
blast. I saw a dozen or so troops in the sick bay, but I never knew the total casualty number.
It was unbelievable how big a hole it made in the sand and all the destruction it created.

On my birthday, Sunday, November 23, 1968, I lead a patrol with the rough puff outfit (SVN
Regional Forces). We located several old bunkers, a lot of barbed wire installation, and many
booby traps.

The next day, I decided to conduct a VR using a U.S. Army helicopter. There were several
other Americans who came along for the ride.

I conducted the VR around the RSSZ. On our way back to Nha Be, I told the pilot to fly
down real low. I wanted to inspect the area we were at on Saturday. The pilot of this type of
helicopter wasn’t allowed to fly as close to the ground as I wanted to fly. I said, “Fly low or
take us back in. I have to be low and slow to see anything.” Well, the pilot went low, but not
slow. He had the copter wide open. Just as we flew over the area where we saw the bunkers
and booby traps the day before, the VC opened fire. They riddled the copter and us real bad.
The pilot took some rounds through his windshield. The bullets hit his upper torso and the
chicken plate (armor) that he was sitting on. The vest just exploded and the pieces flew into
the pilot’s face. The co-pilot took some hits on the chicken plate that he was sitting on and
received a lot of shrapnel from the armor plate. The armor plate that I was sitting on (which I
usually did not sit on) exploded when hit by the rounds. I looked down and saw some holes
inches from my left foot. Blood was flying all over the inside of the copter and over all of us.
All but one individual on the copter was injured. As I looked back, I thought, “If I had my
head sticking out of the copter (which is how most of us flew, so we could see better), I’d
have been in trouble.” The pilot started to pull the copter up and I yelled, “Keep it down at
treetop level.” That way, the VC couldn’t track us very far.

I radioed our TOC (Tactical Operations Center) and told them what happened. We would be
landing in about three minutes. This incident took place about five miles (as the crow flies)
from Nha Be. As we landed, the Navy Corpsmen were running out to the copter. I was told
that an Army gunship was revved up and ready to go. When I got out of the copter, I ran over
to the gunship and jumped in. I told them which direction to take off in. The pilot said, “Tell
us where the VC are and you get to sick bay.” Blood was all over my map and me. I guess
they thought I was seriously wounded.

One of the troopers that went along for the ride was the U.S. Navy Admiral’s PR (Public
Relations) man, and he was wounded. Did he ever catch the fury of the Admiral, who said,
“What the hell were you doing in RSSZ and flying in a helicopter?” He said, “I was getting a
story.” The Admiral said, “You better damn well have one.” When he got out of the hospital,
he came back to write his story. I got some of our Marine Advisors and we posed getting into
one of the Seawolf copters. He got his story. I never saw it though.

While the Infantry Officer was in the hospital from wounds he suffered and the Intelligence
Officer was on R&R (rest and recuperation), I sat in on an Intelligence Briefing. Our Navy
Commander was interested in finding out how and where the VC was bringing in their 500-
pound water mines into the Long Tau River.
A 500-pound mine could do a heap of damage to any size ship coming into Saigon. As I was
looking at the map, I said, “I think I see how they are bringing in their mines from the factory
into RSSZ.” Shortly thereafter, someone laid on an operation using U.S. Special Forces with
Vietnam or Cambodian troops, and I was to go in with them. A helicopter landing was
planned.

A couple of days later, our helicopter landed, and I made contact with the Navy Seal Team
that had gone out the night before. They told me that they had walked, under the cover of
darkness, behind the VC, stalking them right up to where they were storing the mines. A
couple of the Seals were 6’4.” Can you imagine those tall Seals walking behind 5-foot VC?
The Seal Commander showed me the exact route the VC was using. It was just where I had
suspected. The Senior Special Forces SNCO said, “Captain, since you are the senior man
here, take over.” We set up our night defense position, and I had artillery fire and the C130
Spook Aircraft with four mini guns (each capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute) on call,
if needed.

I called the artillery unit and told them I wanted to “box in” our Company with artillery
rounds. This was an Australian artillery outfit, and they didn’t quite understand what I
wanted. After several minutes, they got the idea, and I called in several rounds and boxed us
in. A little before midnight, one of our outposts called in and said that there were about fifty
VC on the road and that they had stopped and were hunkered down. One or two of our troops
must have moved, and the VC was alerted.

I called the Spook aircraft, gave them the location of the VC, and asked them if they would
fire. The pilot knew our location, and after they figured out the coordinates of the VC, the
pilot called back and said, “Man, I can’t shoot that close to you at night. While we were
discussing it, the VC took off, when they saw the Spook come over our position. The next
day, we found several 500-pound water mines in that location where the VC were storing
them. (After the Vietnam war ended in April of 1975, the NVA and VC said they were afraid
of the Spook above all of our weapons.)

My Gunny Sergeant and I were assigned to go on an operation with a PRU (Provisional

Reconnaissance Unit) − all former VC that had been trained by the CIA. We had two or three
PBR loads of troops, and they were “go getters.” They could find the VC and did that day.
We saw a lot of crocodiles during that operation. I was the last one to leave the PBR, right
behind my Gunny Sergeant. The mud was deep, as usual, and when I jumped off, I went up
to my waist in the mud and couldn’t get out. I had jumped too far out with my feet, and I was
stuck and leaning backward. The PBR had left by this time, and I began to slowly fall
backward. I couldn’t move my feet and was about to go under, when my Gunny came back to
look for me. He pulled me out of the water and said, “Don’t do that again!” I promised him I
wouldn’t. Marines have a lot of pity for one another in combat (Ha! Ha!). Remember, the
Marines never won a war, but we did shorten them five or six years!

