The Band Never Played for Us: The Vietnam War As Seen By a Marine Rifleman In 1967

By Sgt. Ronald G. Goddard, USMC

Ronald G. Goddard grew up seeing Hollywood movies that showed American troops boarding ships and going off to World War II with bands playing and well-wishers swarming docks to give soldiers rousing sendoffs. But when his troop transport ship left San Diego Harbor for Vietnam in March 1967, there were no patriotic farewells. It would be a chilling wake-up call for Goddard and the fellow marines of Golf Company, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. He shares an accurate account of their experiences in this autobiography. From being issued an M16 rifle that jammed to being baptized in a blaze of fire on the front lines, he reveals what he learned about fighting the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Regular Army troops in the rice paddies and jungles from DaNang to the DMZ. At nineteen years old, Goddard was a corporal leading squad sized patrols.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Feb 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483463124

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USMC

Copyright © 2017 Sgt. Ronald G. Goddard.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Map on page 383 is based on an original map appearing on page 14 of Ambush Valley by Eric Hammel and is used with permission of the author.

The author has been granted permission by the United States Marine Corps to use the U.S. Marine Corps Emblem that appears on the cover of this book. Neither the United States Marine Corps nor any other component of the Department of Defense has approved, endorsed or authorized this book.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6310-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6311-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-6312-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016921034

1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975, Con Thien 2. Vietnam War, 1961-75, personal narrative, American 3.United States Marine Corps - History-Viet Nam War 1961-75.

959.704’345-dc22

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016921034

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 02/26/2020

Dedication

To my friends and fellow squad members who were Killed in Action

To Author, Professor, Soldier

Bernard B. Fall who was killed on the Street Without Joy on February 21, 1967 while accompanying U.S. Marines of 1/9 on Operation Chinook. His books helped me immeasurably to understand Vietnam, the Vietnamese people, and the small part I played in this Revolutionary War.

Prologue

The Band Never Played for Us is a history of my service as a Marine rifleman during the Vietnam War in 1967. My war experience was totally different than what I expected after growing up in 1950s and 60s and seeing Hollywood movies and TV Documentaries of my father’s war like Victory at Sea, Guadalcanal Dairy, Battle Cry and Sands of Iwo Jima. All of us sons of World War II veterans grew up seeing Hollywood movies that showed American troops boarding ships and going off to war with bands playing, friends and well wishers swarming the docks to give the soldiers a rousing send off. When my troop transport ship left San Diego Harbor in March of 1967 there were no well wishers, and no patriotic send off. A marching band arrived at the wharf where more than 2,000 US Marines and US Army troops were waiting to board the ship. We thought the band was going to play patriotic songs to give us a proper send off, but after the band marched around the dock for several minutes and tuned their instruments, they got back on their bus and drove away. For the first time since I became a United States Marine, I realized the war in Vietnam may be a far different experience for American troops and the country than World War II. Instead of a rousing send off, our ship was barely noticed when it slipped out of the San Diego harbor. What else did this portent for us?

When we came back from the war, there were no welcome home parades. World War II veterans scoffed at Vietnam veterans claims of Post Traumatic Stress after a 12 or 13 month Tour of Duty when many of them had been overseas for 2 or 3 years.

The vast majority of Americans in Vietnam served as support troops in relatively secure bases near the large cities with many of the comforts of home, but the US Army and Marine Corps infantrymen fought a war their World War II counterparts would have easily recognized. We served in a war that was the result of a long term American strategy to prevent South East Asia from falling under Communist control, but the Republic of Vietnam and the warriors were abandoned when the war fell out of favor with the American public. Why did the US Government fail to defend the South Vietnamese people as promised in the SEATO Collective Defense Treaty and Paris Peace Accords? Why did the US not return to defend South Vietnam when the North Vietnamese Army violated the Paris Peace accords and invaded the Republic of South Vietnam that led to it’s eventual defeat in April of 1975?

The answers to these questions are beyond the scope of this history of my experience fighting this war as an 18-year-old Marine, but after you have read this history of what we went through to try to preserve the freedom of the people of the Republic of Vietnam, I hope you have some desire to investigate why America would commit 8 million of her young men and women to fight a war for 10 years, and then abandon the people of the Republic of Vietnam to the military forces of Communist North Vietnam.

