To find out about me, you have to read a lot of background crap. That's because everything in my life is connected. It seems that no isolated events occurred. Every thing that happened, happened because of, or in spite of, something else that happened.

Born in San Pedro, California, 28APR48. Moved to Corpus Christi, Texas at age 4. Lived on five acres out in country near Naval Air Station. Discovered great way to play hooky. If you leave the horse loosely tied, she will get away. You had to time finding the horse until after the school bus went by. Then you could ride and play on the beach all day. Life was good.

When I was nine years old, my mother took me to see the movie, "Battle Cry". The one with Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, James Whitmore and Tab Hunter. It's still a great movie about Marines. My mother worked in civil service at NAS, Corpus Christi, TX, and knew the Marine recruiter that was in the lobby after the show. He was the biggest person I had ever seen and that red stripe on his dress blues went up forever. That day,  I decided when the time came, I would  be a Marine.  

In 1959 we moved to Coronado, California. My mom had married a sailor. Coronado is across the bay from San Diego. It's full of retired Navy officers and other assorted rich people. We were one of the three poor families on the island. When I was 13, I went into business with one of the other poor families. He was a Navy UDT guy. He would dive for golf balls hit in the bay and I would sell them on a tee close to the house.

In 1962, my step-dad, who was only 10 years older than me, got out of the Navy and we returned to his hometown, St. Louis, Missouri, This was a serious place. As we were nearing our new neighborhood, we stopped behind two cars at a stop light. They exchanged words, got out and proceeded to beat the crap out each other. California was easy-going, no real problems, sunshine, go to the beach, very nice. St. Louis was hard. I spent the first two years getting the crap beat out of me by strangers. I must have been a target because I was still going around barefoot in the summer and never looked for trouble. The third year, junior in high school, it was time for a change. After some successful self defenses, I became a bully and developed a reputation as a badass. I then mellowed out and didn't ever have to fight again. 

I graduated high school in 1966 and went to Southeast Missouri State College. I didn't have any particular thirst for knowledge. It was where my friends we going and that's what my family expected, so I went. I was aware of Viet Nam, but it wasn't connected to me. Uneventful freshman year, average grades. Joined Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Sophomore year, I still hadn't declared a major and was just coasting through. I wasn't doing well in classes and didn't like the classes I was taking, so I decided to drop out and return in January, 1968. There was some jeopardy of being drafted, but I thought I only had to stay out of their way for about 2-1/2 months, then I would be a full-time student again. There was no lottery then, it was much more random and I thought I could get lost in the paperwork for 2-1/2 months. This is the folly of not knowing the rules. I did successfully make it to January without loosing the 2-S draft status. I selected interesting looking courses. I was doing well as a student and having a good time. About this time, I started getting letters from the draft board  telling me that I needed 30 academic hours per academic year to maintain the 2-S deferment, and since I had zero hours and a possibility of only 16 hours for this year, they were going to draft me June 4, 1968.

 Apparently, due to not knowing the rules, the time to join the Marine Corps was now.  I managed to put off the draft board until the end of the semester since I had all this money tied up in classes. I thought I had until the end of June, but they sent a letter directing me to report on June 7. I hustled to a Marine recruiter who was glad to see me. There were not big lines outside his office in April, 1968. He did some tricks and I left for San Diego on June 6, 1968 on a two-year enlistment. I had found a way to beat the draft: Join the Marines.

My experiences were like most other Marines. I had played football for 4 years in high school, had pledged a fraternity and was a couple of years older, so I figured out how to survive boot camp after about three weeks. Some guys figured it out quicker and some guys don't figure it out until the last day. I say my experiences were like most other Marines. I think week 5 of boot camp that was maintenance. In each boot series there are four platoons. Three of the platoons have KP, one does work details for permanent personnel at MCRD. Work details were infinitely better than KP, so platoon 2015 was glad that we got dirt raking and rock painting. My luck was even better. A corporal came and got me, a one man work detail. The work was suppose to be clean the already immaculate Special Services yacht. The corporal explained that the real work was to watch for his Gunny. All week we drank sodas and played cards.

After boot camp, ITR at Camp Pendleton. Mostly uneventful, avoided the company that had hepatitis. Never did figure out if it was part of training, or if the ITR instructors just liked to see us fight. Periodically, we would try to march through other company ranks, and they though ours. If is was part of training, it built pride, unit integrity, honed hand-to-hand skills and taught you how to take a punch. If they just liked it, they saw some good fist fights and face kicks.

