A SUMMER ALONG THE CHOPAWAMSIC

I returned to ISU for my Junior year, eager to get back to Quantico and the PLC Senior Course.

My PLC, Sr. summer (1967) began in June. It demonstrated how much change had occurred.

In 1966, our platoon sergeant, platoon commander, and company commander had all just returned from Vietnam. By 1967, we were seeing the quick movement of seasoned NCOs and junior officers to WesPac. While our company commander, platoon sergeant and sergeant-instructor were all combat vets of Vietnam, our platoon commander was a second lieutenant who had just graduated from The Basic School and was awaiting the start of his class at Communications Officers School.

This summer, we were mainside at OCS. Our barracks was at the Chopawamsic Annex, near Marine Corps Air Station, Quantico. (OCS is located at the former “Brown Field,” the original MCAS, Quantico.)

The classes on tactics were geared to Vietnam, and it was understood that if the war was still being fought when we were commissioned, we could expect to serve there.

Leadership and physical fitness were the main thrusts of the summer, with the Reaction Course, a timed exercise in which accomplishment of the mission was not as important as the candidate leader’s exhibition of basic leadership skills. This was especially difficult because the “troops” being led were other candidates. It was sort of like watching a litter of Border Collie pups, each trying to herd the rest of the litter.

We also learned to love the Hill Trail, a hiking course over seven steep hills in the woodlands adjacent to OCS. (Two years later, in Vietnam, we were moving into the foothills of the On Tau slope, just west of the Arizona Territory. My 1967 OCS bunkie, Neil Meier, had the point. When the Skipper, Frank Satterfield, asked for the condition of the terrain, Neil replied, “It makes the Hill Trail look like a table.” Every officer in the company who heard that description groaned.)

Towards the end of the course, in mid-July, the Platoon Commander sent word for me to report to his office. When I reported, he told me that there were a few regular commissions available to candidates who requested them. I immediately requested a regular commission.

(Most officers are commissioned into the reserve component of their branch of service. Then during their initial period of active duty (3 to 10 years), they have an opportunity to “augment” into the regular branch of the service, but there is no guarantee that they will be offered a regular commission.)

Of course, we were on the drill field almost daily. Like Staff Sergeant Winston, our Platoon Sergeant, Staff Sergeant Johnston, was, a former Drill Instructor. Drill was important to them and to us. Close order drill instills instantaneous obedience to orders and is still the most effective way to move a body of troops from one place to another.

It was during this summer that I saw something that I had never seen before. Because of a typographic error in the training schedule, we were rushed out of the squad bay one day and the company moved in route step over several of the steepest hills of the Hill Trail at almost double time. It was one of those muggy days so common to northern Virginia and DC.

We arrived at the instruction site on time and were ordered to ground our gear and sit. The class was a visual demonstration of the many combat formations of the fire team and squad. The squad leader wore a red helmet, the fire team leaders, black, the automatic riflemen, silver, and riflemen, orange.

As we looked for the first formation to come out of a tree line 300 meters away, I realized that our uniforms were actually black with perspiration. Moreover, we were steaming. Clouds of steam rose from our bodies. Corpsmen were rushing among us, issuing salt tablets, and watching for heat exhaustion and heat stroke. By then, however, we were in pretty good shape and no one dropped out.

I will leave for another day the Saturday that Staff Sergeant Johnston had finally had enough of our short-timer attitude and marched us into the Chopawamsic and then had us crawl back for close order drill with our wooden footlockers. (Did you know that if you really concentrate, you can stand at “right shoulder, footlocker” for nearly thirty minutes before the numbness causes you to drop it?)

Or the day that Neal Meier was denied liberty because he was wearing black and white loafers. “Damn, Candidate. My four year old daughter wears shoes just like that.”

And, of course, the night before graduation when Sergeant Hunt sent the “God-damned Candidate Sergeant of the Guard, out of the God-damned duty hut to tell those God-damned civilians to get their God-damned civilian automobile out of his God-damned Marine Corps street,” only to find that the car belonged to an Episcopal Bishop who was bringing his son back from liberty. All turned out well, however. The Bishop was a WWII Marine rifleman who was delighted to find linguistic standards had been maintained. (I was on a working party, field-daying the duty hut and saw it all.)

When we were ordered to secure and return to the squad bay, Mrs. “Bishop” and her reeeeeeeealy good looking daughter were still sitting in the car while Dad and Sergeant Hunt shared sea stories in the Duty Hut. I never knew that Bishops could talk like that. I suppose you can take the Bishop out of the Corps, but never really take the Corps out of the Bishop.

He actually accompanied Sergeant Hunt to our squad bay for lights out. After saying a pretty nice prayer for us and our leaders, he led us in The Hymn, followed by “God bless The Platoon Sergeant. God bless my new shipmate, Sergeant Hunt. God bless the Marine Corps. And God bless Chesty Puller.”

He was pretty good—it only took us three times to reach a sound volume that made it possible for God—and the Bishop—to hear us.

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.