I wrote this history of my tour of duty to try to explain to my friends, family, and fellow Americans what it was like to serve as a rifleman with the 2nd Platoon of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division from March 28, 1967 until October 8, 1967, and particularly at the Battle at Phu Oc on September 21, 1967, during Operation Kingfisher, where 31 Marines were killed and 118 wounded. The story of this battle has largely been untold because many of the participants were killed on that day, and in the months of combat near the DMZ that followed. Golf Company’s casualties during September and October of 1967 were statistically almost 100%. (Source USMC 2/4 After Action Reports- declassified). Of the 6 Marines who reported to Golf Company, 2nd Platoon with me on March 31,1967 only Corporal Phillip L. Skaggs, a machine gunner, was able to complete his 13 month tour of duty, and he was awarded 2 Purple Hearts.

Shortly after I returned from Vietnam I heard a woman describe how being raped changed her life forever. I could readily identify with her thinking that serving in an infantry unit in combat was like being gang raped everyday. There was no end to the terror and abuse. Pentagon planners and Generals had grand theories about how the use of the helicopter would magnify the combat capabilities of American ground forces and then proceeded to set arbitrary, political limits on the number of ground combat troops that would be committed to battle. These strategists seemed to overlook the fact that infantrymen are not machines. In World War II it was physically impossible to pull troops out of one battle and commit them to another without rest. Ships could not move troops from one island or theater of war to another in minutes. In Vietnam we were never more than 15 minutes from being flown into the next hellhole.

Many Americans think of Vietnam as a guerilla war. The Vietnam War cost the Marine Corps more casualties than World War II. The famous battles of World War II were well known to most Americans at the time: Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Tarawa, Bougainville, Wake Island, Saipan, Tinian, and Guadalcanal. Very few Americans can name any of the battles or places the Marines fought in Vietnam. The Vietnam War was a series of battles between individuals, squads, platoons and occasionally company and battalion sized units. Most were not headline generating actions, but just as deadly nevertheless:

Source: United States Marine Corps

One of the reasons I wrote this book was because Dr. Howard, my History Professor at Lewis University, Joliet, IL who in a 1970 class lecture said, history only records those events that someone thinks is worth writing about to establish a record of the events. He was specifically referring to the history of the now famous 10th Massachusetts’s Regiment whose experiences during the American Civil War were largely unheard of at the time, and later dramatized in the movie Glory.

I had done a lot of reading about the American Civil war, and had never heard of the 10th Massachusetts’s. As we studied the 10th Massachusett’s actions, I realized the prejudices that buried the history of the 10th Massachusetts Regiment were also burying the true history of the Vietnam War. Facts about the war were buried by people who had not been there, who wrote books and papers about a war they had never seen first-hand, and did not care to understand.

As years passed Dr. Howard’s words began to haunt me. I began to wonder if anyone would tell our story and write a truthful history about what it was like to serve in a Marine rifle company during the early years of the Vietnam War. I was not interested or particularly well qualified to write the history of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment or even the rifle company I served with, because for more than half of my tour of duty, my platoon was operating on it’s own and I had no first hand knowledge of what the other two rifle platoons of Golf Company were doing, or where they were for weeks at a time.

I realized I could write about my experience as a rifleman with the 2nd Platoon of Golf Company from the time I joined the battalion in March of 1967, until I was transferred out of Vietnam in October of 1967 as a result of being wounded in action for the third time.

Every platoon, company and battalion had a different experience in the war. Each Marine, each fire team and each squad experienced it’s own hell at various times. This is a history of my service, and is an accurate record of the actions of Golf Company, 2nd Platoon during the period.

I acknowledge there are some discrepancies between the time lines of various operations and incidents as recorded in my notes, remembrances, and official U.S. Marine Corps records. For the most part these discrepancies are chronological differences I cannot resolve except to say the official records may refer to the activities of Golf Company in the whole, whereas my 2nd Platoon may have still been on a specific operation or was sent elsewhere. In a few cases I may have listed an event out of sequence due to the nature of how I wrote my notes. In any case, everything I have written in this book is an accurate record of our activities, and in some cases Official Marine Corps records conflict with dates and times I am confident are correct. I cannot explain the reasons for any of these time/date discrepancies, but in no case do these inconsistencies affect the historical accuracy of all of the incidents that are described in my writing.