I was asked to escort a writer for Scripps Howard Press. I told the Navy Commander, “Let’s
lay on an operation and let him see some real action.” The Commander said, “NO! Just take
him around one of the nearby villages.” He spent most of his time with one of the village
chiefs, who told him how dangerous it was in his village and that he had to sleep in a different
place each night for his own protection. Of course, he heard a lot of artillery fire, which went
on all the time, but that was enough for him to write an article.
A week or so later, I got a clipping from my mom. It was from the “Memphis Press
Semester” newspaper. She did not know that I was back in Vietnam, until she read the article.
As I read the exaggerated account, I didn’t have any idea who the writer was describing, even
though the title of the article was, “Tupelo Officer Finds What It (War) Is All About.” Later
on in the article, he mentioned my name. So much for the news media.

During my last couple of months in Vietnam, I was directed to train SVN Navy personnel to
become Seals. These were misfits (cowboys) that the VN Admiral wanted to discharge.
Admiral Zumwalt (U.S. Navy) said, “Let’s train them to be Seals and send them up on the
Cambodian border.” A VN Marine Advisory told me that in this area, the VC could muster
up a Battalion of troops in one day and wipe you out.

I took my orders from Admiral Zumwalt through a Navy Captain. They gave me two or three
VN Navy Officers to be trained to be the leaders. I was given a SVN Marine Officer and
three Enlisted to help train them. The VN Marines were outstanding troops. They were quick
to punish the VN Sailors when they got out of line.

During the last tour in Vietnam, I trained to be an Aerial Observer “whose mission is to
provide ground Commanders with information of intelligence value not readily available from
normal ground sources; to procure information concerning terrain and hydrography; to
supplement operational information of friendly forces; to direct supporting fires for the
ground forces, to include artillery, naval gunfire, and air; and to perform utility and liaison
missions as directed” (Description quoted from Air Observer Handbook by Air Observation
Unit, G2, 2nd MARDIV, FMF).

I received my Aerial Observer Wings on 22 January 1969. Because of my billet as the

PSYOP Officer for RSSZ, I was assigned a flight status. I flew many hours around Saigon,
Cambodia, Laos, and the RSSZ.
 To receive the A/O
(Aerial Observer) MOS, I had to fly one hundred hours on combat missions. I contacted an
Army Aviator Unit near Saigon and they said I could fly as many hours as I wanted. Pilots
normally flew alone in the spotter aircraft, and they liked to have the company of someone
else in their aircraft.

I flew about seventy hours with this Army unit. They flew helicopters, and Beaver and Otter
aircrafts. The Beavers and Otters were some of the safest aircraft one could fly in, but they
were very slow in flight. I started off early in the morning before daylight, flew several hours,
came back, and landed. Then I ran to catch another flight back out for four more hours.

Going on an A/O flight with my two assistants.

We were flying over the Army Long Ranger Reconnaissance Patrol Unit which was always in
VC territory. We were their radio relay source back and forth from them to their
Headquarters. As I recall, they always whispered. On two of these flights, the pilot had to
call for relief, saying that he had “an emergency situation” and needed to land. His passenger
(me) had to have an “emergency head call.” I was up in an aircraft sixteen hours out of every
twenty-four hours. Nature does unexpectedly call. The pilot always practiced an emergency
landing by cutting his engine. We would coast all the way to the nearest airport and start up
the engine (hopefully), just before landing.

Many times, the pilots would have to land at their base camp, without lights, in total darkness.
The pilot would fly back and forth, trying to find the base. Finally, he would call, “I got it,”
and we would land. That wasn’t half as scary as it was flying over and around Saigon at
night. Saigon was the busiest airport in the world then. Flights over Saigon at night were the
most harrowing flights that I ever experienced. Everyone in the aircraft had to continually be
on the lookout for other aircraft. Sometimes, as we came in to land at Saigon, there would be
about a hundred aircraft circling at 10,000 feet, each waiting for its turn to land.

The Otter or Beaver had a large CNDM tear gas rig in the aircraft. In case Saigon came under
an attack, we were to kick gas out over the enemy. Supposedly, it would cover several square
miles.

When I was called out to fly a FAC (Forward Air Controller) mission, we were the first
aircraft to fly out of Saigon, and, coming back in, we were the last to land.

Back in RSSZ, I flew almost every day and many times at night. I got to call in artillery and
Naval gunfire for some of our troops’ operations.

I also flew over two B52 bomb drops. What a sight to behold! I dropped leaflets and gave the
Air Force an assessment of the damage they had created.

I flew several air strike missions over Cambodia and Laos. My pilot carried 3.5-inch rockets
on his aircraft, and when the attack air planes came over us, the pilot would launch the 3.5s,
so the pilots could spot the target. We would give the aircrafts an azimuth heading and
direction from the smoke to the target. We stayed far away and gave correction. After the air
strike, we flew down and gave an assessment of the damage.

