From the Corps

The next few posts here will be all about being a Jarhead. Leatherneck. Teufelhunden. Devil Dog... Here are some stories about my life as a U.S. Marine, or at least the way I remember it. These were written about 3 years ago, so some of you may have already seen them. In that case, just fucking read them again.

Welcome to 2/5, who wants to be on brain detail?

Camp San Mateo, 2d Battalion, 5^th Marine Regiment, 1^st Marine Division; Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, CA: April 1992 

After a long and dreary move to Camp Pendleton, CA aboard various planes and buses, delays spread throughout; on our transit from Camp LeJeune, NC was by no small measure, a fun-filled experience. We had departed Camp LeJeune along about the 1^st of April, whereupon I was due my first promotion to the rank of Private First Class, or PFC. “Fuck; now it’ll be another month and I’ll be strapped with the fucking stigma of not just a boot, but a fucking lame ass boot Private… mother fucker.” We finally arrived at San Diego airport on April 2d and through some modern miracle, ebbed our way up to MCB, Camp Pen. As the bus careened through the front gate, I recall I thought “What the fuck is with all the mountains? Where are the kick ass beaches? Hot blondes and endless supply of Porsches?” It started to sink in; this was to be no pleasure tour.

Our first stop was the “receiving barracks”, better known as the gateway to hell. Here you were given your orders and assignments to the various FMF (Fleet Marine Force) units you’d go to. “2/5?!” The corporal yelled “You poor bastard, some boot just blew his head off up there today. Good luck…” I thought to myself “Fuckin’ Jesus, I’ve barely been here 30 minutes and mother fuckers are putting .223’s through their Brain Housing Groups to get the fuck out???!!! Yeah boy, Infantry… you asked for it dumb ass".

Myself and 3 other fellow Marines that I had been with since boot camp, all had the prestigious honor of getting assigned to 2/5: the Marine Corps most highly decorated battalion. We were going to be stationed with a unit where some of the finest Marines ever served. A unit proud of its’ battle history: Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Pelilu, Okinawa, Inchon, Chosin Reservoir, Hue, Somalia and Iraq. There was no doubt now, if there had been before- we were about to be in the shit. 

San Mateo, Camp Pen’s northern most infantry camp. Home of the Fighting 5^th Marine Regiment, composed of the 1^st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1^st Battalion, 9^th Marines (formerly the now disbanded 4^th Marines) and the 1^st, 2d and 3d Battalions that comprised the 5^th Marine Regiment. A sultry dust bowl, devoid of almost all life except for the blood thirsty Marines training at various areas all throughout the camp. Perched just below an infamous ridge line and hill, referred to as 1^st Sergeant’s hill, Camp San Mateo was the bastard child of MCB Camp Pen. We filed off the bus and made our way to the headquarters building for assignment to one of 4 companies’ at the battalion level: H&S, for logistics, supply, etc; Echo Company, the battalion’s helicopter assault element; Fox Company, whose specialty was amphibious raids and finally Golf Company, who was an AMTRAK (Amphibious armored personnel carrier) assault element. Upon arriving, we had all heard that Fox Company was run by a demanding 1^st Sergeant and was the battalions “Tip of the spear”, the baddest of the bad within the battalion and of course, the most difficult unit. I wanted that unit… or did I? 

I chose Fox Co., as it became to be known to me. Upon my doing so, I was to meet with the 1^st Sergeant, a man named Keith Gros who hailed from the bayou’s of Louisiana. A chiseled man, weathered and harsh, I stood before him as he asked with his Cajun drawl “Pvt. Edwards, you do understand that this company, unlike Echo and Golf, is a volunteer company do you not?” I thought to myself “Volunteer? Why the fuck is it volunteer??!!” As he continued on “Because you see, we train in the water almost 24/7 and the potential for dying is much greater as you might drown in a surf zone or over turn in a Zodiac and get hit by the engines. We don’t want any pussies in our company that can’t hang, is that understood?!” I’m shaking now, my mind rampant as fuck “Holy fuckin’ Jesus, what the fuck have I signed up for???” I am almost certain the sweat pouring off of me is obvious, my brow cringed and composure slipping. “Yes 1^st Sergeant, I want to be with the best. I want to serve with Fox Co.”, “Very well” he replied and sent me to find the door and remove myself from his presence. When I exited the room, the other 4 Marines saw how visibly shaken I was and I began to explain that, while afraid, this is why I chose to be a Marine, why I had to push my own very limits. I was in. I was a Fox Co. Marine. 