Sergeant Ronald G. Goddard

USMC

September 26, 2012

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my fellow Marines from Golf Company 2/4 for providing me with first hand accounts of what they saw to help me more fully describe what was happening along the Golf Company line of attack during the battle at Phu Oc on September 21, 1967. Dick Harshman, Jeff Fisher, Bill Sellers, Bob Bliss and Bob Philippon were all Golf Company Marines who made the assault across the dry rice paddy and into the NVA bunker complex with me on September 21, 1967. Fellow 2nd Platoon members Phil Skaggs and Bob Lockhart helped me with information about platoon members they knew better than I. They were both on R & R during the Battle at Phu Oc, but returned to the battlefield on October 9 to recover the bodies of the Marines that were killed in action and left on the field September 21, and participated in the bridge fight that cost Golf Company another 30 Marines killed and 70 wounded in action on October 14, 1967.

A popular saying was, to really live, you must almost die. I can attest that all of these Marines almost died on multiple occasions. God only knows how we survived. They all have their own stories similar to mine, and they were all out there with me day after day in 1967. As much as we relish the flavor of our lives today, we all still feel the pain of those buddies we lost who now have their name on the Wall in Washington.

Please visit the Operation Kingfisher blog: opkingfisher67.blogspot.com to learn more about the 2nd Battalion 4th Marines role in this battle and other participants.

Semper Fi,

Sgt. Ronald G. Goddard

My Life before the Marine Corps

I was born July 14, 1948 in Effingham, Illinois, a small farming community two hundred miles south of Chicago where my mom was born and raised on a farm her great grandfather bought in 1837. My dad was born and raised in Roslyn, Washington and worked in the coal mines in the Roslyn area until he volunteered to join the US Navy in February of 1942. Dad served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-10) during World War II as a Plane Captain for dive bombers. Mom and Dad met in Chicago, got married in 1945 and returned to Dad’s hometown after the war. My brother, Billy was born in April of 1946. After 2 years of working in the coal mines, Dad decided he could find better job opportunities in Chicago, and Mom was happy to return to Illinois to be closer to her family.

I spent the first several months of my life on my grandparents’ farm. My brother and I enjoyed the best of both worlds while growing up. We had the benefit of excellent west suburban schools and spent week ends and summers at the farm. When we weren’t doing farm work, we were hunting, shooting, or riding horses.

On weekends we did not go to the farm, one of my favorite pastimes was to walk to the movie theater in La Grange with my friends. I liked all of the Hollywood movies about World War II that were popular at the time such as Battle Cry, Sands of Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal Dairy, Hell to Eternity, and Halls of Montezuma. These movies shaped my vision of what a man should be and what war was about. In addition to the movie theater, television reception had improved considerably since our first television in 1953, and one of the most popular weekly shows at our house was Victory at Sea on Sunday nights. Dad really enjoyed seeing these documentary films, some of which showed actual combat films of his ship, Task Force 58 and their actions during World War II.

These World War II movies showed us the war that our parents’ generation fought just a few years before we were born. We grew up knowing the time would come when our generation would have to fight to maintain our freedom as our fathers generation had in World War II and their fathers in World War I. We saw communist aggression first hand on our televisions with Russian Premier Nakita Khrushchev at the United Nations saying he would bury us, and the Cuban Missle Crisis.

I attended Riverside-Brookfield High School in Riverside, IL where I played football all four years and wrestled for three years. I broke my ankle in the homecoming football game of my junior year that caused me to miss wrestling my junior year.

I first heard of Vietnam in 1962 when I was a freshman in high school. We discussed a news article about US military advisors whom President Kennedy sent to Vietnam in 1962 to help prevent a communist takeover of the country. During my freshman year in high school I met with a career counselor and told him I wanted to be a forest ranger. Late in my sophomore year of high school I read a book about the history of the Marine Corps in World War II and decided if I went into military service, I wanted to be a Marine.

During my junior year I read a book about a young forest ranger doing all of the things I wanted to do: camping in beautiful country, canoeing wild rivers, rescuing damsels in distress while earning a good salary. The main character cited his service in the Marine Corps as key to helping him do his job.

In 1964, the US government decided that advisors alone were not going to prevent a communist take over of the Republic of South Vietnam, so the first US combat troops were put into the Country.