One day, we had four Marine aircraft fly off an aircraft carrier. They had one-thousand-
pound bombs, which were needed in heavy jungle canopy. What a blast! Wow! This was the
largest explosion that I ever saw.

Vietnamese Food
On my first tour in Vietnam (1965-1966), all of the Advisors paid thirty-seven cents per day
to the cook’s fund. The head cook usually gambled most of it away, so that by the last week
or so of the month, we only got one big fish, floating in hot water along with some kind of
vegetables, which were bitter tasting. The fish was cooked whole with scales, head, fins, and
intestines all intact. We put rice in our bowls and, with our chopsticks, pulled off the parts of
the fish we wanted, and put them into our bowls of rice. Then, we put the bowls up to our
mouths and shoveled the rice and fish in with our chopsticks. We were always served hot tea.
We never were served fruit or dessert. We got very few carbohydrates.

General Westmoreland, the senior General in Vietnam, gave an order that all American
Advisors must go in from the field for three days a month and eat American food. On my
first tour, I always went to the Take Ten SNCO Club every day that I was in Da Nang and got
a big T-bone steak, with all the trimmings. I usually went in the last three days of the month.
Along about the middle of the month, the ol’ Mess SGT would have gambled away the food
money, and we would have meager meals. I would start getting anxious for some American
food about the last week of the month.

Also during my first tour, the Battalion Commander would occasionally say, “Let’s go eat
breakfast.” That sounded good to me early in the morning. There was a straw thatched hut
with just a roof over it. As we sat down, the Mama-san (as we called each of the older
women who cooked) would wait on us. She had a pan of cold water sitting on the dirt floor.
She would rinse the bowls, glasses, and chop sticks in this pan. As each one finished eating,
she would put their utensils in the pan of water. You got someone else’s bowl that had just
been rinsed off in that pan of cold water. As I would occasionally look at the pan, I would see
some ol’ mangy dog drinking out of the rinse water. This was a restaurant with a Grade A
rating!

The Advisors generally did not know when we were going on an operation. One indicator,
however, was that the fires were burning at night and the chickens and rice were being
cooked. All of the Officers’ food was poured into an ol’ dirty pack. I ate with the Officers,
and the cooks would feed us right out of those filthy packs. Regardless of how hot it was
(120 degrees in the shade), we had hot tea with our meals. The Advisors would occasionally
sneak some “C” rations and eat them in hiding. It was very insulting to the Vietnamese if you
did not eat their food. Many other cultural acts also had to be observed to avoid insulting
them.

Water of any kind was a prime commodity. The Advisors’ body guards always kept our
canteens full, if at all possible. I had to have water. I was really paranoid about not having
water, due to my experience while training in 1951 at ITR in California.

I always put halizone tablets (water purification meds) in my canteen and waited for several
hours before drinking the water. One day, my bodyguard filled up my canteens, and I
dropped in the halizone tablets. About two hours later, I began to drink from one of my three
canteens. The canteen was full of slimy, muddy water. I don’t know how much I drank
before I realized what I was drinking. I began to plan on how my bodyguard would end up
missing one day. Remember, we were told at Ft. Bragg that over one third of the Vietnamese
troops in our units would be VC.

One thing we got often was chicken, thank God! Regardless of how they cooked the chicken,
it was tasty. When our Battalion went on an operation through any village, the cooks would
round up all the chickens they could find and some real hot pepper. Someone told me, “If you
want really, really hot pepper sauce, ask for the ‘mother-in-law’ type.”

Occasionally, we found some bananas − small but tasty. We went through a village one day,
and as we were leaving, I realized that most of our troops had a chicken. They had them tied
upside down to the muzzles of their rifles. They put a piece of straw in the two holes in the
chicken’s beaks. They said the chicken wouldn’t make a sound, hanging upside down with
the straws in their beaks. I don’t know how they expected to use their rifles!
Dog meat was the favorite food of the Vietnamese, as it is all over the Orient and Asia. I
recall one of our missionaries in the Micronesia Isles quoting their village chief as saying,
“I’ll pay big money for a (certain kind of) dog.” I won’t say which kind of dog was named.

At the end of my third tour in Korea, all of the U.S. Marines (1st MARDIV) were packing up
to go back to the States. I came back from the front lines and tried to find my beautiful little
puppy. Our interpreter told us the villagers were allowed to come in that day and take all the
dogs. He said, “They will eat them.” Boy, I ranted and raved for two days, I was so upset!

I never ate any dog meat, but we ate everything else that moved − rats, worms, larva, etc. We
ate raw pork and water buffalo meat that usually had laid out in the sun, sometimes up to two
days, wrapped in banana leaves. We ate all types of fish.

On my first tour in Vietnam, one of my team Captains was passing blood at both ends. Our
doctor said that many of the American and Australian Advisors would never recover from
dysentery.

Even after I retired, I began to have some severe stomach pain. When I told the doctor about
living with the South Vietnamese for two years, the doctor said, “You have a bug somewhere
in your system.” She gave me the right treatment, and I recovered.

On my last tour in the RSSZ (which was water, swamp, and mud), the Vietnamese lived
mostly on fish. As the PSYOP Officer in all of the RSSZ, I had thirteen villages to work in. I
spent a lot of days and nights in these villages. This is where I ate some kind of fuzzy, salt-
water worm-like animal, which was nothing but guts and messy insides. I was sick for two
days!

