A Marine 3531 to 0311

By Michael E. Hearndon

This is an autobiography, Memoir if you will of four years of my life as a United States Marine. This particular story is dated from April 1963 through November 1967, while I was on active duty in the Marines. It also involves two tours of duty in Vietnam.
It begins with enlistment while still in high school, boot camp, and then into my first year at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where I became a problem for the authorities, and my resulting turn around. It then transitions to the new me, experiences of traveling overseas, not only crossing the Atlantic to Spain, but also the Pacific to Okinawa, and finally, to Vietnam. While in Vietnam on my first tour, I became an "experiment", which resulted in some personal satisfaction.
Next is my rotation back to the States, and new experiences as a non-commissioned officer. It was a time of homecoming and the renewing of a friendship from my first tour of duty in Vietnam. Then, I experienced more training and harassments, resulting in my extension of enlistment so that I could return for a second tour of duty in Vietnam.
This is when the war in Vietnam really started to increase in events that could only be noticed by someone retuning there for a second tour. Someone like me, who has traveled through the northern part of South Vietnam right up to the Demilitarized Zone. This is when the story really gets to the heart of my memories.
The changing of MOS (military occupational specialty) duties physically, but not on Marine Corps paper, where a truck driver/mechanic becomes a real Marine with a rifle. A grunt! An infantryman. The fears of not knowing, what is about to happen, and what to do, when it happens. These fears are not so much for myself, but for the Marines I feel responsible for.
Then comes the relief from stress, it is all over. And recovery is now in a hospital. But yes, I, like a million others, still claim to this day to be a United States Marine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667800479

Book preview

A Little Family History

The Herndon’s were pioneers of Florida, arriving in 1864. My great-great-grandfather and his son came from Virginia. As his son grew older, my great-grandfather went out on his own, changing his last name to Hearndon by adding the letter ‘a’. As I was told, it was to prevent at that time getting his mail and his father’s mail mixed up. Their full names were James Madison Herndon.

So, my great-grandfather, James Madison Hearndon, begat my grandfather, Jesse Francis Hearndon. Granddad married Maud Layport just before the turn of the century. She was of the family of Layports, from Fort Pierce, Florida. For a few years they lived in Jupiter, Florida. My grandparents then settled in Fellsmere Florida, in 1911 before it was a city. There, they lived the rest of their lives. They had seven children, four daughters, and three sons. My father, Elton Otto (Toad) Hearndon, the youngest son, was born June 30, 1915. At the age of seven, my father lost his left eye playing with a home-made slingshot that fired an arrow. From that time on he wore a glass eye.

Granddad was a carpenter, trapper, and hunter by trade. He at one time submitted for a patent on a frog gig. He built many pole boats, sometimes referred to as pirogues. He also taught my father how to build this type of boat. Dad became one of Fellsmere’s best known frog and gator hunters in the thirties, forties, and fifties. That is how he got the nickname Toad.

Fellsmere is located in Indian River County, about 120 miles south of Daytona and about 65 miles north of Palm Beach, Florida. I can remember sitting on Granddad’s front porch while he may have been telling me a hunting story and watching a hundred yards away seeing a car go by out on County Road 512. Granddad used to say if you see more than three cars go by in an hour on the hard road, there must be a party going on someplace.

Dad’s brothers were in the military during World War II. Uncle George Tiger was named after a chief of the Seminole Indians. The chief was a hunting buddy of Granddad at the turn of the century, and everyone called my uncle, Tiger. He joined the Navy, and Uncle William (Willy) was a Merchant Marine. When World War II broke out, Dad attempted to join the Army, but was given a 4-F classification because of his missing left eye. He told the doctors he could shoot a rifle better than most men with two eyes. I know this to be a fact. I have seen him stick a kitchen match on a fence post and pace off thirty or forty feet. Then with his 22-caliber rifle, shoot and strike that match. It takes one hell of a good shot to do that trick!

Dad met my mother while working in a factory in Cleveland, Ohio, during the war. He worked in factories in the winter and did carpentry work in the summers in Ohio. He also worked at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina during the war as a carpenter, building the barracks there.

My mother’s maiden name was Margert Antonia Krochmal. She was of Russian decent. Her father’s name was Michael Krochmal, for whom I am named. He was a shoemaker and owned a shoe repair shop in Cleveland, Ohio. She had a sister and three brothers. Of the brothers, Walter and Nick were in the Army, and Uncle Joe was in the Navy during the war. I know one uncle (Nick) served in Italy and brought home with him an Italian 6.5mm military rifle, which he gave to me when I turned seventeen.

My parents were married on October 23, 1943. I was born in Cleveland on October 3, 1944, the first of four children. We moved often between Cleveland and either Fellsmere or Gainesville, Florida. In Florida, Dad did many different jobs, including carpentry, heavy equipment, hunting gators and frogs, and boat building. He built boats like Granddad showed him, and a new kind of boat called an airboat. From the time I was fifteen, I could run an airboat and catch (gig) a frog almost as well as any man around. These were the trades he taught me while I was still a teenager. I also did some engine rebuilding on lawn mower, motorcycle, and hot-rod engines. When I entered the Marines, I guess machines and vehicles were what interested me, as with many teenagers then.

My father was married once before and had two children. Paul, the oldest, and Helen, his sister. Both were considered by me to be my full brother and sister. Paul quit school and joined the Navy in 1953, I believe. He developed a knee problem and was shortly given a medical discharge. Then a year or so later, he joined the Army. How he managed that with his medical discharge from the Navy, I do not know, but somehow, he did. Helen, too, joined the Navy for two years. While still in the Navy, she married a Marine named Jack Rossman.