The war in Vietnam began to escalate in 1964 and 1965, and the U.S. Army began drafting even married men. Many young men enlisted in the Navy or Air Force to avoid being drafted with the high probability of going into the Army and becoming an infantryman. The enlistment term for those services was four to six years depending upon training options. Only the Army and Marine Corps offered two and three year enlistments. I had no desire to be an Army infantryman. I had seen several WW II and Korean War movies and had met several neighbors who were Army veterans who all said, You don’t want to be an Army infantryman, mainly because you might end up in combat with a bunch of draftee’s.

My brother Billy got his draft notice in the fall of 1965 and instead chose to enlist in the US Navy for four years. He had been working for a local manufacturing company after graduating from high school in 1964. He had a nice car, a savings account and was enjoying life with several buddies who all had good jobs and nice cars. They had an American Graffiti sort of lifestyle. The streets around our house rattled from 283, 327, 406, 409 and Hemi engines. The fall of 1965 changed all of that when Uncle Sam grabbed most of the young men from our neighborhood as the war in Vietnam began to build up.The first Marine Corps infantry battalions landed in Vietnam during my junior year of high school on March 8, 1965. No one expected Vietnam to grow into the meat grinder it would become during the next four years. Most of us heard President Johnson say during the 1964 presidential campaign I will not send American boys to die in Vietnam. This war would have none of the large scale amphibious assaults that made the Marine Corps famous in World War II, yet when this war was over the Marine Corps will have taken more casualties in Vietnam than in World War II. Most of the young men from my west suburban high school went directly to college, but a large number volunteered or were drafted into military service. The draft lottery system was not introduced until years after I joined the Marine Corps.

By December of my senior year of high school I was focused on my options between college and the Marine Corps. I did not have time for a steady girl friend until Cindy Frum and I were assigned to the same study hall in January, 1966. I asked Cindy to a February 4 dance and by April we were going steady. We knew we were going in different directions after graduation, she was going to Western Illinois University and I was planning to go into the Marine Corps or to college out of state on a wrestling scholarship. Billy came home on leave from the navy in April, 1966 and while he was at home, his friend Kurt Mass came home on leave from Marine Corps boot camp. Kurt asked me if I was still planning to join the Marine Corps at the end of the summer. I told him I was and he told me about a new 120-day delay program that allowed a young man to enlist and choose the time he wanted to go to boot camp with up to a 120-day delay. I enlisted on May 17 and would get credit for this time in Service. Cindy and I went to the senior Prom and celebrated our graduation from high school in June of 1966. I spent the summer helping Grandpa at the farm milking cows and baling hay. As the month of August wound down, the realization that the next two years did not belong to us began to sink in. Being a Marine was something I had to do. I hoped to get in a Marine Air Wing and be a Plane Captain like my dad, but only because I did not have the courage to volunteer for the infantry.

The war in Vietnam grew from a small-scale guerilla war to a large-scale conventional war about the time I entered boot camp. By the time my six months of training was complete, Vietnam would be a major war.

Boot Camp

San Diego, California

August 31, 1966 was the day that literally changed my life forever. It was the day I left for boot camp and felt genuine pain over my decision to join the Marine Corps. It was also the day I kissed my Mom goodbye and for the first time saw fear and sadness in her eyes.

My first day of boot camp began at my parent’s house in Brookfield, Illinois at 7:00 AM when Mom knocked on my bedroom door to wake me up. I wolfed down a breakfast of cold cereal and drove to Cindy’s house five blocks away to give her a good- bye kiss and take one more look at her pretty face. I had fallen head over heals in love with that girl. I was anxious to start my new job as a Marine, but I didn’t realize how much it was going to hurt to leave this girl knowing there were lots of young men at WIU. We promised each other we’d write, but I knew a lot of servicemen get Dear John letters. I lingered too long at Cindy’s house and had to rush to get home and run to the Burlington train station three blocks away.

I parked my parents car in the garage and ran into the house to get some traveling money from a dish Mom kept in a kitchen cabinet. Mom had been downstairs cleaning up when she heard me run in the back door. She ran up the stairs and met me at the back door. Before I could rush out she said, You have to kiss me good-bye. I was stunned, I almost forgot to say good-bye to my Mom in my rush to get to the train station.

