1995: The Politics of Being a Marine

Back to the Beach
When we heard that for the first time ever Marines would be training with the Scottish Black Watch, we were all pretty interested to see what they were like. They were from Scotland of course, but they were stationed in Hong Kong for much of the year. The stereotype Americans have of most Europeans being very pale held true with them. Compared to most of them, I looked like a well-tanned Polynesian (and in Hawaii I was a big time haole)! But they were good guys, and it was interesting to see their tactics and outlook on life in general. Like the Australian troops we met in '93, they could hang with us in the bars drink for drink. I guess that is something that is universal among troops of all nationalities. In one conversation, I made the mistake of calling a group of them English, and had to use considerable diplomatic skill to make it out of the situation intact! They didn't like that.

Our training with them consisted of amphibious operations on Bellows Beach, which is a deserted Air Force base on the Windward (western) coast of Oahu. The British Army very rarely does those kinds of

operations, so it was interesting to see how they integrated with us. A beach assault usually starts with recon guys scouting the beach out and setting up navigational lights in the sand for the landing craft if it is a night op. Then the guys on a troop ship several miles off shore either get on AmTraks (armored amphibious tracked vehicles) or Zodiacs (inflatable rubber motorboats), and ride to the beach. The AmTrak option was very uncomfortable. AmTraks were crowded, hot, and everyone usually became seasick (there was no way to see out and it rocked with every wave). If someone felt the need to puke he had to do it in his helmet, and put it back on when we went out. If he didn't, the puke would get into the ventilation hoses on the floor and spread the smell throughout the AmTrak, which would make everyone else puke! Once we hit the beach, we would spread out into a defensive formation, then clear the area ahead.

After a month with the Black Watch, we had to start getting ready to go to PTA and pass the Commanding General's inspection once again so we could go back to Okinawa. Our teams were slowly but surely becoming integrated and cohesive. We went to PTA early this time because we learned that 3/3 would be going to Alaska in May to participate in a huge training exercise with the Navy, Army, and Air Force called "Northern Lights" or something like that. This time around, we did not have to do nearly the amount of humping that we did in '93, and after some routine weapons shoots and field ops, I could say goodbye to PTA forever! That was a great feeling to know that I would never eat at that miserable chow hall again.

Army Training, Sir!
Almost as soon as we got back, it was time to go to Alaska. We would be staying in a gym at Fort Wainwright Army Base in Fairbanks, almost right in the middle of that huge state. The Army had been trying to make it difficult for us the whole time we were there because they knew that we were going to be going up against them, and they hated to constantly hear about how the Marines were better than they were. I don't have anything against the Army personally, but the Marine Corps infantry is much tougher and better trained because Marines are just more intense than they are.

The Army officers who planned the operations were sure that we would not be able to make it. We were to hump about eight miles to a hill that was occupied by their troops and take it within a strict time limit. On the maps our officers saw when they agreed to the mission, the ground looked nice and clear...

When we got off our helicopters and began our march, we noticed that the area they had us going through was a little different than the map showed. The ground was like a swamp (permafrost maybe?), and the Army pilots landed us farther away from the objective than we were supposed be at. Conspiracy? Sabotage? We all thought so. Determined not to lose time, we had to move much faster than we planned to get there. Even our officers were getting pissed off. About halfway there, we got a report on the radio that one of the other companies in our battalion, India Company, had engaged some Army troops. A few minutes later, battalion HQ radioed to make sure we didn't physically assault the Army guys when we engaged them. Apparently, the guys in India started some fights with the Army dogs, and their officers were angry about it! Ha! We all thought that was pretty damn funny, and if they said anything to us when we came up on them we had plans to do the exact same thing.

About 3/4 of the way there, we noticed a couple of guys sitting casually in a fighting hole at the same time they saw us. They halfheartedly shot a few blank rounds at us while our platoon charged their position. There was about a squad of them, and we were expecting them to "die in place" (don't leave your hole) like we always did when we got overrun. Instead, they all got up and ran! Not only did they run, but many of them left their weapons behind! If anyone in my team ever had done something like that, I think I would have had to shoot him myself. As we headed back to the rest of the company to continue on, one of the Army guys came back to his hole and made some barely audible comment to us like "amateur hour" or something like that. We were too shocked by the pathetic sight we had just witnessed to even respond to what he said. We just shook our heads, laughed and rejoined the rest of Lima.