I found myself assigned to 2d platoon. According to those I had spoken with, 2d platoon had the stigma of always being the company’s finest; sending the most Marines to Super Squad- an elite competition of Marine infantryman; putting in the most hours training when other platoons were on liberty. In short, I was in the most decorated battalion of the Marine Corps; in the hardest company in the battalion and to be sure, the fuckin’ hard case elitists’ platoon in the company. Yep, I asked for it to be hard alright. I was issued a room, in which, while suited for 2 Marines, was occupied by 3 already, as I was to be the fourth. Can we all say “How’s your cot mother fucker?” and “Welcome to the fleet, boot”? Joy. We all settled in and the Corporal who was our liaison instructed us that the rest of the platoon was already secured for liberty and to be in formation on the parade deck at 0530 for PT the following morning; the battalion commander wanted to go on a “light motivation run”. Sweet. They’re breaking us in easy. We were told before that, when getting to CA we’d be allowed 10 days to “acclimatize” to our new surroundings. Umm, bull fucking shit!

The following morning we were in formation as the battalion commander gave us a motivational speech about how pleased he was with the units’ progress for the upcoming evaluations we were preparing for and he wanted us to go out for a “moto run” to help build spirit. This was my introduction to the end of life as I knew it. Pain cannot sum up the arduous efforts taken to gain breath as we began our ascent up the first portion of the ridge line. Surely my heart would give out before we reached the top, then a corpsman could cart me away to the aid station and ply me with IV’s for the remainder of the day until I came out of my self-induced coma. The acid continued to pour through my veins as we pressed harder and harder to reach the never ending summit. All the while the platoon sergeants chanting out cadence that seemed to flow from their lungs with ease. “Jesus, who the fuck are these people???!!!” The run continued on with Marines dropping out near the summit and the screams of Sergeants and Corporals could be heard as they threatened each drop with a fate worse than death if they didn’t catch up, reach down and grab a hold. I was too terrified to stop. I caught out of the corner of my eye, another senior Marine dragging a run drop and kicking his ass up the hill, all the while foaming out obscenities- his face a crimson red I had never seen before. “Fuck me, there’s no way I’m stopping!” The run finishes with us launching into a crevasse and sprinting across the fields back to the parade deck. My lungs are spent. My legs, lifeless and pale from the lack of blood. My body wants to convulse and turn itself inside out. I make it to the end. 

While recovering, the battalion commander voices his displeasure at all of the weakness he saw with the run drops and gave praise to those “Who could hack it” with him. Upon the release of the formation, each company was granted the discretion of securing for liberty whenever they saw fit. We had a lot more paperwork to do and that allowed myself and the 3 other Marines to shower and head back to headquarters, while the rest of the company headed to the armory for weapons cleaning. The shower only seemed to last a minute, the cries of the other 4 Marines I roomed with, the 4^th being a “brown bagger” or married Marine who lived off base, yet needed a room during the day; driving me out by complaining that I was draining out all of the hot water. I finished up, got into my fatigues and headed up to the H&S building. I went about going from shop to shop to “sign in” and while I thought I was skating out of the bullshit weapons cleaning, the rest of the company was secured for weekend liberty at noon, while my dumb ass still had various duties to perform. Near the end of the day, we were called into one of the admin offices by a Corporal who said he had a duty for some of us: brain detail. The Marine who had off’d himself days earlier apparently left quite the masterpiece on the walls and ceiling of his barracks room and guess who was going to clean it up. “Fuck me, could this get any worse??” So we stood there for what seemed an eternity (a common thing I’d come to be quite familiar with, or better coined as “Hurry up and wait”), awaiting the orders and instructions on what to do, the images of a young Marine with his head blown off and brains/blood scattered about the confines of the small room made me twitch- when the Corporal finally told us it had already been seen to and to go away, we were secured for the weekend and to be back at 0700 Monday morning. “Welcome to the fleet, boot.” No fucking shit.