Mom was not the sentimental type. I had given her many perfunctory good-bye kisses over the years when she left me at Grandpa’s farm during summer vacation and other trips when I was gone for a day to a few weeks. But today I saw something different. Mom smiled and looked as sweet and loving as ever, but I saw sadness in her eyes, she looked like she may have been crying. I was her baby boy and when I went out that door she knew it would be several months before she would see me again, and after that I probably would not be coming home to live with her again.

Mom knew this was a life changing event. In my mind, I was just going off on another boyhood adventure. Mom’s brother Loren served in the U.S. Army in Europe in WWII and she told my brother and I how her dad would often go out and sit by himself in the car and listen to war reports on the radio. She remembered one day he had tears in his eyes when he heard about the Battle of the Bulge and high casualties knowing his son was in that area. Mom knew I was on a path that could put me in harms way, but I had not yet grasped that fact either. Mom only asked for a kiss good-bye before she let me run to catch the train to Chicago. I wish I would have given my dear mother all the time she wanted with me that day. She gave me life, unconditional love, and cared for me for 18 years up until that morning and all I gave her was a quick kiss and a minute of conversation before I ran out the door.

It is a 30 minute train ride from Brookfield to Chicago Union Station and a short walk to the Federal Center where I was to report that morning. There, me and 20 other Marine recruits were asked to stand, raise our right hand, and take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Then we boarded a bus to O’Hare Field where our group was issued tickets to San Diego. Our DC-8 landed in San Diego about 8:00 PM local time and the vacation like atmosphere ended shortly thereafter.

We filed off of the plane and walked down the concourse toward the baggage claim area where we were met by a Marine sergeant wearing a Smoky Bear campaign hat. He ordered us to move directly down the concourse to the main terminal and out the doors to a Marine Corps bus parked in front. He wasn’t too aggressive in the airport, but as soon as I stepped on the bus my whole world changed. The Marine bus driver seemed impassive, but the sergeant stepped onto the bus behind me and screamed for everyone to Take a seat, sit with your eyes locked dead ahead, and your hands at your sides. Several young men,who had also just arrived in San Diego, were already on this bus. I could not imagine what had set this guy off. He was cussing and screaming like a mad man, and said we were the most disgusting group of people he had ever laid eyes on. He ran up and down the isle and dared anyone to even glance his way. He told everyone to shut up and not open their mouths except to breathe. Some stragglers from our group boarded the bus while talking, and he flew down the isle screaming at them, and shoved them into seats. I had never seen anyone this angry, or heard anyone use so many 4 letter words in so many different combinations before. I instinctively knew this sergeant was no one to mess with. He was 5’10" tall, 210 lbs of muscle with his arms and neck bulging like a pro-body builder. His eyes flashed as he dared anyone to take him on.

It was a 15 minute bus ride from the airport to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. The bus had not yet come to a full stop in front of the Receiving Barracks when the sergeant ran down the aisle screaming at us to MOVE, MOVE, MOVE! Get off my bus! Go out and find a set of yellow footprints and put yourself in them! NOW! MOVE! We flew out of the bus wondering what kind of footprints can we put ourselves into? We then saw rows of yellow foot prints painted on the asphalt along side the bus. We each found a set and matched our feet to the painted foot prints and stood as directed. The sergeant moved among us to make sure everyone was in a set of foot prints. A few guys moved slower than the sergeant thought they should, so he helped them along with a swift kick in the ass. This sergeant was a mad man. I had never seen anyone behave like this before. He screamed at us to stand at Attention, eyes locked straight ahead, hands at your sides, chest out, stomach in. Once the sergeant had us all standing in a set of footprints, he began to walk among us. He exclaimed that we were the ugliest, most fucked up group of maggots he had ever seen. He went on to describe us as the sorriest lot of shit that had ever been sent to him. After he berated our group for several minutes he began to focus on individuals. He berated a short, portly fellow for having so little will power that he looked like a pig. He made this man oink while he sought out other targets for his wrath. He addressed all of the men wearing glasses as various types of 4 eyed excrement while adding other adjectives to describe how much he detested them.

We were herded inside the Receiving barracks to receive our infamous boot camp haircuts. They cost us $. 25 each, and the cost was deducted from our first pay check. Then we had to take showers, and wearing only a towel we boxed up all of our civilian clothes, and any personal items we brought with us, and took them to a staging area to be shipped home. We were then led to a supply window where we were issued a yellow Marine Corps sweatshirt, white scivy shirt, white boxer shorts, a pair of black socks, olive drab utility trousers, and a pair of white gym shoes. As soon as we received our clothing issue we were ordered to run back outside, get in a set of yellow footprints, and stand at attention. Everything was done on the run. MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!, GO, GO, GO! was the constant command.