Our team ate morning and evening meals with the villagers. One night, we went into a village
about supper time. Of course, the village chief already knew when we were coming. I was
always the special guest, and they always had some special treats for me. You never knew
what they would cook up. That particular night, they had caught a 70 or 80-pound fish,
which, of course, had very large intestines. I was served the largest part of the intestine. It
smelled just like hog manure. Usually when you “got by the first taste,” the food would be
easier to eat, but not this fish! The intestines tasted just like they smelled and never got any
better.

I asked for my favorite food, thit cua (crabmeat). They caught big ol’ black crabs in the mud
and cooked them up with little cleaning. Every village Chief always had a lot of thit cua for
me to eat. I had a little trick I always used for food that I couldn’t eat. I seemed to always
have a coughing spell when I ate. I would lower my head down below the table and spit out
most of the food. Each village had some ol’ mangy dogs. They knew of my trick, because
there always seemed to be a bunch of dogs under my feet, growling and fighting for the food
that I couldn’t stomach!

Often times, early on a Monday morning (why Mondays, I never knew), my counterpart
would come to me and say, “Sir, you are the honor guest this morning. You must go to a
festival.” They would have several half-cooked pigs with an apple in each mouth and eyes
staring at you. I had to go first and fill my plate with raw pork and rice. Again, I had a lot of
dog friends.
All of Team #43 was invited to a duck cookout, and we thought this would be alright. They
served each one of us a small duck. They had simply plucked the ducks clean of feathers,
with everything else being intact. The duck was partially boiled. They put one duck on each
of our plates. You were to start eating at the head, that is, bite the head off, chew off the
meat, and suck out and eat everything within the skull. Then, we were to bite off the feet and
eat them. Last of all, with our chopsticks, we were to pull the meat off the bone, put it in our
bowl of rice, and shovel it into our mouths. It was up to each individual if they wanted to eat
the intestines.

As they handed me my plate with the duck on it, the duck slid off the plate onto the table and
then onto the ground. I thought the dogs were going to rip my legs off fighting for that duck.
I felt so bad (Ha! Ha!). Then they said, “There aren’t any more ducks, what else would you
like?” Still acting as though I felt bad, I asked if they had any thit cua. They said, “Yes!” All
went well the rest of the night.

Another local favorite was shrimp, cooked or uncooked, with all its parts, rolled up in a ball
of sweetened raw dough. It was a favorite breakfast for the Vietnamese, but NOT for me!
Sometimes the shrimp was rolled up in rice paper and dipped in nuoc mam (a liquid or soft
mush sauce).

Finally, it was time to go home − the end of Vietnamese food was in sight. My counterpart
said, “All the Marines and other guests are invited to a going-away party for you and some
other Americans.” I thought, This is great − my very last Vietnamese meal. We arrived, and
there were a lot of people. The table had been set, and they told us to have a seat and start
eating. I looked down the table, and there was about ten big plates with rice and all kinds of
vegetables. Right on top of the rice was a great big black eel, complete with eyes. Of course,
they had to have our “favorite” sauce − nuoc mam. This sauce was used all over Vietnam.
What a smell! It tasted just like it smelled − like a baby’s bowel movement. This stuff would
stink up a table, or even a village, wherever it was being made. It was made of small raw fish,
salt, vinegar, and whatever else. It was set out in the sun for several days, where it was stirred
occasionally, until it was fermented and “ripe.”

There are many more things I could say about eating with the Vietnamese!

One of my entertainment teams.

I am receiving The Navy Achievement Medal from The Senior Naval Officer in charge of all
of RSSZ
 Lt Kham, Commander of the Commandos Platoon, one of our team members, and me
receiving The Cross of Gallantry.

Vietnam Navy Officer, me, a SVN Marine Officer. With the help of some Vietnamese
Marines, I trained a group of SVN Navy men to be SEALS.

The Vietnam Navy Admiral in charge of all SVN Navy wanted to discharge the group. They
were what we called “cowboys”—undisciplined and trouble makers. Admiral Zumwalt,
Commander in Charge of all U.S. Naval forces, said, “Let’s make SEALS out of them and
sent them up on the Cambodian border and get them killed.” I was told I would be
responsible to train them and take them to the Cambodian border. I was given some
Vietnamese Marines to help train them.
The writer of the following article was wounded along with me and four others on one of
my reconnaissance flights. To cover his reason for being with me, he wrote an article on
my GYSGT and me and our work in RSSZ.

21. Camp Lejeune − 3rd Tour (1969-1972)

& Retirement (1972)
As a Captain, I was assigned as the Assistant Officer In Charge of the 2nd MARDIV, Non-
Commissioned Officers Leadership School. The Major and I were told by the Division
Commanding General to visit other branches of service and Marine Corps bases to check out
their NCO school curriculum. We went to Fort Benning, GA; Fort Bragg, NC; and the
Marine Corps School at Quantico, VA. The NCO Leadership School was a great assignment.

I worked with some great Instructors, especially the senior SNCO, who was a Master
Gunnery Sergeant. He was one of the finest Staff NCOs I ever worked with. He was my
inspiration to resume the disciplines of running and working out. As a physical fitness trainer,
he was in great shape, BUT he was a diabetic, and the Marine Corps said he had to retire. I
did everything in my power to convince the Corps not to retire him. He was a top Instructor −
there was no one any better. I told them I would rather have him than ten good Marines. The
Corps needed men like him, and there were hundreds of jobs in the Corps that he would excel
in. I never did understand their decision.