About ten minutes later as we were on our way, our C.O. got a call to end the mission and make sure none of our guys had any extra gear. A few overzealous Marines in Lima decided to take a pair of Army binoculars, a spare machine gun barrel, and a set of NVGs that they had left in their holes. First of all, anyone who would leave things as valuable as that behind should expect exactly what they got, and second, Army equipment is much newer and better than Marine Corps stuff (especially their NVGs). Of course we would want to play with their toys for a while. Personally, I think it would be irresponsible for any unit leader to leave any piece of equipment behind that could later be used against us. In this case, the rules of the civilian world (theft) do not apply. Surprisingly, our Captain was mad at us for taking their stuff, and planned on not letting us go on libo when we got back. All their gear was reluctantly returned, and we went to where we would be picked up tomorrow. That is if the Army still wanted to fly us back!

Later that night, some members of the 3/3 sniper team who had not heard that the op had ended (at least that's what they said) came up on a sleeping Army platoon and found nobody on watch. First, they took the 81 millimeter mortars that were just laying around and filled them with mud, then the snipers drove away in the Hummer they had sitting there with nobody guarding it. That incident caused even more friction between the Army and 3/3 officers than ours had! The next morning, our Captain forgave us and told us what our snipers had done. We all had a good laugh. At that point, it became clear even to our officers that the Army guys were mad that things had not gone their way and now wanted to "take their ball and go home". After a few more weeks of training by ourselves in the forested mountains of Alaska (during which time I got my revenge on Albright by rigging a booby trap to the entrance of his hootch), we returned to Hawaii. The Army was happy to see us go I think. I know that they did not appreciate the constant taunts we gave them (my favorite was A.R.M.Y: Aint Ready for Marines Yet) and competition out in town for women. Alaska was an interesting place to visit, but I would not trade duty stations with them.

Back to the Rock
Back in K-Bay, the boots were starting to get excited about going to Japan, and so was I actually. I told them all the same thing, save your money for Tokyo. Before I knew it, 3/3 was waiting at almost the same spot at Hickam Air Base that we were 18 months ago. It was an eerie feeling landing at Kadena Air Base again and getting out into the extreme Japanese July humidity. As expected, 1/3 was waiting there to let us know how they would treat our girlfriends in Hawaii while we were gone and get on their bird. Almost like we were picking up right where we left off. I couldn't help but notice the looks of curiosity on the faces of my team. The experience wasn't so strong for me anymore, but I knew exactly what they were thinking at that time and I could see that they were finally experiencing something that made joining the Marines worth all the bullshit.

The first week at Camp Hansen, me and Rocco were called into the X.O's office. We thought we were in some kind of trouble and were going to be disciplined. Actually, what the X.O had planned for us was much worse than either of us could have imagined. He told us that since we had finished our swim qualifications with the highest possible score: WSQ (Water Survival Qualified) , we were being assigned to the battalion Scout Swimmer Team. The team was being formed because the Battalion Commander wanted his own beach reconnaissance without having to rely on a recon unit being assigned to him. Everyone knew that Scout Swimmers School was hell, so we immediately told the X.O. that we would pass, to which he replied "Too bad" after he stopped laughing maliciously at us.

I was never a great swimmer. I had only gotten a score of WSQ because I didn't quit and was in good shape, but my swim technique just plain sucked. Regardless, the next Monday, myself, Rocco, Patrick (who had transferred to the battalion sniper team), and some others from around 3/3 who were WSQs gathered to begin training. The first week was in the pool, and the second would be in the ocean. Oddly, the first week was much worse because we were doing physical conditioning. Our trainers were some sadistic bastards, and they made the four hours straight of intense swimming each day tough as hell. Luckily, each day after we had finished pool time, we were in the classroom studying beach recon and swim team tactics. They had permission from our officers to do just about anything that they wanted to us, and they took full advantage of that license. That whole week, I was on the verge of getting chlorine poisoning from all the water I swallowed.

The second week we were to practice everything we learned in a real ocean environment. There were eight Marines per swim team, and they were divided into two man "buddy teams" in case someone got in trouble. My swim buddy was Rocco because we swam at about the same speed. Each eight man team rode in a Zodiac boat, which also had a navigator from Lima assigned to each. Their job was important, because if they screwed up, we would either hit the beach late, or return late, and that was never fun at 2:00am when you still have to clean the boats and gear and then wake up at 5:30.