The painted foot prints were laid out in 4 parallel rows with 15 footprints in each row. This represents a standard Marine Corps training platoon formation. When all of our group had returned to the footprints, the sergeant introduced himself as Sergeant Elliott. He was our Drill Instructor. Our newly formed platoon would be called Platoon 3308. We were ordered to make a right face, lock arms and move out.

Sergeant Elliot called out a very slow cadence to accentuate that we knew nothing about marching in formation, but the exaggerated slow cadence made it even harder to walk or stop together when locked arm in arm with the men next to you. It is almost impossible to stay in step with an exaggerated slow cadence, so we ended up jerking each other around as we marched 1/2 mile to our barracks area. It was about 3:30 AM Pacific time, and my brothers friend Kurt told me that reveille sounded at 5:30 AM for boots. Our barracks were World War II era Quonset huts, and each hut held a squad of 15 recruits. Sergeant Elliott led us into a squad bay and showed us how to make our bunks the Marine Corps way. About the time he completed this demonstration a tall boy from Arkansas said hey sergeant, what do we do if we have to go to the bathroom? Sgt. Elliott screamed who said that? to which our group parted so the sergeant could see the young man. Sgt Elliott bounded toward the man, who was about 6’ tall and 160 lbs, picked him up by the collar and sneered In the Marine Corps, we do not have bathrooms, we have heads. If you want to speak to me, you must first request permission to speak to me by saying sir, Private so and so requests permission to speak to the drill instructor, sir. If I give you permission to speak you may speak, if I deny you permission to speak you will say aye, aye sir! Is that clear? We stumbled to reply as a group and Sgt Elliot said You will ALL answer by saying YES SIR. We replied with a staggered group of yes sirs. Sgt Elliott screamed I can’t near you girls!!! Again we shouted YES SIR, Again… YES SIR! After about 10 try’s Sgt. Elliott gave up and described us as the most pathetic group of slimy pukes he had ever seen. We were each assigned to a bunk, and squad bay, then each squad was marched to the heads 100 feet away, and given 10 minutes to make a head call. This was the first chance any of us had to go to a bathroom since we arrived at MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) 7 hours ago. We were marched back to our barracks and ordered to get in our racks. Then it was time for lights out and we were ordered to sleep. We responded to that command with aye, aye sir." I got an hour of sleep that night.

Reveille sounded at 5:30 AM. Our drill instructor opened the door to our quonset hut and yelled we had 10 minutes to get dressed, make our bunks, and line up on the street in front of our barracks. A few recruits were too slow to meet the DI’s requirements, so we were introduced to the sand pits surrounding our barracks. Grass does not grow in the pits because the pits are mostly sand, and we were in the pits several times a day. The pits were an ideal training area for recruits. Sand has a way of working its way into every crevice of your body after a few visits to the pits to do push ups, sit ups and squat thrusts. We spent a lot of time in the pits during our first 3 weeks in boot camp.

We marched in a platoon formation to visit the head. We were given 30 minutes to shit, shower, shave and return to the platoon formation. We then slow marched back to the platoon street for 30 minutes of physical training exercise. PT started out with 20 push ups, 20 sit ups, 20 squat thrusts, another 20 push ups, 20 more sit ups and 20 more squat thrusts. We then ran in place for several minutes alternating with hit the deck, where we had to dive into the sand pits, and then we would get up and run some more.

After PT we met our platoon commander, and our other drill instructor. Our platoon commander was Staff Sergeant Miller, and the second drill instructor was Corporal Hopkins. Staff Sergeant Miller struck me as a very reasonable man, unlike Sgt. Elliott. Corporal Hopkins was a tall, thin, mild mannered man. The Marine Corps DI training technique is a good cop, bad cop type of program. One DI is unreasonable, and the other DI is very reasonable. Both were exacting in what they asked us to do, but when we did not meet Sgt Elliott’s expectations of progress he would yell, scream, and give us physical punishment in the form of push ups, squat thrusts, sit ups, 2 mile run, etc. In contrast Corporal Hopkins would stop everything, give us a 5 minute break, allow smokers to light up, etc. and then explain the commands he was trying to teach us. Then we would walk through that drill again. Cpl. Hopkins would put the screws to us as well when we did not perform up to his expectations, but he was much more rational about it.

