Arrival

It was a balmy ear­ly-September evening when we await­ed the train at the South Broadway sta­tion in Lexington for the first leg of our trip to the renown – infa­mous, in the minds of some – Parris Island for the begin­ning of our Marine Corps training.

While this was the start of what I expect­ed to be a great adven­ture for me, it wasn’t until many years lat­er that I learned that my moth­er cried all the way home after tear­less­ly wav­ing me off that evening. She and my sis­ter had dri­ven me to Lexington and Don Adams, J.T. Votaw, and I were anx­ious­ly antic­i­pat­ing our depar­ture, prob­a­bly each of us with dif­fer­ent thoughts about what was in store for us.  We had all enlist­ed into the 61^st Rifle Company of the United States Marine Corps Reserve and had been await­ing this time for our basic train­ing to begin.

I guess one of the major things that pre­cip­i­tat­ed my deci­sion to join the Marines was the arrival at our school one day of two Marine recruiters, who spoke to all the male mem­bers of our class.  The draft was still in effect at the time and I knew the Army would be look­ing as soon as I turned 18.  Those two recruiters cer­tain­ly made the Marines seem more desir­able and the option of join­ing the reserves would per­mit me to get on with my life pret­ty much unim­ped­ed after six months of basic training.

Don and I grad­u­at­ed from Winchester High School the same year, 1958.  I was sworn in by a Major on July 1, 1958, who came to my house for the swear­ing-in since I did not dri­ve at the time. Not yet of age, it was nec­es­sary for my moth­er to sign per­mis­sion for me to join.  I assume she did so real­iz­ing that, with­in the month, I could sign in myself with or with­out her per­mis­sion — and July 1 was near­ly a month before my 18^th birthday. 

Don had enlist­ed a short while before me; some­how, we had both been sched­uled for boot train­ing at the same time although he could have been assigned an ear­li­er peri­od.  I don’t know when J.T. had enlist­ed.  Regardless we were all togeth­er on our way to a great adven­ture . . . or some­thing else entirely.

Boarding the train and find­ing con­ve­nient seats I, with my youth­ful igno­rance and dis­dain, gave no fur­ther thoughts to mom or home, just igno­rant­ly joy­ful at being out on my own for the first time in my life.

Oh, I had worked numer­ous jobs as a teenag­er, none for very long, but this was my first time away from home on m own.  Even a year ear­li­er, when I had flown by myself to California to spend two weeks with my sis­ter and broth­er-in-law, I was not real­ly on my own, just under the super­vi­sion of my sister.

Officially I had joined the Marine Corps Reserve and between that day and my depar­ture for Parris Island, I attend­ed reg­u­lar drill meet­ings at the Rifle Company in Lexington, com­plete­ly with­out uni­form but learn­ing some basic skills that would, with­out me know­ing it, help me through basic train­ing.  I prac­ticed the prop­er way to salute, to stand at atten­tion and parade rest and at ease and how to dis­as­sem­ble and re-assem­ble the M‑1 rifle, a weapon with which I was to become quite inti­mate in the next six years, the length of my enlistment. 

It’s real­ly odd that I can, even today, remem­ber the ser­i­al num­ber of the first rifle issued to me at the reserve cen­ter, 965695, but cer­tain­ly can­not cite the num­bers of the ones that fol­lowed. Another thing that prob­a­bly no Marine ever for­gets is his ser­vice num­ber. Mine was 1678546.  It was to be engraved on the dog tags I was to wear for the remain­der of my time in ser­vice, along with my name and blood type, a cru­cial bit of infor­ma­tion should one get wounded.

The train car­ried us east and even though much of the trip is now too cloudy to relate accu­rate­ly, I think we de-trained in Washington, D.C. and board­ed a bus which would deliv­er us to “The Island.” It’s pos­si­ble that we changed busses some­where along the way, but I hon­est­ly can’t recall much until we arrived at our final des­ti­na­tion some­time after dark, to be greet­ed by a Marine who came aboard the bus, gra­cious­ly wel­comed us to the island with pro­fan­i­ty-laden com­mands for our hasty depar­ture from the bus, to stand at atten­tion in rows to be marched to our first encounter with Marine life. 

I don’t know if this entire bus­load was to be my even­tu­al pla­toon or not.  It’s entire­ly pos­si­ble that we were split up some­how or that oth­ers were lat­er added to us to become a full train­ing pla­toon of about 80, but since the even­tu­al com­po­si­tion of the pla­toon was com­posed of guys from all over the east­ern and south­ern parts of the coun­try, it’s unlike­ly that we were all on the same bus together.

Of course, the word “march” is prob­a­bly not quite accu­rate to describe the dis­ori­ent­ed man­ner in which we shuf­fled along in the dark­ness with our mea­ger civil­ian bag­gage. That would change.