BITS at Camp Pendleton came next. Trained as an 0351, Anti-tank assault man. Trained in 106mm Recoilless Rifle, 3.5 Rocket Launcher, Flame Thrower and by virtue of detonating 1/4 stick of dynamite, became explosives 'expert'. 

Thirty day boot leave in Aug, 1968. Looking back now, I am stunned by my lack of awareness. I still didn't know too much about Viet Nam, only that Marines were dying there. Most of my friends were in college. I remember going to see everybody. Most were clearly unimpressed about me being a Marine. Overall attitude was "why go fight in an immoral war" or "are you too dumb to go to Canada?". I didn't get it at all. I was doing the honorable, patriotic thing, why did almost everyone I knew have their head up their ass?

Arrived back at Camp Pendleton on the Friday morning before Labor Day weekend, 1968 with orders to Staging Battalion. Once again, my personal good fortune kicked in. There was some big backup of personnel in Okinawa, so me and approximately 600 other Marines there that day were to be assigned as permanent personnel. So 600 of us are sitting out on this parking lot with out sea bags. Occasionally, someone would come out and read a list of names. They would climb in a 6by and drive away. This went on all day. The speculation was that they were going to 27th or 28th Marines. During ITR and BITS we had seen and heard about both. 27th Marines had just returned from the RVN and there was a big parade in San Diego. Going to either of these places, meant morning formations, inspections, dirt raking, rock painting, training exercises and all attendant duties and responsibilities of a stateside unit. It was not a pretty picture. Towards dusk, the remaining 8 Marines, including me, drug our sea bags together in the center of the parking lot to discuss our probable fate. Just as we had decided that they lost us, a corporal came out and read our names. He only smiled when we asked where we were going. After a long drive, we ended up back in Camp Horno where we had just completed ITR and BITS thirty days earlier. We pulled up in front of 5th Recon Battalion. During ITR and BITS we had seen these Recon guys and were afraid of them. They ran everywhere, chanted, were clearly crazy and were not to be screwed with. What hell had we fallen into? We reported to the OD who appeared to be pissed about having duty on a three-day weekend around 1730. It was the first time that I saw a Marine officer confused. He had no idea what to do with us. His head cleared quickly and he assigned us quarters and issued a 72-hour liberty card to each of us. 

The barracks was like a dormitory, four men to a room, closets, thick mattresses, writing desk and chairs. Very strange. The first formation the next Monday, the Company CO announced that all privates were promoted to PFC because he didn't like privates. There were only about twenty men, all corporals and sergeants, in the company. 5th Recon was with 27th Marines in the RVN. I learned a lot from these guys. From September, 1968 through January, 1969, good unit, good quarters, plus I had my grandfather's '56 Plymouth, so good liberty all over southern California.

 February, 1969 went to Staging, then Viet Nam to 1st Battalion, 1st Marines.  Assigned to Battalion S-1. Everyday a holiday, every meal a banquet.

My year (less 10 days) generally described in this site. Reading my letters home, I alternately hated Viet Nam and felt pride in doing a job there. My main regret and the thing I wrestle with from time to time is wondering if I did it right. I was twenty when I got there, fresh from a recon battalion. I had more training than the average replacement showing up at the battalion. After agreeing to stay in the S-1 (I think I had a choice), I started harassing the S-1 Actual and even the Bn CO to let me go with a rifle company. I had skills that the S-1 needed and was doing a good job. Occasionally I would get to go out with the Battalion CP. I was on Operations Durham Peak and Pipestone Canyon. Sometimes I would get to go with S-2 scouts on patrols. I was like the 'guest' Marine on these. It was not the same intensity as being in a rifle platoon. Finally, I caught the Bn CO on a bad day. He was tired of hearing about me wanting to go. He gave me the choice to go to a company or stay in the S-1 and shut up. I chose to stay in the S-1. I was so close, touching the edges, but never in the game. I always wondered if I would have cut it. Had some help with this from other 1/1er's. A grunt told me, "Somebody had to do that job, may as well have been you". So simple, so true, yet I still wonder sometimes.  