We assembled in a platoon formation and did the arm in arm, slow march to the mess hall for breakfast. We were the only platoon of canaries in sight when we arrived at the mess hall. A platoon of new recruits were called canaries because we wore yellow Marine Corps sweatshirts and white gym shoes that all recruits are issued upon arrival at MCRD. We would later wear these yellow sweatshirts for PT, and on cold days under our Olive Drab utility uniforms, but there is no mistaking a platoon of canaries from a platoon that had been formed up for even only a week or two. Sgt Miller marched us to the mess hall, and I learned he could swear far better than anyone I had ever heard before except Sgt. Elliott. Several of the names he called us would have been laughable, except that with each screw up we were given additional PT time. While waiting our turn to go into the mess hall at mid day, we were taught how to file into the mess hall by squads.

After our tray was filled with food we were told when to sit. No platoon member could sit down until the entire platoon had been served, and was standing by their table. We were then given the order ready -seats! If we did not sit down together as a platoon, we stood up and did it again, and again until we could. The food was great, but one recruit made the mistake of asking for someone to pass him the salt & pepper. A drill instructor promptly jumped up on the table to personally deliver the salt shaker to him in a very direct manner. We learned to eat our food as it was served in these early days of boot camp. As soon as we were done eating, we were ordered to return to our platoon formation to stand at ease until the entire platoon was finished eating. Woe to the last recruit to leave the mess hall. When everyone was accounted for Platoon 3308 was ordered to attention, and then we slow marched back to our barracks area.

We spent the rest of the day learning how to perform a left face, right face, about face and fall in to create a standard platoon formation consisting of 4 squads with 13-15 recruits each. We were ordered to always fall in on the run, and if we did not run as fast as the DI’s thought we should, we were ordered into the pits.

The training program was designed to promote unit cohesiveness. If one recruit screwed up, the whole platoon was punished. The recruit who screwed up was immediately identified by the Drill Instructor. Individual and peer pressure motivated everyone to work hard so as to not cause the platoon to have to do extra work.

Anyone who has seen the Marine Corps Silent Drill Team perform has to know that this is where those Marines got their initial training, but that is the only resemblance between that squared away group of Marines and a boot platoon. You cannot believe how hard it is to receive a command like forward march and get 60 recruits to step off together. We were taught to always lead off with the left foot, but it took several recruits more than a few tries to learn their left foot from their right foot. We then learned how to respond to the commands of left face, right face, about face, open ranks. These are the commands we needed to learn to function in a Marine rifle platoon. Close order drill teaches recruit’s the importance of immediate response to an order without thinking as to why the platoon was doing a column left or whatever order was given. We learned it was not our role at this time to think. That was for the platoon leaders to do, our job at this time was to learn to follow orders precisely, and quickly, because for us to do our jobs as combat Marines it may be a matter of life and death that the whole unit can react to an order immediately without question.

When the platoon screwed up, or was slow to respond to any order from the drill instructors, we were ordered into the pits to work off our lack of performance with sit ups, push up’s or squat thrusts. We often did 4 or 5 sets of 20 repetitions each before the drill instructors let us out of the pits for the time being. Sometimes, instead of going into the pits we went for a run. That run may cover a couple of miles. I played football and wrestled in high school, but this was tougher physical training than anything we did in high school sports. Here, they pushed us hard mentally and physically to make the weaker people quit. The DI’s want to get rid of the quitters early in the training program so as not to screw up the rest of the platoon, and particularly their Marine Corps. When someone screwed up, our DI’s often asked the recruit if he was here to fuck up my Marine Corps?

The next afternoon we were marched back to the Receiving barracks where were issued 6 sets of olive drab utility uniforms, 2 pair of combat boots, field jacket, 6 pair of underwear, socks, etc. Everything we would need for the next several months of training.

The first order of business was to teach us the rudiments of close order drill so we could move as a body of men in a military unit. The goal of close order drill is to be able move a large group of people as efficiently as one person or one body. The power of a military force is expanded exponentially as 15 men are trained to respond as a squad, and expanded again as the order that can bring a squad to attention can be given to a platoon that is made up of 4 squads. Once you can train the 15 men in a squad, or 60 men in a platoon move as one, you can put 4 platoons in a company and 4 companies in a battalion, 3 battalions in a regiment, and 3 regiments in a division, where a general can give an order, and 20,000 Marines will respond as one.

