MY PAST AS A MILITARIST

WHAT I LEARNED TRAINING TO BE AN OFFICER IN THE MARINE CORPS

Believe it or not, I did spend three years and one day as a regular officer in the United States Marine Corps. That was more than half a century ago. Consequently, what I want to recall in this brief essay will be dated. Things will have changed—for the worse, I am sure.

But more on that later.

Now I want to tell you about the eight months I spent as a new lieutenant—number 073651—in the United Sates Marines. It began in late June of 1957. There were three companies of four platoons each in my “class,” as we were called. We were almost all recent college graduates, and we probably felt more comfortable being in a “class” at Marine Corps Schools, Quantico, Virginia.

We were issued about fifty textbooks the first day. And told that we would march to meals, but could walk back to our quonset huts—each platoon had one--on our own afterwards. (No doubt we wouldn’t have found the mess hall on our own; it was a full three blocks away, and we were only college graduates and lieutenants. Still, we had been issued compasses—and maps.)

I glanced at the books, and on Friday afternoon dumped them all into the trunk of my car. Our major saw me at it. “Taking them off for the weekend to study, lieutenant?” “No, sir. I need space more than I will ever need these. They can stay in the trunk.”

Almost all of the other forty-three lieutenants studied, regularly. Nightly, during the week. And every so often we had exams—and lieutenants crammed for them. Even graduates of decent universities: Yale, Wisconsin, Colgate, Vanderbilt, Texas. When we took our exams—every two or three weeks in each of our several courses, fifty minutes’ worth—another lieutenant and I used to race to see who could finish first. The only rule was that you had to read and answer all the questions. It never took more than fifteen or twenty minutes. After eight months of this nonsense, we were first and third in our class of 600 lieutenants, academically. I was next to last, however, in everything else—manner, bearing, appearance, attitude—and was ranked third from the bottom overall at our graduation. My first fitness report said that I was a malcontent, probably a Communist, and unfit to wear the uniform; but I had regular commission—I was not a reservist, as most of us were—and therefore I was assigned to an infantry post, as a platoon commander.

The third week I was in Basic School we went out on a twenty-eight mile hike. It took us about nine hours, including stops for chow. Two weeks later the schedule came up with another such hike. I went out with everybody else, and walked for an hour or so, until it got dark. Then I just disappeared. I went to the nearest road, and hitched a ride. And another ride. (People were used to seeing Marines in their “combat” gear—though they must have wondered why I was out so late, dressed that way and carrying my rifle and a pack.)

When I got back to our Quonset hut I read for a couple of hours, and crawled into my bunk. The others got in about four or five in the morning. And our captain came in to see me.

“Blisters, Lieutenant Hornback?” he asked.

I didn’t get up—and somehow he let that pass. I should have gotten out of bed and stood at attention.

“No sir.”

“Sick?”

“No sir.”

“Then why--?”

“Because, sir, we did this a couple of weeks ago, and I discovered that I can walk twenty-eight miles with no trouble. No need to practice, sir. I can do it.”

Officers in the Marine Corps have lots of uniforms. In addition to work uniforms, we had dress greens for the winter and dress khakis for the summer. And dress blues for the winter and dress whites for the summer. And so that we could learn how to wear our fancy dresses—the blues with the red-striped trousers and the whites—each platoon had to have a mess night. My platoon elected me its president.

We were scheduled for our class’s fourth mess night. All the staff officers from the host platoon’s company were invited, and took with them their platoons’ mess presidents. Captain Austgen had to take me. I didn’t do anything bad, and I wore my dress whites well. But the day after the second one he called me in to say that I was forthwith relieved of my duties as our mess president, to be replaced by Lieutenant Howie Landis. Which was okay with me. Howie was a nice guy, a graduate of the Virginia Military Academy, and planned to make the Marine Corps his career.

Relieved of my leadership role, I devoted my energies to writing parody songs for us to sing at our mess night. I got Corporal Ruffing, our company clerk, to mimeograph the words for us, and after enough to drink, we sang them boisterously—as young combat-officers-to-be should. But the songs all mocked the military, and the Marine Corps, and all the nonsense of Basic School.

          Note the tree-line on the right,
         And the next machine-gun sight;
         With your compass you can see
         To shoot that sniper in the tree.
         Sing and shout until you’re deaf—
         Glory to the F.M.F.!

We sang that one to “Hark the Herald, Angels sing.”  And the F.M.F.--that's the "Fleet Marine Corps."  A branch of the U.S. Navy.

A few weeks later I was accepted into the Basic School Chorus. (Another irrelevant throwback to our college days.) After that I was excused from whatever we were doing every Wednesday afternoon. And then I was elected our company’s member of the 3/57 Basic School Yearbook staff—which election was nullified before I even got an afternoon off.   But I got to take a whole day off once because my congressman wanted to see me in Washington. And once General Lemuel C. Sheppard, recently retired as Commandant of the Marine Corps, wanted to speak with me. He was calling to invite another lieutenant and me to dinner.