Believe it or not, two hours of riding on a Zodiac through rough water (in Hawaii the waves regularly got as high as eight feet) made your body ache even before we got into the water. A lot of guys got black eyes, broken noses, and busted teeth when they fell asleep on a speeding Zodiac. To make sure our gear would not be lost if it fell off us, we had to tie everything we were carrying, including our rifle, to our uniform. That was a problem just waiting to happen. After getting to the drop-off point, we were all dying to get into the ocean just so we could stretch out a little. Then, we would haul ass to about 500 meters from the beach. At that point, we split up into our two-man teams and got in formation to sneak up to the beach. A more accurate description would be "wash up" on the beach, because the idea was to avoid being seen. In the unlikely event someone on the beach could actually see one of our heads barely sticking out of the water, we were supposed to look like a coconut or some other kind of floating debris.

Once we crawled a few feet above the shoreline, we discreetly threw sand all over our partners and became sand crabs. Then came the interesting part. If there was an enemy walking along the beach, we would send out our "sentry removal team" to come up behind him and cut open his neck from ear to ear.

Buzzard was one of the guys on our sentry removal team, and I still laugh when I remember him one night coming up to take down one of our instructors who was playing enemy. Buzzard came running up behind the instructor and started to really choke him out! The instructor got pissed off and tried to fight back so Buzzard, thinking it was part of the game, choked him even harder. We all did some exercises for that one.

Another time, we were supposed to land on one of the little islands next to Okinawa, but somehow we got the wrong one and ended up on some rich guy's private beach! As we lay in the moonlit sand, he casually strolled right by us, no more than five feet away. If he saw us, Buzzard was going to take him down while we evacuated. Luckily for him and probably us too we did not have to do that.

Around this time, a very well-known and tragic event occurred, and in a way I feel connected to it. One afternoon, I took a little walking tour around Kinville just to see what the non-bar areas were like. After about an hour, I came back a bit unimpressed. The next day, right when we were about to be put on libo, our XO Lt Price called everyone together to tell us about something very important. "Yesterday, three sick fuckers (all in the military) raped a 12 year-old Okinawan girl right here in Kinville". We were all shocked and pissed off at whoever had done it. I still can clearly remember what he said: "In our situation, the acts of a few reflect on all of us. Needless to say, we are not very popular with Okinawans now".

Being short-term guests at Camp Hansen, most of us were not aware of how sensitive the issue of U.S. military base presence was to the Okinawans, and we underestimated how they would take it out on the rest of us who had never done anything wrong. We were not allowed off base for a few days, and when we did go back out almost all the shops did not allow us in. The Okinawans were never friendly to us, but now they were openly hostile, telling us to "go home" and other idiotic things whenever they got the chance, as if we somehow approved of what had happened. We wanted to see those bastards strung up as much as the Okinawans did, but they were painting all of us as rapists for domestic political purposes. As usual emotion, nationalism, and herd mentality overcame rationality, which says that when just under 30,000 males are placed on a small island with a different culture there will be crimes, even sick ones, from time to time. I later found out that the crime took place right by an area where I walked. If I had gone about six hours later than I did, I would have been able to stop the whole thing from happening! That is tough to think about. A 12 year-old girl had her life destroyed in a spot you were at only a few hours before.

Climbing Fuji Again
The bad feelings ruined any chance of us having any kind of social life out in town, so by the time we boarded C-130 transport planes in October for Atsugi Naval Air Base near Tokyo, we had a nice stash of money saved up.

I had a little over $2500 earmarked for Roppongi. When you add the $1500 we would get paid during the six weeks we were there, I had enough to actually enjoy the place. To this day, I have to say it was money very well spent. To make things even better, the weather was cold, but not freezing like it was in 94. We also had much better leadership than we did the year before. After Alaska, we really jelled as a platoon, and when you can take care of things on the business side of the house well, that lets you loosen up a little and have some fun, which we did. Lt Lauer did his job and not ours, which was a nice change, and SSGT Woodland had confidence in us, so he was not on our ass all the time.

There were a couple of guys in the platoon that we liked to have fun with, Englehart and Woody. They both had big time homosexual complexes, so we decided to push their buttons a little and see what happened. We forged a letter from each one to the other saying how much they secretly admired them, and secretly put it in their gear. They both tried to act like nothing had happened, but one day after a field op when everyone was showering, we all finished quickly so they would be alone together. About 30 seconds later we heard Woody yell "Stop looking at me you faggot!", then Englehart "Shut the fuck up, you're the damn fag!". They both wanted to kick each other's asses, but were afraid to do it in the shower because they thought the other was gay! After they came out and got dressed, we asked each one what the problem was, and they answered that the other tried to pick them up. About this time, SSGT Woodland came in to put us on libo and caught what they said. I wish I had a camera to get the look on his face. We finally told them what really happened, and they were both so relieved that they made up and vowed revenge on whoever was responsible.