While I was on my first tour in Vietnam, my next youngest brother, Danny, joined the Army in the early summer of 1965. Danny was almost four years younger than I was, so he must have been seventeen. I am sure he must have quit school. My guess is that my parents had to sign for him to join. These things were not known to me until he was already in Vietnam, in the First Cavalry serving as a radio operator down south someplace in mid-October 1965. I think his enlistment was for two years.

I also have two other siblings. My youngest brother, Robert (Bobby) and my baby sister, Darlene. Neither of them was able to join the military due to having juvenile criminal records. Both were involved in drugs usage. I must also say that later, they both straightened out their lives.

Coming from two large families, I think I can safely say that I come from a military heritage, although none were lifers (retired from the military). I was the only Marine in the family.

The following events are from what I can recall from April 17, 1963, through November 5, 1967, and later. The dates in between are as best as I can remember, and for the most part, are accurate. Remember as you read this, it was fifty-plus years ago. There are a few remarks from this year that are true and accurate also. Now for my story.

Where to Begin

MOS, Military Occupation Specialty, is a four-digit code number used by the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and the United States Army to identify the name for the main job you have in the Marines. The code numbers are grouped together into different occupational fields that are represented by the first two digits. The job duties are identified in the last two digits and represent a specific job in that field.

At the time a person enters the Marines in boot camp, every Marine is tested for his aptitude for an occupation. For example, if a Marine has knowledge of cooking, he, or she most likely will be a cook in the Marines. If he knows what a certain type of equipment from pictures is used for and may identify that equipment with some degree of knowledge, then he might be assigned to an engineering battalion.

The testing is quite extensive. I could identify the concept and usage of a throw-out bearing and a clutch plate, and how and where they were used. Anyone who at that time had ever driven a large truck would understand that. I am sure the needs of the Marine Corps at that particular time had some bearing on what job in the Marines you would receive. My understanding is that only about thirty to forty percent actually become Infantrymen straight out of boot camp. There are more than forty different fields for enlisted members. And within each field there could conceivably be ninety-nine different jobs.

M.O.S.

3531       Truckdriver

3516       Mechanic

0311       Infantry Rifleman

Enlistment

April 17, 1963, in Vero Beach, Florida, while in high school at lunch time, I was walking in the middle of town. On the corner of 14th Avenue and 20th Street, I met up with Marshall O’Neil, another senior in high school.

Hey, Marshal, where you headed?

I am going down to enlist in the Marine Corps.

I think my mouth dropped open. As the light changed for him to cross the intersection, I said, Hell, I’ll just go down with ya to listen to what they have to say. I have got nothing better to do till my next class this afternoon. This was our senior year, and I did not have a clue as to what I was going to do after graduation. I sure did not want to work at a gas station for minimum wages the rest of my life.

At this point in my life, my family was not wealthy, and I had little desire to continue any type of schooling. Yep, they talked us both into enlisting in what they called a 90-day delayed enlistment buddy plan. Which meant, ninety days from today and after graduation from high school, we would be in the same platoon at boot camp. But as it turned out, that is all it meant.

I was eighteen years old, so I was not required to have my parents sign for me to enlist. By enlisting, it probably kept me out of trouble and out of jail. I was not that intelligent as a student in high school. I did graduate, along with Marshall, but we both were nowhere near the top of the class ranking. I was a low C average student, due to pure laziness and boredom. But I am proud to say I was the first and only one in my entire immediate family to graduate from high school up to that time.

I was working part-time after school and weekends for an elderly man named Ray Drone. He owned a fairly new Sinclair service station out State Road 60 and the corner of 44th Avenue. He seemed to enjoy the company of us young high school guys because he hired three of us and only one full-time man. The service station was open from seven A.M. till nine P.M., seven days a week. Otho Vaughn my next-door neighbor, and Rodney Tillman, my best friend, also worked for Ray. They were both a year behind me in high school. After they graduated, Otho got a deferment from the draft, because he was married and had a child. Rodney also married but did join the National Guard unit in Fort Pierce. His unit was never called up to active duty for deployment overseas. He did spend six months or so up at an Army base in Georgia.

After my graduation, during the summer I started working full-time for Mr. Drone for the next months before I had to report. I had an old rusted out ’55 Chevy station wagon that I had cut down a year ago. When I say cut down, I mean, literally cut down to a bear frame from the wind shield to the back bumper. I moved the back seat up to the front and welded it in place because the old front seat was completely worn out. I added on some new taillights from an old boat trailer and wired them up. Granted, it looked bad, but it did run very well.

The last day I worked, a Saturday (August 3, 1963), I opened the gas station that morning at seven. I generally would park in the Piggly Wiggly grocery store parking lot across the side street, 44th Avenue, from the gas station. After turning on everything, gas pumps, sign, air compressor, office, and bay lights, I noticed a guy hitch-hiking west out there on State Road 60.

Four hours later he was still out there with apparently no luck getting a ride. There was not a whole lot of traffic that particular day, apparently, because he was now sitting on the curb of the road. There were many miles before any civilization was out to the west, nothing but woods and marsh. Not a good idea to try walking.

A few minutes later he got up and came over to the station to get a cold drink from the soda pop machine. He came into the station office to ask me who owns that cut-down Chevy across the street in the parking lot. I told him I did. He asked the next question before I could say anything else.