Making The Most Of Things

Way back yonder in 1959, my Marine buddies and I, young and wild and invulnerable, partied through the Okinawa night, relieved to be in town, away from our Quonset hut camp. We were to ship out the next morning for war games so we were making the best of it while we could. I got back to camp just before dawn and showered and changed to fatigues (appropriate wear for my condition). All of us "smartasses" as we were called (and worse) were assigned to Naval Gunfire where our job was to go into enemy territory as deeply as possible and call in the coordinates of targets for the ship guns to demolish. Every boy's dream. In addition to shooting a .45 and M-1, I shot a ship. The downside was we were totally expendable. If surrounded by enemy, we were supposed to radio "Fire on me!"

So I drove to the Okinawa docks in my radio jeep to find the ship assigned to carry me to Taiwan, the site of the maneuvers. I drove aboard, chained the jeep in a spot I found in the ship's hold, found a top bunk (a piece of canvas suspended within a metal rectangle) and went to sleep. When I awoke, we were out to sea. I walked the ship and found I did not know a single person. Wrong ship.

I followed my General Survival Strategy which almost always works -- I acted like I knew what I was doing. I stood in chow lines when hungry and found a bunk when sleepy, otherwise keeping on the move and making some crucial acquaintances. All other Marines aboard were infantry -- groundpounders, grunts. I found we were going to hit the Taiwan beach in waves of landing barges. I got myself assigned to a wave and made friends with one of the ship's crane operators. He said he would lower my jeep into a landing barge when the right time came.

After a few days (the entire fleet was on the move), we were in sight of the landing beach. The maneuvers were made as real as possible, so there was a whole lot of hell going on, but with dummy ammo. Planes were diving and strafing. Large explosives were going off ashore. Men began to go down the cargo nets draped down the ship's side and fill the landing barges. The Navy dude hoisted my jeep from the hold and swung it over the side into a barge below. I climbed down the net and timed my drop. Due to the movement of the waves and the rocking of the ship and the barge, there were only certain moments to let go. I landed in the barge.

We sped away joining a moving circle of ten or so barges, all filled with men with weapons ready to hit the shore. My jeep and I were the only cargo in my barge. Uncircling into a landing pattern, we bounced full-tilt across the waves to shore. The ramp fell down and off I drove accompanied on all sides by screaming yelling men moving to close combat with other men wearing strange helmets identifying them as enemy. "Oh Yeah!" I thought, taking my camera out of the glove compartment, climbing on the hood of the jeep, snapping pictures.

"What the f**king hell are you doing here?" bellowed in my ear caught my attention. A major and a captain with "Umpire" markings on their uniforms seemed quite enraged. I followed my second General Survival Strategy -- "They told me to." The nuances of the resulting conversation escape me now, but it was definitely profanity-filled. They put a tag on my jeep that said it was out of commission due to a land mine. They put a tag on me that read "Brain Concussion" and made me lie down in the sand. I lay there listening to them talk about their lives. One of them nudged me with his foot and said to call for a medic. "I can't." More profanity. "Why the f**k not?" "I have a brain concussion." Hoo boy! That really set them off. So it's probably the first time in medical history that an unconscious man called for help.