The Division Personnel Officer called me one day and said, “I am going to assign you to be in
charge of the Counter Guerilla Warfare Center.” It was one of the best Infantry U.S. Marine
Corps training facilities I ever worked in. I think the School was designed by the Captain I
replaced. I made some minor changes but mostly ran it as it was designed and set up − to
provide instruction (Counter Guerilla Warfare training) to those with the rank of Sergeant to
Major, on their way to Vietnam.

It was one of the best training facilities anywhere, whether in the U.S.M.C. or in any other
Military organization. I had one Captain, three Lieutenants, and two Gunnery Sergeants. The
remainder of the forty or fifty men were Staff NCOs or Sergeants. We were visited twice a
month by the 2nd MARDIV Commanding General or his Assistant Division Commander.
One was a Major General and the other was a Brigadier General.

We entertained every VIP that came to Camp Lejeune, NC. We always put on a couple of
demonstrations, escorting them around the training area through booby traps and pit trails.
We would show off our Vietnam village − one of the largest and most elaborate Vietnam
villages anywhere. We had goats, hogs, chickens, and other animals that we put in the village
during our training exercises. I often found a ten to twelve-foot boa constrictor in my office.

We could train up to an entire Rifle Company, plus we offered several other blocks of training
which were of great value to the Infantry Marine.

We also ran a big POW (Prisoner of War) Camp. I had a Captain who was well trained in the
techniques of avoiding capture, resisting interrogation, formulating plans to escape if
captured, and evading the enemy after escape. He and his men broke everyone who was ever
put in the POW camp.

There was a rappelling tower and a very valuable map and compass-orienting course. This
course was a vital training tool for the Infantry Marine, regarding land navigation. A group of
Instructors who ran the Orienteering School assisted us in map and land navigation. The day
and night compass and map training was the best a Marine could get. A Lieutenant and a
Gunnery Sergeant (both Force Recon Marines) were great assets to me.

I sent my troops to Army Ranger School, Airborne School, the Navy Scuba School, and the
Air Force’s Survival School − the best survival school anywhere. Right after we set up a 3-
week mini ranger school, I received my notice to revert back to my permanent Enlisted rank
of 1st Sergeant. I never knew if the training course was implemented. I could certainly spend
several hours commenting further on the value of this training facility.

Just before I reverted back, the Division Personnel Officer said he was going to send me, as a
Captain, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to be the Commanding Officer of the Infantry Company
and the Headquarters and Service Company (H & S CO). What a deal it would have been!
However, since I was to revert back, I missed out on the biggest assignment I would have had
in my twenty-two years in the Corps.

Before and after I reverted back to my Enlisted rank, I jumped a couple of times a week, on
both day and night jumps, with the 2nd Force Recon Company and the ANGLICO (Air Naval
Gunfire Liaison Company). The ANGLICO trooper had to be jump qualified, because the
Company often traveled with the Army Airborne Troops as Naval gunfire observers. I had
earlier trained at the Airborne School at Fort Benning, GA and the Navy Diver’s School in
San Diego, CA.

After having reverted back to my Enlisted rank, 2nd Force Recon Company asked if I would
be their 1st Sergeant, and I said, “Yes.” However, thirty days later, I was promoted to
Sergeant Major. Force Recon didn’t have a Sergeant Major billet, as it was a company-size
organization. Missing out on both the Guantanamo Bay and the 2nd Force Recon Company
assignments was disappointing to me.

Right after I was promoted to Sergeant Major, my first assignment was to be the Sergeant
Major of a couple of Battalions at the ITR at Camp Lejeune, NC. When I was assigned to 3rd
ITR, my Lieutenant Colonel and Major were two of the most outstanding Officers that I
served with. I knew the Colonel when he was a Captain, earlier at Camp Lejeune, and I met
him again when he was a Major with the Marines in Vietnam. Shortly thereafter, he was
assigned to an Infantry unit and lost a foot. While we were together at 3rd Battalion, ITR, he
really showed a lot of courage doing all the things he did with his handicap. He was one of
the best troop handlers that I worked with. He said, “By virtue of the fact that you are the
Sergeant Major, you are responsible for all the Enlisted men (about 1,000) in the Battalion.” I
loved it!

I wrote a note and put it under the glass plate on my desk after I made Sergeant Major: “May
the ghosts of those I have trained never come back to haunt me because of improper training I
gave them.”

I became the Regimental Sergeant Major of ITR − a great assignment. I served under two
great Colonels. I was assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps and worked on a Promotion
Board, dealing with the ranks of Sergeant to Staff Sergeant. We probably had seventy on the
board, with one Colonel in charge. The others ranked from Lieutenant Colonels all the way
down to two of us Sergeant Majors. It was very interesting to see how SNCOs were selected.
They were screened, as was every field (MOS) in the Marine Corps.

While I was on the Promotion Board, I talked with the 9999 monitor and the Navy and the
Marine Corps representatives about the JROTC (Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps)
programs. The Navy accepted me while I was there, and the Marine Corps said for me to wait
until I got back to ITR, but they were sure I would get a job as an Instructor with a Marine
Corps JROTC unit. I was walking by the Marine Corps Retirement Branch one day and
thought, “I would like to see what I need to do to retire.” As I walked in, a Major said, “Can I
help you, Sergeant Major?” and I said, “How do I retire?” He said, “Sit down,” and that was
it. I was on my way to retirement. It took a month before it was finalized.