Our major was bent much out of shape by this last above-his-head escape, and started to give me a very red-faced lecture. When he stopped for breath I told him not to worry. General Sheppard had told me we weren’t to wear our uniforms; this was an informal dinner. But Lieutenant Machenberg and I would of course need to have the afternoon off, to get ready.

I also got to spend two weeks in the hospital, recovering from “a virus of unknown etiology.” There were three other lieutenants in my ward; we played bridge until we were well.

One afternoon a captain named Stevens was supposed to give us a lecture about something. We were outside, sitting on bleachers, in the sun. When Captain Stevens was presented to us we all had to stand at attention until he gave the command “Seats!”

About ten minutes into his lecture he took off his cap to wipe his forehead. And I recognized him. Captain Alex Stevens from Gravel Switch, Kentucky. He was three years older than me. When he was in college—playing basketball—kids all called him “Gravel.”

So I shouted “Gravel!”

Everybody turned to look at me. He looked at me and said, “Jerry Hornback! I be dog!” (Gravel said “dawg.”) We both laughed, and at the end of the hour he motioned for me. We were standing in the shade a big tree when my Captain came up to claim me. Gravel stuck out his hand instead of saluting Captain Austgen, so my captain returned the civilized gesture. And then Gravel explained, “Jerry and I have known each other for years. His daddy was my basketball coach in college.” And then Gravel proposed that he would “send this boy along” when we were finished talking.

Twice I got to play platoon commander for our platoon, and both times we had an hour of marching on the drill field. One of the things you have to have to be a good Marine officer is a big voice. I have a big voice. The drill field was a paved parking lot, about the size of a football field. Platoon commanders usually march alongside their platoons, and give them commands. But when I marched our platoon I would stand in the middle of the drill field, and march them around the periphery for an hour, barking my various commands from where I stood. It was a great deal of fun—and none of our captains could do it.

The other three platoons all had marching songs. (Real Marines don’t have such, but we were still college boys, really, so we had marching songs.) There was a kids’ television program in those days, called the Mickey Mouse Club. Some of us used to watch it every now and then. The song was sort of catchy. And when kids joined the Mickey Mouse Club, they got their names read out during the program.

The first platoon belonged to Captain Bowie. They called themselves “Bowie’s Raiders,” and put a little sign up over the front door to their Quonset hut. The second were “Parker’s Barkers”—or Farkers, or Jerkers or Larkers or Narkers, or whatever. Captain Field had the fourth platoon, which called itself “Field’s Tigers.” We put a pair of wooden mouse-ears above our door, and called ourselves “Austgen’s Mice.”

Our marching song was “Mickey Mouse.” And one day I sent in the names of all forty-four of us Mouse-Lieutenants to become members of the Mickey Mouse Club—and we had our names read out on the air!

Once I was made student company commander. When the student first sergeant fell everybody in, and turned the company over to me, I returned his salute, looked at my company, and ordered them to fall out for class. That was all there was to it.

Major Thomas accosted me as I headed off toward the lecture hall.  “Lieutenant Hornback, you will never make it as an officer. Never smile at your troops. You are dismissed.”

One rainy, cold Friday afternoon we came in from waddling around in the mud at a little before five. Five was quitting time for us warriors. Before dismissing us to our quonset huts, the student company commander announced that we would have a rifle inspection in half an hour. Groans, and we all fell out.

Back in our hut, I went around and locked all four doors. Then I asked for attention. I reminded the platoon that we were “officers and gentlemen,” That we were young men supposedly in responsible positions, and that our commissions said that our government had “special trust and confidence” in us.. That we all knew how to clean our rifles, and knew what happened to them if they weren’t properly cleaned. And then I told them that we weren’t going to have our rifles inspected till Monday morning. That we would all clean our rifles, shower, and then go on liberty for the weekend.

We settled in to cleaning our rifles.The voice of the student company commander called “fall in”—but we didn’t. Again. Some of the lieutenants looked at me, worried. Then somebody tried a door, from the outside. Unable to open it, he knocked. “Third platoon, fall in!” We all sang “Mickey Mouse.” Then another knock, and another voice: “This is Captain Austgen. Fall in!” We sang “Mickey Mouse.”

A couple of minutes later yet another voice shouted,  angrily,  “Company, dismissed!”

Then a knock at our door. “It’s Corporal Ruffing. Can I speak to Lieutenant Hornback?” We let Ruffing in, and he asked what we wanted. I told him. They can inspect our rifles Monday morning at eight o’clock, I said, but now we want to go on liberty.

After a few minutes he came back, and we let him in again.  Ruffing was a bright, funny little guy.  Now he was grinning from ear to ear, but he stood at attention: after all, we were officers.

“The major says rifle inspections at eight o’clock on Monday. And he wants to see you, Lieutenant Hornback.”

I went across with Ruffing to the company headquarters quonset hut. But the major had decided—quickly—to go home. And Captain Austgen—showering-- didn’t want to talk to me at all.

All in all, Basic School wasn’t so bad. If it had been maybe three or four weeks long—and I could have stuffed the good things all into those three or four weeks—it would have been okay. But it lasted for eight full, empty months. And that was bad.

So, what did I learn in those eight months?