For the next several weeks we were immersed in the one hundred and ninety year old ritual of becoming Marines. We would never be called Marines until after we graduated from boot camp, but in these first few days every effort was made to determine which recruits had the makings of a Marine, and which men were wasting their time and Uncle Sam’s money. The toughest aspect of boot camp for me was the mental stress. I had never experienced having people yell at me 24 hours a day for anything and everything. Everything we were ordered to do had to be done better, and faster than what I had ever done before. The physical training was tough, but never before had I ever had every aspect of my life controlled for 24 hours a day. Every aspect of our lives was controlled by the drill instructors, and it was made clear to us that what we wanted to do with our life was no longer important. We were training to be United States Marines, and as Marines we were the tools of the Marine Corps to do it’s duty to protect the American people. Our lives were no longer our own, as US Marines we will be trained to kill the enemies of the United States of America.

We learned every aspect of close order drill. We learned how to march as a platoon and remain in step, we learned how to turn when and where we were ordered to turn, and how to stop as one person. We learned how to open ranks to increase the distance between squads so our drill instructors could walk down the length of each squad and perform inspections. We learned how to close ranks, and form up at a half space, or double space from the recruit next to us. We learned how the direction of march of the entire platoon could be changed with the single command of about face, where the platoon turns 180 degrees with a single step and marches in the opposite direction. We learned how to do a by the left flank and by the right flank movement where the entire platoon turns 90 degrees to the left, or right in one step and continues marching in that direction. We learned to perform a left oblique and a right oblique where the platoon turns 45 degrees to the left or right of the current direction of march with a single command. We saw how the platoon could be moved quickly and precisely in any direction. We learned how to make a platoon formation with 4 squads in 4 columns into a single column, and how a single platoon column can be made into 4 squad columns with one command. We practiced responding to all of these commands at a walk, a jog, and a sprint.

After we learned the basics of close order drill, we were issued M-14 rifles and 782 gear. 782 gear is the Marine Corps term for the basic cartridge belt with magazine pouches, and bayonet that is carried about the waist. The M-14 rifle was a thing of beauty to my eyes. My rifle had a dark walnut stock and was in almost new condition. The M-14 had all of the good features of the M-1 rifle that the Marine Corps used during World War II and Korea, with the addition of several improvements that made it a better weapon for the military requirements of the 1960’s. The M-14 had a 20 round box magazine, and full automatic capability meaning that when the rifle was equipped with a firing selector switch, the M-14 could be fired on semi- automatic meaning it will fire one round with each squeeze of the trigger, or full automatic where the rifle will fire multiple rounds with a squeeze of the trigger like a machine gun. Marine Corps tactics at this time called for a designated Automatic Rifleman in each fire team who would have an M-14 rifle equipped with bipods to provide additional weight and stability to aid in the control of the rifle on full automatic, but by the time I got out of boot camp the Automatic Rifleman" concept was no longer taught in Infantry Training Regiment. The concept seemed to die after the early battles in Vietnam, and with the introduction of the M-16 rifle, all riflemen now had a rifle with full automatic capability.

After we were issued our rifles we took them back to our barracks area where our drill instructors told us we could get our foot lockers out from under our racks (bunk beds), and bring them out onto the platoon street in front of our quonset huts. This showed us how highly these rifles were valued. We previously were only allowed to bring our foot lockers out onto the platoon streets on Sunday afternoons to write home, and to study the Guidebook for Marines. The wooden footlockers were a combination storage locker, seat and table for us. They were a convenient place for us to disassemble, clean and study every detail of our rifles. We cleaned and oiled our rifles daily, and memorized our rifles serial number so we could recite it in our sleep. We all learned the Marine Rifleman’s Creed:

This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life.

My rifle without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will.

My rifle and myself know what counts in this war is not the rounds that we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know it is the hits that count. We will hit.

My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights, its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will.

Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America’s and there is no enemy, but peace!

Author: Major General W.H. Rupertus, United States Marine Corps

Along with our rifles we were issued 2 - 20 round magazines and a bayonet with scabbard. An M-14 rifle with a bayonet attached is a formidable looking weapon; although I had