While attending one of the Friday night sunset parades, I occupied the seat of the 8th & I
Sergeant Major. I was spotted by a Colonel, who asked me to stay overnight to visit his boss.
When this Colonel was a Captain, he had been my first Company Commander after I was
commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1966. At the time, we were stationed at Quantico, VA,
training potential Officer Candidates.

The next day, I was invited to become the Sergeant Major of the Marine Barracks, 8th & I, in
Washington, DC. This is the home of the Commandant of the U.S.M.C. and the Ceremonial
Companies A & B − The Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon; the United States Marine Band
(The President’s own); the United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps; and the Marine
Corps Institute, which serves all of the Marine Corp’s Military Occupation Specialty study
courses. I completed about twenty of these courses during my career in the Marine Corps.
The present Sergeant Major was retiring. I told them I was also retiring the next week, and
they said they didn’t care when I was planning on getting out. If I would take the position of
Sergeant Major of 8th and I, my retirement orders would be cancelled. I told them I wanted
to get out and become a missionary.

For a time, I regretted

turning down the offer from the Commanding Officer of the Marine Barracks at 8th & I.
Being the Sergeant Major there may have enabled me to become the Sergeant Major of the
United State Marine Corps.

“I” Company officers and enlisted at Quantico (1966-68). Our commanding officer (front
row, third from left) was Colonel at 8th & I, Headquarters Marine Corps, who asked me to be
the Sergeant Major of 8th & I.

When my orders came in to CLNC base to transfer to the Fleet Marine Corps Reserves, I got
calls from a lot of people asking why I didn’t confer with this or that person before asking for
retirement. The base Sergeant Major said, “The General didn’t know you were retiring.”

My Colonel (the Commanding Officer of ITR) wrote an outstanding letter, recommending me

for the Marine Corps JROTC program, and I got the school that I wanted − Clearwater High
School, Clearwater, Florida. The principle there was a Marine Corps Reserve Retired
Colonel.

Following my retirement ceremony at Camp Lejeune, my family and I headed to Clearwater

on 3 August 1972.
As I look back on my years in the Marine Corps, I still can’t figure out why I got such great
assignments. Yes, I did receive exceptionally high marks, even in Boot Camp, but if I should
list all of my assignments, and if you were or are a Marine, you would understand why I say
that the assignments still amaze me. I continually went up and up. The Corps sure knew how
to build a man and prepare him for each assignment. Each of them was just what I needed. I
had a most fulfilling and satisfying twenty-two year career in the United State Marine Corps.

Then, the Lord took over my life. What a great finish!

Colonel giving me my second Bronze Star Medal.

The base commanding officer, a two-star general, and Pat pinning on my Sergeant Major
chevron after I reverted back from the officer rank.

A solemn moment, my retirement ceremony.

Photograph of the Commanding General of Camp Lejeune, our Regimental Commanderand
me. (I’m standingbehind the General.)

After I reverted back fromthe officer rank, I was assigned to the 1st Infantry Training
Regiment (ITR) at Camp Lejeune, NC. I was the SgtMaj of the 1st BN, then the 3rd BN and
finally the Regimental SgtMaj.
The General is holding his retirement plaque which I made. The base SgtMaj finished the
wood and mounted his awards.
Photograph of the 3rd BN officers and SNCOs.

(I’m on the front row in the middle.)

Parade photograph of about half of all the Infantry Training Regiment personnel
22. Concluding Thoughts
When I entered the Corps, I had very low self-esteem and very little confidence that I could
make it. I laid awake many a night trying to figure out how I was to perform my job the next
day. In fact, when I was to teach my first four-hour class at The Basic School, I rehearsed
that class for the better part of the night while lying in bed. Upon waking early the next
morning, I literally thought I had already taught the class.

I never did anything for recognition, rewards, or promotion. I just wanted to do my best in
everything. Early in my Marine Corps career, most of my time was spent trying to get on top
of everything and then staying there. However, I found that I was never satisfied with my
performances, so I tried all the harder to improve. This led me into seeking to be a
perfectionist. The world knows that no one is perfect. I found out the hard way.

On one occasion, another TSGT and I were vying for a certain prestigious job. The selection
was too close to call, so our superiors said, “Let the troops pick the one they would rather
have.” I lost. The troops said “Gunny Hamm is a perfectionist. You can’t please him.” I
learned a very important lesson that day.

My efforts to improve myself were driven by the desire to make my troops the best they could
be. I drove my troops as hard as I drove myself. I wanted them to get all they could out of
life by being honest, obedient, and hard workers. I maintained that attitude in all aspects of
my life.

I never made my troops try to do anything that I wouldn’t try to do. My philosophy was, “If
others have done it, I can do it.” With that mindset, I would try to do anything that others had
done or were doing.

I know I upset a lot of people and neglected my family at times by being this type of person. I
put a lot of pressure on myself, but above all, I wanted to provide well for my family. I just
never knew any other way to live my life.
I am not a hero by any means and never thought I was one. In fact, having once had a low
self-esteem was what always compelled me to improve.

