Sgt Grit is a place where Marines can come and meet other Marines, share tattoos and stories, keep up with Marine Corps news, or shop for USMC gear.
It all started with an elegant star show.
In the predawn hours on this particular night in the DMZ between North and South Vietnam the stars and the comets put on a show for us and it was mind bogglingly beautiful. Dozens, perhaps even hundreds of shooting stars flamed across the night sky. And the perfect backdrop of the wheel of constellations made the show that much more impressive.
In the summer of 1961, I was one of about 600 Marines on the USS George Clymer sailing from San Diego to points west. My group was being dropped off in Hawaii after 9 days and the rest (poor suckers) were destined to be on the ship for many more days on the way to Okinawa.
I was a California kid fresh out of 9 months of Aviation Electrician School in Jacksonville and sent to Pendleton for transport via The USS George Clymer to H&MS-13 at Kaneohe, Hawaii. I was granted delay en route leave and stayed in with my parents in southern California for a week or so. The day I was due to report I waited until the last minute and caught the last shuttle from San Clemente to the base.
It would be a nine day voyage on the USS George Clymer from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, but first we had to spend a month or so at Area 13, Camp Pendleton, a staging Battalion for over 600 Marines waiting to be shipped out to Pacific duty stations. It was April, 1961, and Area 13 was hilly, hot, and dry. In order to keep all these young Marines busy the Officers and NCOs had us run up and down those brown hills several times a day, whenever we weren’t field daying the barracks.
I was once an infantry Marine, and this is my war story.
Spring of 2006, I am holding my rifle straight out with both hands in a half-squatting position yelling, “A hand grenade’s kill radius is five meters, Lance Corporal!” My team leader is three inches from my sweaty face when he shouts, “And what is the fragmentation radius?” My knees begin to shake as I shoot back, “15 meters, Lance Corporal!”
When I open my eyes, I wonder if I’m dreaming. This entire operation has seemed unreal from the start.
It is pitch black and silent. I loosen the top of my sleeping bag, and my fingers reach out to feel the icy metallic floor. I move my body and bump into full ammo boxes. I remember now, I fell asleep in a Humvee.
The Marine barracks at NATTC Memphis were two story wooden buildings from the WWII era when I went to aviation mechanics school there in 1960. This made it necessary to have a firewatch on duty after lights out for obvious reasons. This duty always fell to the new Privates right out of boot camp, like me.
At Parris Island in August of 1960, we still had the “REAL” rifles (M1 Garands) with stacking swivels. The stacking swivel actually had two very important uses. Number one was to enable the weapon to be stored in the upright position when hooked to two other rifles in a “teepee”.
“The Donald” seems (to me) to be very much like one (or all) of these
The toughest time in my life was after getting out of the Corps as an E-5 with a disability. An ongoing battle fighting to get the right help from the VA. I loved the time I was in the Corps and brotherhood is like no other. Between the contaminated LST’s and the tainted water at Camp Lejeune
![Starry, Starry Night [For Vincent Van Gogh]](https://grunt.comloginc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Meteor-shower.jpg)
