Author: SgtGrit

Tough Guy Pose

So I thought about it and decided to send the picture in along with a few questions for my brother Jarheads, but I won’t dare ask this of my sister Jarheads. Does your uniform still fit you? The other night the wife and I were going through some clothes in the attic for AM Vets and I came across this blouse. Not sure why now but I did not keep a lot of my dress uniforms. Stupid, I know but it’s too late read more

2nd Battalion Barracks

In regards to the posting in the newsletter of April 6th. The writer that stated that in 1959 that 2nd Battalion barracks were brick. I went through Parris Island recruit training in January, February, and March of 1966 (Platoon 215). The picture of my wife and myself was taken in from of my barracks on the windy graduation day of 9 March 1966. As you can see from the picture, the barracks of 2nd Battalion were wood with what appeared to be either wood or asbestos siding. read more

Endless Bends And Thrust

Following up on comments/pic from Sgt. Whipple and Cpl. Griffin, I’ve attached additional current pictures of the 3rd Bn. barracks at P.I. My wife and I visited in early March of this year and were sad to see the ongoing demolition of my home during July-October of 1964 as member of platoon 366. Can’t help but remember our junior drill instructor, Cpl. Odachowski, who frequently shared such critical wisdom as “If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one”, when he wasn’t overseeing endless bends and thrusts… a special man and I hope he is alive and well today. read more

Re Story Of 3 DI’s Were All Tough

When you mentioned that you had a Drill Instructor by the name of Cpl P J Phelps (Peter J Phelps) who was a Brit. This same P J Phelps was the NCOIC of the recruiting station where I enlisted. When I returned from boot camp I stopped by to say hello, but Phelps was now 1st Sgt Phelps, and was transferred, so I never saw him again. It is a small Marine Corps. Oh yes that was in Dec 1976. read more

Give Him Welcome Home

I have heard “thanks for your service” a lot of times. I always reply with your welcome. The other day I was walking around the U of A campus in Tucson, AZ. I was wearing my Vietnam Veteran hat I got from Sgt Grunt. I heard the thanks from a lot of students. One student came up to me and said “Welcome Home”. We shook hands and talked for a bit. His dad came back about the time I did to all the protests. It almost brought me to tears. So if you see a Vietnam Vet give him a Welcome Home! It feels good! read more

War Pets

The mongoose and pet puppies stories made me go back and look for this pic that my uncle Sgt. Major A. M. Solis sent home to my grandparents in 1965. He had written a note on the back saying it was his little horse he had gotten to save a lot of walking. He never told me what happened to the pony. He was also there later with VMCJ 3 and on a later tour with VMO 2 before retiring. We served at the same time frame but not in Viet Nam. I was assigned to F4 Phantom squadron VMFAT 101 after radar school at Millington NAS in 1969. Supposed to have been a 6 month OJT assignment before orders to Nam. Well after I was on the job trained as radar tech I stayed on at El Toro MCAS training F4 pilots and rios to go to Nam but us avionics snuffies couldn’t buy a ticket over there, too many people already coming back. read more

CPL E.M. MELLO PLT 312

I would like to give one of my junior DI’s a plug. His name is CPL E.M. Mello, and he was anything but mellow. I was 17 years and 20 days old. He made quite an impression on me. Quite a few impressions. My first recollection of us getting close and personal was on our second or third day of forming. Our platoon was the first in the series so we had to wait awhile (9 days) for the rest of the maggots to show up. We were standing at attention in front of our racks reading our Little RedBook (not Chairman Mao’s). read more