I can truthfully say that I never thought of myself as better than others. I never was, nor am I
now, a prideful person. I give God all the glory for what has been done in my life. God never
approved of the times that I wasn’t faithful to Him, but as His child, His love for me never
wavered. My confidence is in His strength.

My prayer over those years was, “Lord, do not forsake me. Keep me through the times of my
unfaithfulness and disobedience until the time I’ll totally give myself to You.”

Over time, and with God’s help, I began to gain confidence. Thinking back over my life and
all the difficult times, I wondered how I made it through so many adversities. Now, I know −
the Lord, my loving family, all of my dear friends, and the excellent leaders that I had in the
Marine Corps − that’s how! I had the “best training” by the “best.”

After being retired for over thirty-five years, I can now say:

“NOT AS MEAN, NOT AS LEAN, BUT STILL A MARINE!”

Time In Service
Captain Troy B. Hamm, USMC (RET)
Parris Island, SC - Boot Camp

Camp Pendleton, CA - Infantry Training Regiment

1951
Kobe, Japan

Korea - Anti-tank Co, 7th Mar Rgt, 1st Mar Div

Korea - Anti-tank Co, 7th Mar Rgt, 1st Mar Div
1952
Cherry Point, NC - 2nd Marine Air Wing (MAW)
Camp Lejeune, NC, Anti-tank Co, 2nd Mar Rgt, 2nd Mar Div

Vieques, Puerto Rico

1953
Havana, Cuba

Korea - Anti-tank Co, 7th Mar Rgt, 1st Mar Div

1954 Korea - Anti-tank Co, 7th Mar Rgt, 1st Mar Div
Korea - Anti-tank Co, 7th Mar Rgt, 1st Mar Div (through March)

Camp Pendleton, CA - Anti-tank Co

1955
Washington, DC - State Dept School, Henderson Hall, HQ, Marine Corps

Nicosia, Cyprus - Embassy duty

 Cyprus

Cairo, Egypt (honeymoon)

1956 Quantico, VA - The Basic School

Enlisted Instructor Company

Training 2nd Lts

1957-
Quantico, VA - The Basic School
1959
Camp Lejeune, NC - 3rd Bn, 2nd Mar Rgt, 2nd Mar Div, H&S Co

Pickel Meadows, Bridgeport, CA - Mountain Warfare Training Center

Skiing, glacier and mountain climbing

Camp Lejeune, NC - Plt Cmdr, 81mm Mortar Plt

Vieques, Puerto Rico- 3rd Bn’s first tour

Camp Lejeune, NC - K Company, 3rd Bn, Weapons Plt Cmdr

Vieques, Puerto Rico - K Company, 3rd Bn, Weapons Plt Cmdr and Co GySgt

Camp Lejeune, NC

Mediterranean Cruise - Weapons Plt Cmdr, Co GySgt

Mediterranean Landing Force 2-61 (2nd Cruise, 1961), 3rd Bn Reinforced, 2nd Mar Rgt, 2nd
1960-
Mar Div - Served with the 6th Fleet, Atlantic Ocean
1962
Rock of Gibraltar

Naples, Italy - (2-8 October 1961)

Island of Malta, Libya - (11-14 October 1961)

Trained with the British Royal Marine Commandos

Bomba, Libya - Trained in the desert with the British Royal Marine Commandos

Valencia and Alicante, Spain - (28 October - 3 November 1961)

Pompeii

Aranci Bay, Sardinia - (16-23 November 1961)

Amphibious landings and training in the mountains

 Genoa, Italy - (24 November - 1 December 1961)

Porto Scudo, Sardinia - (6-14 December 1961)

Athens, Greece - (18-26 December 1961)

Southern Italy- (29 December 1961 - 4 January 1962)

Reggio Di Calabria, Italy

Pilos, Greece (8-19 January 1962)

Cold and wet mountain training; Prisoner of War and indoctrination training

French Riviera - (24-29 January 1962) - Many tours were available from the French
Riviera to places such as Paris, Monte Carlo, the Alps, Cannes, and Nice

Porto Scudo, Sardinia - (4-6 February 1962) - Final Port of Call

3rd Bn, 2nd Mar Rgt, 2nd Mar Div was relieved by 3rd Bn, 8th Mar Rgt, 2nd Mar
Div, Camp Lejeune, NC
Parkersburg, WV - Inspector & Instructor Staff

GySgt/Training NCO, 104th Rifle Co, U.S.M.C. Reserve

1962-
1965
Puerto Rico - Two weeks

Fort Bragg, NC - Military Assistance Training Advisor Course (MATA)

Vietnam - Military Assistance Training Advisor Course (MATA)

Weapons Advisor - VN Infantry Bn

1965-
1966
I Corps Tactical Operations Center - Chief (War Room)

Promoted to 2nd Lt
Quantico, VA - Officer Candidates School

Platoon Commander - Junior Platoon Leader’s Course

1966-
Headquarters Instructor Section - Weapons and general Military subjects
1968
Executive Officer and Company Commander - Headquarters and Service Co

Fort Bragg, NC - PSYOP course

Vietnam - Nha Be Naval Base, Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ)
1968-
III Corps Psychological Warfare Officer
1969
Advisor to VN Navy - Training VN Seals Aerial Observer for RSSZ
 Camp Lejeune, NC