Partying in Tokyo was a lot more rewarding for those of us who had been there the year before and knew where to go and how to act around Japanese women. Tokyo, especially at that time for some reason, was just a phenomenal place to go clubbing and bar hopping. There is something very exciting about going from a long, cold, draining field operation in the wilderness to a huge, chaotic, and high-tech metropolis full of young people who think the only purpose of the day is to make money so you can have fun all night. To be sure, there were good nights and bad ones, but even the bad ones were fun. I always hear civilian foreigners in Japan bad mouthing the Marines in Roppongi for being too "crude" (read: make them feel inadequate), and even scoff at Roppongi itself as being classless (read: rejected by the locals). I can't help but notice a bit of jealousy and sour grapes in their criticism. They definitely think about Marines more than we did them, we were just having a great time. Maybe they realize, but will never admit, that these "uneducated half-wits" that they scoff at are actually doing something interesting and adventurous, and that their own grandchildren will not be impressed when they are shown a picture of a campus library when they ask what they did when they were young!

Unfortunately, our six weeks at Camp Fuji went by in what seemed like six days (along with my savings account). As I was heading back to base on our last day in Tokyo, watching the city lights shrink into the distance, I vowed to return to that amazing place someday.

For the final two weeks of November, before we returned to Camp Hansen and the Okinawa protests which occurred almost daily now, we were to go to a place in Northern Japan called Iwate. There we would be training with the Japanese Ground Self Defence Force (JGSDF). We almost never made it. We were riding chartered Japanese buses, and the driver kept falling asleep, almost driving the bus off a cliff several times. The LT finally put a Marine next to him to wake him up when he inevitably would doze off. We woke up the next morning to a snowy Japanese wilderness. The base we were at was definitely in the country, surrounded by mountains and forests. Most of the Japanese here had never seen Americans before, and we were told that we should not be too loud and pushy with them because even in the military here, politeness is important. After we got off the buses, we had to march like in Boot Camp to our quonset huts carrying all our gear and weapons, I'm sure we looked like shit. We're grunts, not garrison troops, we take pride in our inability to march in step. Meanwhile, all the Japanese troops stood on the side of the road watching us curiously and clapping. It was kind of strange.

They had gone to great lengths to welcome us with big signs and a nice ceremony, and we were looking forward to talking to some of them. Even our officers were not quite sure how friendly we should act to our hosts, because we did not want to insult them and none of us knew much about their culture. We were all happy and surprised to find out that they were much more easy going than we thought, and had actually planned to have a sake party for us all every few nights after training. The Japanese Army does not stay out overnight when they train. As a matter of fact, they usually are done by 4:30 everyday. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to follow their training schedule while we were there, which meant we missed a lot of sake parties. That might have been a good thing, because they were some serious drinkers. We could usually beat them arm wrestling (always part of any Japanese Army party), but they could drink us under the table. Then, after we were red-faced and stupid they would want to trade stuff, which is when we really got hurt.

A watch that looked so nice after 5 shots of sake somehow turned into a $3 piece of junk by the next morning. Our CO had to finally ban anymore trading because guys were losing their gear. Apparently, our visit was big news in the area, because we were in all the local newspapers and some of us even got to go have dinner at the Iwate Governor's estate. One of my friends, Steve, went and said that there was a huge buffet table with various samples of Japanese raw seafood and a small serving of fried chicken. He thought the fried chicken was for Americans who did not like raw fish, but he was wrong. The governor ate the fried chicken, and the Americans had to eat the raw fish! Combine that with a healthy dose of sake and beer, and Steve said he was lucky to keep his dinner down that night. Who says the Japanese don't have a sense of humor?! The JGSDF guys were also eager to watch us practice squad and platoon level assaults. They almost never do those kinds of operations, focusing instead on defensive tactics, so whenever we went out they usually accompanied us to observe. It was no accident that the Japanese army was much more timid than we were. Many people in Japan and the rest of Asia have a problem accepting that there is any military at all there, so the JGSDF is eager to put forth a very gentle and non-threatening image.

I have a hard time imagining those guys ever invading a neighboring country and committing atrocities of any kind other than getting you drunk and trading you out of all your valuable possessions. Despite that, the Japanese military does have the second largest defense budget in the world, and I couldn't help but notice state-of-the-art F-18s with a red dot painted on the wings flying overhead every now and then when we were in the field. -More Later-

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