Author: SgtGrit

Christmas in Combat

As told to Jim Martinez, Proud Father of LCpl. James A. Martinez, Jr. USMC

The Marines of the 3rd Battalion 7th Regiment Weapons Company Combined Anti-Armor Team (CAAT) Blue were lamenting the fact that they had pulled duty at ECP1 for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2005 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. ECP1 is an Enemy Check Point on the banks of the Euphrates River and controls the use of a strategic bridge crossing the river. The duty meant that CAAT Blue would miss out on the special holiday chow that would be served back at Firm Base Hurricane Point. read more

Thirteen Months and A Wake Up

Memories from Peter J. Ritch, USMC 1967- 1970. Viet Nam, 1968-1969 and a member of the USMCVTA.

In 1967, two days after graduating from college and having just received my draft notice in the mail, I beat the draft and joined the Marines. And just as my Marine Recruiter had promised, seven months later I was headed for ?my thirteen months and a wake-up? in Vietnam. read more

Thanksgiving and Christmas on Bougainville 1943

I was on the Piva Trail Roadblock November 8th, 1943 and in a water filled foxhole for 16 hours, when the Japs would fire their knee mortars we would duck under the water. Sgt. Ignatius Gorak was killed during the night and several boys were wounded. We had a handful of turkey on the evening of the 24th, on the 25th Thanksgiving day we had a little turkey to eat on the front line. On the 26th we had a helmet full of turkey for the nine of us who were left of our ten man squad and it tasted good. We came off the front line November 28th to a rest area. December 3rd we carried rolls of barbed wire up to the front by the volcano to build an A-Frame with a machine gun at each end. Then back on the front line in a few days. We were on the front line Christmas Day 1943 and didn’t even realize it was Christmas. December 26th Jim P. Trent was wounded, December 27th James P. Kelso and Charles J. Cain were killed by artillery shells on the front line at the foot of the volcano. The Raiders established a beachhead so an airfield could be built. The Japs that weren’t killed were left there until the end of the war. I carried a BAR November 1st, 1943 until January 12th 1944. read more

See If The Cockroaches

Hello Sgt Grit!

Back again with another true story from the land of milk and honey!

Vietnam – Liberty Bridge – 1969… Well There we were. Fox Company, 1st Plt, 2/5 Security Detail, and it was a beautiful sun-shiny-day! We were just-a-strollin’ back and forth across the bridge makin’ sure the local Jack-A-Muffins weren’t getting into mischief when we spotted a jeep zipping down the road our way with a giant searchlight mounted on it… Is there a U.S.O. show coming to an HOA? We wondered… read more

Hill 488

Hill 488 was just another landmark in the jungles of Vietnam. For the 18 men of Charlie Company, it was a last stand. This is the stirring combat memoir written by Ray Hildreth, one of the unit’s survivors.

On June 13, 1966, men of the 1st Recon Battalion, 1st Marine Division were stationed on Hill 488. Before the week was over, they would fight the battle that would make them the most highly decorated small unit in the entire history of the U.S. military, winning a Congressional Medal of Honor, four Navy Crosses, thirteen Silver Stars, and eighteen Purple Hearts – some of them posthumously. read more

Circuitous Travel Leave

This is not a Viet Nam sea story, but rather a “leaving Viet Nam” sea story, but it really happened, and it’s pretty incredible. Time frame is 1965-1966.

I was a 1st Lt helicopter pilot flying for HMM-163 out of Hue- Phu Bai.

I had heard about a thing called circuitous travel leave. As I understood, it meant that you could take leave on the way to your next duty station and travel, via government transportation, on a space available basis, to a few other places enroute. Since there was a reasonable chance I wouldn’t survive, I thought I’d try to take advantage of this deal, just in case I did make it through my tour. With my squadron mate, 1stLt Joe Weiss, we got out an atlas, and put in for circuitous travel leave, requesting permission from HQ Marine Corps, to travel to EVERY FREE WORLD country on the map! read more

John Glenn, American space-race hero, dead at age 95

Over the long arc of John Glenn’s life, it proved impossible to ever ask him to do something for his country. No matter the mission, no matter the risk, he had already stepped forward, his hand raised, his jaw set, ready to go.

Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, and later a four-term U.S. senator from Ohio, died Thursday at the Ohio State Cancer Center. He was 95. read more