Odd connection: While reading Navy Times one day in the RVN, there was a picture of a Navy Chief leading a group formation of running, pretty squared-away looking for squids. He was the same UDT guy I was in the golf ball business in Coronado with. He was NCOIC of training SEALS.

Return to CONUS was standard. Six-by from Bn to Danang, three spooky days in Okinawa and commercial 707 with stewardess to Travis AFB. Raced through customs, jump in a cab to race to airport to catch flight home to St. Louis. Called parents from airport to come and get me. No time for advance warning. It took my mother a couple of days and a couple of hits to figure out that the proper way to wake me up was hit my foot or make something explode.

Due to foolishly signing a dreamsheet in the RVN to change my MOS to 0141, there was no early out, even though I only had 4-1/2 months left. The Marine Corps thought that I really was an 0141 (Admin clerk). I went to Parris Island where the First Sergeant was very disappointed that I did not know anything about preparing a Unit Diary. He later went to bat for me when I had to tell a woman 2Lt that I would not be typing her savings bond forms more. I ended my Marine Corps career giving the Savings Bond speech to recruits and yelling at privates in the receiving barracks right after they got off the yellow footprints. This was a fun job.

I did have re-up papers filled out. They were going to give me Sergeant, $9,000 in cash and school to make me a real 0141. I really didn't want a second tour, but I didn't have any career aspirations and I liked being a Marine (most of the time). The day before I had to sign or get out, the personification of all that was wrong with the corps stepped in front of me in the 2nd Recruit Training HQ Company office. In this case, he was a GySgt about 5 feet tall who was already up on some charges. He had a magic marker in his hand and he proceeded to tell me that he was going to draw on the side of my head where my sideburns should be. I prided myself on being squared away. I blocked his arm, gave him my best eyes and informed him that he would not be drawing on my head. Since he had more to lose from a fist fight in the company office, he backed away. He also made my decision about re-upping. There's nothing wrong with being a lifer, if you can do other things as well. I don't think this guy knew how to do anything else. I wasn't sure that I could do anything else, but wanted to try.

I went home and drank many beers. Just as I was running out of beer money, an ad came on television saying, "You can be a computer programmer". It turned out that I was pretty good at it. At the commercial business school. I graduated at the top of my class. Unfortunately, there were no jobs when I got out of school. Finally I got a call that an old instructor from the school had a job. He wanted to interview the two best from the last class on Saturday to start on Monday. The guy that graduated second was an Air Force Viet Nam veteran. For all practical purposes, we were dead even in qualifications for the job. On Saturday, we wished each other luck and flipped to see who would go first. He won. He came out about 40 minutes later and I went in. The interviewer was all rumpled with his tie loose and his sleeves rolled up. On his right forearm there was an big eagle, globe and anchor. I told him the other guy and I were exactly even in qualifications, but I was a Marine. We didn't even talk about the job, just bullshitted about the Marine Corps. The connection gets bizarre as I was telling him about seeing 'Battle Cry' when I was nine, he says, "you know when the other companies were taking the trucks back, but Huxley's men marched back?". I say yeah, he says that he was in the movie. He was one of the Marines giving the finger to the guys riding the trucks back. He also got a Bronze Star in Korea.

That started a thirty-year data processing career. All jobs since then can be traced to a contact made from there. In 1993, as part of a corporate takeover, I took a severance package and started my own computer consulting company. As I am the only employee, it stays kind of small, but I don't have any office politics, don't have to drive in rush hour and I keep the bills paid. My corporate web site is http://www.kinginformation.net.

I never kept Viet Nam a secret, but I never talked to anybody about it. It usually came up when I would hear someone say something stupid about Viet Nam. I usually say something like, I don't remember it like that. Once they knew, then they never looked at me the same again. My last corporate job, there was an after hours trip to a local tavern. A new guy had transferred in from another location. He was with 5th Marines in the Arizona at the same time I was with 1/1. We only talked about Viet Nam when we were drunk, and then we really didn't talk about it.

Finding other 1/1 guys and going to the reunion has been very good for me. I always felt bad because I wasn't screwed up from Viet Nam. It was such a relief to find others that had been places that I had been and find that they were ok, too.

If you were with 1/1 H&S or an attached unit and you have additions or corrections, click here for the contact page. Your contributions are welcome. This is part of your history and heritage, so it's your website. Welcome home.

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