Asst Officer In Charge, NCO Leadership School, 2nd Mar Div Officer In Charge,
Counter Guerilla Warfare Center, 2nd Mar Div

Parachute School, Ft. Benning, GA

Navy Diver School, San Diego, CA

1969-
1972 Reverted to Enlisted Rank, 1st Sgt

Infantry Training Rgt

Company 1st Sgt

Bn SgtMaj

Regimental SgtMaj
1972 Transferred to the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve on 1 September 1972

Index of Abbreviations
A/C = Aircraft

ACO CMDR = Acting Company Commander

AGSGT = Acting Gunnery Sergeant

AMSGT = Acting Master Sergeant

Amtrac = Amphibian/Amphibious Tractor

ANGLICO = Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company

AO = Aerial Observer

APA = Attack Personal Assault

APC = Armed Personnel Carrier

ARVN = Army of the Republic of Vietnam

ASAP = as soon as possible

A/T CO = Anti-Tank Company

ATT = Attached

“B” CO = “Bravo” Company

BAR = Browning Automatic Rifle

BC = Ballistic Coefficient

BLT = Battalion Landing Team

BN = Battalion

BN HQ = Battalion Headquarters

CAL. = caliber

CAPT = Captain

CB = Construction Battalion (Navy)

CIA = Central Intelligence Agency

CIDG = Civilian Irregular Defense Group

CLNC = Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

CMDR = Commander

C Med = Charlie Med

CNDM = a type of tear gas

CO = Company

CO CMDR = Company Commander

CO HQ = Company Headquarters

COL = Colonel

CP = Command Post

CPL = Corporal

DEF = Defense

DI = Drill Instructor

DIV = Division

EI = Enlisted Instructor

EOD = Explosive Ordnance Disposal

FAC = Forward Air Controller

FDC = Fire Direction Center

FO = Forward Observer

GED = General Education Diploma

GYSGT = Gunnery (Gunny) Sergeant

H & S CO = Headquarters & Service Company

HE = High-Explosive

HQMC = Headquarters Marine Corps

HQS = Headquarters

IG = Inspector General

I&I = Inspector and Instructor

II MEF = Second Marine Expeditionary Force

ITB = Infantry Training Battalion

ITR = Infantry Training Regiment

JCOC = Joint Civilian Orientation Conference

JROTC = Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps

JV = Junior Varsity

KMC = Korean Marine Corps

LCM = Landing Craft Mechanized (a mike/“M” boat)

LCU = Landing Craft Utility

LSD = Landing Ship Dock

LT = Lieutenant

LVT = Landing Vehicle Tracked

“M” boat = mike boat/LCM

MACV = Military Assistance Command, Vietnam

MARDIV = Marine Division

MARFORLANT = U.S. Marine Corp Forces, Atlantic

MARRGT = Marine Regiment

MATA = Military Assistance Training Advisor (Course)

MATS = Military Air Travel Service

MAW = Marine Air Wing

MC = Marine Corps

MEDEVAC = Medical Evacuation

MEF = Marine Expeditionary Force

MG = Machine Gun

MLR = Main Line of Resistance

mm = millimeter

MOS = Military Occupation Specialty

MP = Military Police

MATA = Military Assistant Training Advisors

MEDCAP = Medical Civic Action Program

MGYSGT = Master Gunnery Sergeant

MSGT / 1stSGT = Master Sergeant / First Sergeant

MWTC = Mountain Warfare Training Center

NCO = Non-Commissioned Officer

NCOIC = Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge

NVA = North Vietnamese Army

OBJ = Object

OCS = Officer Candidates School

OIC = Officer In Charge

OP = Out Posts

PBR = Patrol Boat River

PE = Physical Education

PFC = Private 1st Class

PLC = Platoon Leaders Class

PLF = Parachute Landing Fall

PLT = Platoon

POW = Prisoner of War

PR = Public Relations

PRU = Provisional Reconnaissance Unit

PSYOP = Psychological Operations (Division of the U.S. task force, SOG)

PT = Physical Training

PX = Post Exchange

R & R = Rest & Recuperation

RES = Reserve

RGT = Regiment

RPG = Rocket-Propelled Grenade

RR = Recoilless Rifle

RSSZ = Rung Sat Special Zone (Vietnam)

SECT = Section

SGT = Sergeant

SGTMAJ = Sergeant Major

/s/ = signed

SKA = South Korean Army

SNCO = Staff Non-Commissioned Officer

SOG = Studies and Observation Group

SQD = Squad

SUP = Support

SVN = South Vietnam/South Vietnamese

TBS = The Basic School

TSGT = Tech Sergeant

TOC = Tactical Operations Center

T/O & E = Table of Operations & Equipment

TRNG = training

TSGT / AGYSGT = Technical Sergeant / Acting Gunnery Sergeant

UCMJ = Uniform Code of Military Justice

UNQ = Unqualified

U.S.A.F. = United States Air Force

U.S.M.C. = United States Marine Corps

VC = Viet Cong

VIP = very important person

VR = Visual Reconnaissance

w/ = with

WP = “Willie Peter” / white phosphorus / also used to represent “Waterproof”

XK = Xung Kich (Rung Sat Commandos)

1/7; 2/7; 3/7 = 1st; 2nd; 3rd Battalion

75 = 75mm RR (Recoilless Rifle)

75s = men with 75mm RR