Sempre Fi

The Mississippi River was the dividing point for training purposes, and because St. Louis was on the west side of the river, we were scheduled for training in California. Just a few miles to the east and we would have ended up at Camp Lejuene, North Carolina, not a choice location so we were told. We were given a week or so to wind up our affairs, say our last goodbyes, and appear at Union Station ready to travel. I don’t think either of us had been west of St. Louis so this trip promised to be exciting from a scenic standpoint. And it was because we traveled across the Great Plains, through mountain passes and finally caught sight of the Pacific Ocean. We were in coaches for the trip which took almost three days, and by the time we got to San Diego, we were in sad shape but received no commiseration from the people who greeted us. They were nasty, contemptuous of us, and seemingly delighting in our discomfort. We were herded about like cattle, made to disrobe, probed and punctured with fingers and needles, and eyeballed for sizes of uniforms and shoes. Then to make our humiliation complete, we were shorn of our locks which, until then, had given each of us a sense of individuality.

Now, we all resembled skinned polecats. In a moment of panic, I wondered if some other branch mightn’t have been a tad more embracing, but my reverie was shattered by gross comments about our heritage and a prediction that our futures were in the hands of fiends who would make our lives miserable. At least, I was not alone.

Two days later, things had taken a turn for the better. We were out on the parade ground trying to differentiate between left and right, the band was playing a stirring Sousa march, and I was beginning to feel somewhat human again, a part of something bigger than any of us .We were now a platoon of recruits, to spend the next twelve weeks learning what being a Marine was all about. It involved becoming a member of a team, working together, ultimately fighting together. We were issued MI rifles, learned to tear them apart and put them back together, spent time on the firing range shooting from many positions at several distances, and understanding that your rifle and the guy next to you were your best friends. The process was a tried and true one: treat them like the scum of the earth at the beginning, then present them with a succession of challenges which, when successfully met, make them feel supercharged. We had entered “Boot Camp” as sniveling civilians, leaving three months later as well-trained members of the Marine Corps charged with the responsibility of upholding the honor of the Corps. We’d be tested as time went on.

Throughout the basic training period, we took all kinds of tests designed to find out how each of us could best fight the enemy. After all, that’s what this was all about. So when time came to send us out for further training in a specialized area, I ended up in radio school on the base in San Diego. Communications were primitive by today’s standards,  and messages were often sent by flags, Morse code, or by radios that often failed for one reason or another. So we went through the gamut of ways of communicating and then were sent on to become part of a fighting unit. Somehow, I ended up in tanks at a place called Jacques Farm, outside of San Diego. This place was the pits because tanks are associated with dust and dirt and grease so they put you where you wouldn’t offend anyone with your griminess. Water pumped into an elevated 55-gallon oil drum with holes served as the shower for the whole group, so we were pretty grungy most of the time. Then there were these old diesel tanks which were relics from a much earlier period, issuing volumes of vile exhaust to flavor the clouds of dust kicked up by the tracks. It was so bad we took pride in surviving and probably were happier than most. The equipment we had to work with told us how ill-equipped we were to fight right then, but our industrial strength provided us with the good stuff in short order. As for our personal well-being, we were often trucked to the nearest YMCA where we could revel in the shower endlessly, shedding the grime. The feeling of belonging to the real world lasted until we fired up the tanks the next morning.

Camp Pendleton, just up the coast from San Diego, was my next stop. As part of the newly-formed Fourth Marine Division, we were relegated to the boondocks, a tent camp quite a distance from the barracks area and the PX, but we loved it because no one bothered us. We were the pariahs, cut off from the rest of society because we fouled the air with our dust. However, we had showers this time, along with a mess hall and a little shop where we could buy a coke and a pack of smokes. We were in heaven, and we were blessed with new light tanks with gasoline engines, automatic transmissions, 37-mm cannons, and 30 caliber machine guns. These were super vehicles and we had miles of terrain for our maneuvers. Several times we drove the tanks down the coast highway to San Diego where we boarded landing boats and made practice landings along with infantry and simulated air strikes. The Navy planes at first were relics from another time, but they, too, advanced quickly thanks to U.S. industrial strength. When you think of how sorely wounded we were by the attack on Pearl Harbor and how quickly we were able to fight and win in so many areas, we have to feel good about ourselves. We were about to become part of that fight-and-win project.