My Marine Corps Experience
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The Marine Corps gave me some pretty fantastic assignments, beginning with boot camp, infantry training, reconnaisance school and my first tour in combat.
My mentor in combat was Pony Monell. He was at times my reconnaissance team leader and company gunnery sergeant and later company first sergeant. Most of my combat skills come from Pony's teachings. Although I was already skilled with a map and a compass, he made me a better land navigator. And almost everything I know about supporting arms came from Pony; he taught me a myriad of ways to use artillery and how to use close air support and naval gunfire. I learned to operate in and survive combat thanks to First Sgt. Kenneth "Pony" Monell. Most of my combat experience came during 1967 and '68 with Charlie Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, running patrols deep in the Annamite Mountains of Vietnam. During half of my yearlong tour, Charlie Company combined with 1st Force Reconnaissance Company to form 1st Force Recon (Reinforced), and we operated out of the large U.S. military complex near Phu Bai, South Vietnam. Some of my times in war zones involved little or no combat. I got to draw combat pay for some fascinating duty in Saigon, Vietnam, where I was a communicator in 1969 and 1970 at the U.S. Embassy. Thirteen years later, in 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon, I drew hazardous-duty pay when I headed up a team of combat correspondents attached to the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit. While neither assignment – neither Saigon nor Beirut – put me directly into a traditional combat role, I did find myself dodging 122 mm rockets and a few small-arms rounds. My 20-year career in the Corps featured many interesting and unique assignments. I served in reconnaissance, in the infantry, on embassy duty, as a combat correspondent and photojournalist, as a liaison to the motion picture and television industry, and finally as the press chief for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve nationwide. Service Schools
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Above, I'm a teen Marine, just beginning my infantry schooling with 2nd Infantry Training Regiment at Camp Pendleton, Calif. From there, I was immersed in more infantry training at the Basic Infantry School, before eventually making it to my goal, Reconnaissance School. At the top of this page, Pony Monell, in the right foreground, forms up Charlie Company, 1st Recon Battalion, 1st Marine Division, on our company street in 1968 in Vietnam. Below, I patrol a trail on Charlie Ridge, west of Da Nang, during my first Vietnam tour, with Charlie Company. Shortly after this photo was taken, while my recon team and I took a break about 10 yards off the trail, 99 North Vietnamese Army soldiers walked past us. We remained undetected, and when the enemy troops had moved far enough up the trail, I called in an air strike.
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Vietnam
No wonder I was so swift and silent in 1967 and 1968 in Vietnam with Charlie Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division. I weighed hardly anything. Yep, I was a lean, mean, reconnaissance machine.
Lebanon
In the summer of 1983 in Beirut, I cop a squat atop the bunker my combat correspondents team and I dug and built.
Japan
Sitting in the office in 1978 in Iwakuni, Japan, I'm surrounded by some of the Corps' best writers and photographers.
France
There was nothing like liberty in Paris, where I was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in 1970 and '71.
Kansas
What?! A grip 'n' grin?! I hate grip 'n' grins! But this photo is about my only photo from Kansas – Lenexa, Kan., to be exact – where the 9th Marine Corps District was headquartered, overseeing recruiting in the Upper Midwest. Oh, this is my promotion to gunnery sergeant in 1980, and I'm flanked by Maj. Robert Stump, left, and Col. D.L. Humphries.
North Carolina
In five years at Camp Lejeune, N.C., I spent a lot of off-duty time fishing, hunting and picture-taking in the pine forests.
California
I was a Marine Corps liaison to the motion picture and television industry in the mid-1980s.