An officer shouldn’t smile, and must speak in a deep voice. The acronym for the principles of warfare is “MOSS COMES”—not “OOMEMSSSC.” Marines don’t call rifles “guns.” When wearing dress greens, officers carry their gloves; they do not wear them. Most officers are idiots: it’s a necessary part of the job.

It’s a wonder the U. S. military doesn’t get more people killed than it does. Maybe that’s because everybody’s military is stupid.

In learned right away that Major Thomas was a silly little fool. He wanted to be big, but wasn’t. He thought he was shrewd, but was just mean in a sort of bullyingly cowardly way. Captain Bowie was too old for his job, and delicately unfit for it; he was as out of place as an older nun in football pads. Captain Evan Parker was a rich jock who loved to show off his muscles and his Jaguar. Captain Harry Field was a very nice man of maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven who was utterly out of place in the military; the Marine Corps probably discovered that soon enough—but I hope Harry discovered it first, and resigned. Donnie Austgen was a good man, a serious and thoughtful man. I liked him a lot—even if he was a Marine. And I think he liked me—or would have, if I hadn’t been a Marine. He put up with me rather heroically.

I had learned how to take apart and clean a rifle at training camp the summer before; in Basic School I learned how to do the same to a pistol. I learned to shoot them both. And (I taught myself this) I learned not to try to fire a .45 caliber pistol with your left hand. Somehow I managed to shoot 238/250 with the rifle on record day, which was the highest in my Basic School class, so high that they had to write my name down in their record book.

I learned I could walk for twenty-eight miles. I learned how to use a compass, and how to read a topographical map. (I didn’t learn the latter very well, and in the following two years got my platoon lost frequently.) And by carrying with me at all times a page or two out of the Oscar Williams Anthology of American Poetry, I learned a lot of poems by heart.

Otherwise, I learned nothing except that I wanted out of there. After Basic School was over, I worked for a very good captain, Bob Zuern, and then for one of the best and brightest people I have ever known, Colonel Al Tillmann. And under both of those excellent officers, I worked with dozens of good young Marines: good young men who happened, briefly, to be Marines. And though the Marine Corps was wasting two or three years of their time, at least I took good care of them while they were wasting their time.

I forgot about the Marine Corps after the first of June 1960, when I was released from active duty. I was reminded of it in the fall of 1961—I was studying in Ireland at the time—by a forwarded letter telling me that I now had a top secret security clearance. I wrote back, thanking whoever it was, and asking for some Top Secret mail to look at. Then in 1963 I received a letter informing me that I had been promoted to the rank of Permanent Captain in the Marine Corps Reserve.

My brief military career was a long time after the horrors of World War II, more than ten years after the outrages of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, though in 1960 the radiation from those two nuclear bombs was still killing hundreds of people a year. It was just after the end of the United States’ non-war called the Korean War. (It was a non-war because in 1950 only Congress could declare war, so Harry Truman called the war in Korea a “police action.”)

We could expect our troops, when they came home from Korea, to act like human beings. True, they had—many of them—killed other human beings; but they hadn’t been spraying little girls with napalm, or being ordered to slaughter whole villages of men and women and children. For the most part, they were as human as soldiers can be, given what war is.

That was before that undeclared and murderous Vietnam War.   In 1966 I remembered that I had never resigned my Marine Corps commission, and did so in opposition to that war. I tried to get rid of my draft cards—males were required to carry them until they turned thirty-five—but my draft board sent them back to me.

My time in the military was long before either of the two Bush Wars, both hideously murderous, and neither of them declared by Congress. And of course my time as a Marine officer has had nothing at all to do with Barack Obama’s many shameful and obscene high-tech wars today. And it had nothing to do with the low-tech inhumanity, the barbarity of the American soldiers now collecting human fingers and human hands and a human skull or two as souvenirs of their heroic fight for whatever it is they are fighting for all over the Middle East.

Still, I was in the military. I am sorry for that. I was even part of the United States invasion of Lebanon in 1958. That was a war that we didn’t get to start. We tried, of course; and our tanks even had “tactical” nuclear weapons with them. I had seventy troops in Beirut, for eight weeks. But I didn’t issue them any bullets for their guns. I was given two vehicles with four 105mm. recoilless rifles each, but the sergeant in charge of them explained that it would be suicidal to fire those things in the city because the back-blast would knock down the buildings behind them—and all the rubble would fall on top of us.

I have never recommended the military to anyone, and never will. I used to warn young people to beware any time somebody wanted to give you a fancy uniform to wear. But that’s outdated advice now. Until recently, in the United States, people in the military were not allowed out in public—off their bases—wearing their “combat” uniforms. They had to wear their dress duds, if they wore uniforms. But now airports in the United States are full of young men and women in combat gear—reminding us that they are warriors, that they are supposed to be off killing people somewhere. I wonder when American soldiers will start coming home on leave wearing dried human fingers around their necks, or carrying souvenir arms or legs home for the folks to see.

Maybe in Basic School today young Marine Corps lieutenants are taught that such stuff is okay.  Or maybe they aren't taught anything at all--which was pretty much the way it was in Basic School fifty-five years ago.