There still seems to be some confusion over the nomenclature of “CLIP” vs. “MAGAZINE”, and current dictionaries don’t seem to help the matter much. Consulting: Merriam-Webster, 2002 online edition Clip (noun) 2: a device to hold cartridges for charging the magazines of some rifles; also : a magazine from which ammunition is fed into the chamber of a firearm.
Author: SgtGrit
UNFORTUNATE JARHEADS
I was in the locker room of my health club the other day reminiscing
with another Marine. Our memories took us back to Korea. He said he got out of PI in early summer of ’50 and joined the columns of Marines swarming to Camp Pendleton where the various drafts were being assembled for reinforcing the troops around Pusan. He said the brigade had already left. For some reason, lack of housing may be, he was billeted at Del Mar. One day a WO with more than 30 years in came through the area looking for volunteers. He also had several .45s, holsters and pistol belts. The gunner also had requisitioned several vehicles. He took his “volunteers”
south of the border to TJ to roundup unfortunate jarheads in the Mexican brig. He can back with 12. Said, “I’ll be damned if I would let them stay down there when there is a job to be done.”
BTW. He was quickly sent to Kobe to be “out of the way” and to handle things there when the draft arrived there on the way to the fight.
Semper Fi,
Bob Rader sgt ’53-’56, 1405534
UNCOMMON VALOR | IN MEMORY OF CPL. LOUIS J. HAUGE JR.
In May of 1945, the Battle of Okinawa was raging in full force. Marines and Sailors with 1st Marine Division pushed through the prefecture and were met with heavy resistance from the entrenched Japanese soldiers.
The Medal of Honor citation tells the story; a machine-gun squad, trapped by a barrage of mortar and machine-gun fire, engages in an assault against a heavily fortified Japanese hill. The squad leader, Cpl. Louis J. Hauge, sees the two guns responsible and sprints through an opening, hurling hand grenades as he runs. He is wounded before he reaches the first gun, but he pushes through to successfully destroy both enemy positions. As the second gun placement is destroyed, he is shot by Japanese snipers. His men, seeing his actions, rise from their bombarded position and finish the bloody assault on the hill.
MARINE OF THE WEEK // He manuvered through the kill zone on foot
Capt. Ademola D. Fabayo
Embedded Training Team 2-8
Kunar Province, Afghanistan
September 8, 2009
Award: Navy Cross
Then-First Lieutenant Fabayo and other members of his team led two platoons of Afghan National Security Forces into Ganjgal Village for a pre-dawn meeting with village elders when the dismounted patrol was ambushed by roughly 50 enemy fighters in fortified positions. With four fellow team members cut off, he pushed forward on foot into the kill zone in an attempt to regain contact, effectively engaging the enemy at close range with his M-4 rifle. When a U.S. Army Advisor was severely wounded, he moved from a covered position under heavy fire to assist in his recovery, helping carry him across several hundred meters of fire-swept ground. He drove back into the kill zone with another U.S. Army Advisor in an unarmored truck, despite enemy rounds impacting the vehicle, in an attempt to reach the separated team members. After treating and evacuating several wounded Afghan Forces, he took the gunner’s position on a gun-truck with three other U.S. personnel as they again drove into the kill zone to recover the bodies of the four fallen team members, providing effective suppressive fires with the vehicle mounted machine guns. By his decisive actions, bold initiative, and complete dedication to duty, First Lieutenant Fabayo reflected great credit upon himself and the Marine Corps and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
MARINE OF THE WEEK // “These insurgents just came at us with everything they had that day…”
Staff Sgt. Jeffery V. Escalderon
@1stbattalion7thmarines
Husaybah, Iraq
November 2004
Award: Bronze Star W/ Combat “V”
Staff Sgt. Escalderon’s men came under numerous attacks in Husaybah on a near-daily basis during the deployment. The Marines of Company B nicknamed a certain area of the city of Husaybah, ‘mortar thirty,’ because everyday at around 4:30 p.m., they received incoming mortar fire from insurgents.
FIGHTERS REPRESENT USMC IN BOXING EXHIBITION
Marines from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort competed in the Marine Corps and Chevrolet Freedom Fight exhibition at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. April 14.
Lance Cpl. Keandre Blackshire, Cpl. Malik Collins, and Cpl. Oubigee Jones fought in the exhibition on behalf of the Marine Corps Boxing Team and two of the three Marines emerged victorious.
Scorpion In Your Tent
A man was conducting an All Service member briefing one day, and he posed the question: “What would you do if you found a scorpion in your tent?”
A Sailor said, “I’d step on it.”
A Soldier said, “I’d hit it with my boot.”
A Marine said, “I’d catch it, break the stinger off, and eat it.”
MAG-36 REMEMBERING HUE CITY
Marine Aircraft Group 36, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, the first complete Marine air group to be transported by sea to a combat zone, launched from the USS Princeton to the shores of Vietnam, Sept. 1, 1965. Immediately, they began providing troop lifts, air strikes, medical evacuation, resupplies, and reconnaissance insertions and extractions in the southern area of operations.
Semper Fi Gunny, Godspeed!
Statement from R. Lee Ermey’s longtime manager, Bill Rogin:
It is with deep sadness that I regret to inform you all that R. Lee Ermey (“The Gunny”) passed away this morning from complications of pneumonia. He will be greatly missed by all of us. It is a terrible loss that nobody was prepared for. He has meant so much to so many people. And, it is extremely difficult to truly quantify all of the great things this man has selflessly done for, and on behalf of, our many men and women in uniform. He has also contributed many iconic and indelible characters on film that will live on forever. Gunnery Sergeant Hartman of Full Metal Jacket fame was a hard and principled man. The real R. Lee Ermey was a family man, and a kind and gentle soul. He was generous to everyone around him. And, he especially cared deeply for others in need.
He Flashed His Light
I guess my favorite sea story occurred while I was a young Grunt with the 4th Marines in Hawaii back in about 1962. We had been doing the unthinkable…drinking in the squad bay. My little Cajun buddy Ralph Dagle ad been getting really hammered and was snooping and pooping around, over and under the bunks and footlockers when Taps sounded. We were still pretty well wired and laughing our butts off about Ralph’s antics when the OD came in to do his squad bay check. He made it about 15 feet into the squad bay, just where it started to get really dark. He evidently heard a noise from on top of the wall locker. He flashed his light up to check it out. There was Ralph, on hands and knees, bare a**naked on top of the wall locker growling at him. The ODs only remark was “Well, I guess you guys are safe tonight.”
We also pulled one of the best pranks while in the 4th. A Corporal would sleep in and we would all hang for his sloth. We decided to fix him and brake him from his wicked ways. He slept in a single bunk toward the end of the squad bay closest to the stairway going to the battalion parade ground. Slept real heavy too. He woke up still in his bunk at morning formation in the middle of the parade ground. The gunny didn’t think it was too funny.
Semper Fi
Bob Granberry
1961-1968