BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 3 months ago
My son’s billet has been decided (of course, as I am told by him, everything is subject to change at any time for any reason). But as of right now, he is the SAW operator (Squad Automatic Weapon). You can read about it at USMCWeapons.com and at Answers.com. He functions as the SAW gunner for his fire team. You can read about the fire team at Wikipedia. His description of Squad rushes for 6000 meters on a Friday afternoon in 90 degree F weather makes me glad that I sit behind a desk.
So now rather than just carry 40 lbs of body armor and a 100 lb backpack, he has to tote another 25-30 lbs depending on the amount of ammunition he has.
When he gets to come home on the weekends he is very tired. The Sergeant Major is an inspiration to him, though. Much older than the young Marines, all of the young ones have trouble keeping the pace he sets on “humps.”
Daniel asks for prayer regularly.
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 3 months ago
I have created a new category: Daniel. I have introduced you to him before about the time of School of Infantry graduation. I don’t know him as Private, or Smith, or as he knows himself — “grunt.” I know him as my son, Daniel.
But he currently lives in a world of very difficult training and preparation, and he knows himself as “grunt.” He is not a poag (person other than a grunt). He is infantry … boots on the ground. When the Marines go in, the ones who go in are the infantry. The others, while important, provide support to the ones who are at the tip of the spear. The Marine Corps infantry has the most dangerous job in the world (with all due respect to Alaskan Crab Fishermen).
Daniel lives in a world where they wake at 0200 hours, put on 40 pounds of body armor (18.14 kg) and 100 pound backpacks (45.4 kg) and “hump” (a very fast march, or walk) 20 miles (32.2 km). They practice “stacks” and “room-clearing” in urban warfare simulations. They get to sleep — sometimes — for a couple of hours per night when out in the field, only to wake and have to pull leeches off of each other. It is difficult to sleep, though, with artillery going and jets overhead. They train on every weapon that they might have to use, and are expected to be very good with their own weapon, the M16A2 or the M4. If you look carefully, you will notice a scar on Daniel’s neck. A hot 0.50 caliber shell, ejected from the .50 caliber machine gun, landed there in between his body armor and his neck. This scar was the result.
Boot camp was very hard (mentally hard). School of Infantry was much harder, physically speaking. Being in the “fleet” is the hardest of all (in every way). So he loves to come home on the weekend. God has blessed us, and we live close enough for Daniel to come home some weekends. He loves to disconnect from the Marines, if only for two days. In the picture below he is pontificating about something … I don’t recall what. By the way, what in the world is this deal with wearing two T-shirts at the same time? I will never understand that. The top shirt has on it: CSYO — for Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestra, that his brother gave him (who played in the symphony). Two worlds collide: The U.S. Marines, and the Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestra.
I am very worried. As the time comes for him to deploy (early 2007), I will lean heavily on others and ask for daily prayers from my readers. This will no doubt be a very difficult ride for me.
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 3 months ago
I have created a new category: Daniel. I have introduced you to him before about the time of School of Infantry graduation. I don’t know him as Private, or Smith, or as he knows himself — “grunt.” I know him as my son, Daniel.
But he currently lives in a world of very difficult training and preparation, and he knows himself as “grunt.” He is not a poag (person other than a grunt). He is infantry … boots on the ground. When the Marines go in, the ones who go in are the infantry. The others, while important, provide support to the ones who are at the tip of the spear. The Marine Corps infantry has the most dangerous job in the world (with all due respect to Alaskan Crab Fishermen).
Daniel lives in a world where they wake at 0200 hours, put on 40 pounds of body armor (18.14 kg) and 100 pound backpacks (45.4 kg) and “hump” (a very fast march, or walk) 20 miles (32.2 km). They practice “stacks” and “room-clearing” in urban warfare simulations. They get to sleep — sometimes — for a couple of hours per night when out in the field, only to wake and have to pull leeches off of each other. It is difficult to sleep, though, with artillery going and jets overhead. They train on every weapon that they might have to use, and are expected to be very good with their own weapon, the M16A2 or the M4. If you look carefully, you will notice a scar on Daniel’s neck. A hot 0.50 caliber shell, ejected from the .50 caliber machine gun, landed there in between his body armor and his neck. This scar was the result.
Boot camp was very hard (mentally hard). School of Infantry was much harder, physically speaking. Being in the “fleet” is the hardest of all (in every way). So he loves to come home on the weekend. God has blessed us, and we live close enough for Daniel to come home some weekends. He loves to disconnect from the Marines, if only for two days. In the picture below he is pontificating about something … I don’t recall what. By the way, what in the world is this deal with wearing two T-shirts at the same time? I will never understand that. The top shirt has on it: CSYO — for Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestra, that his brother gave him (who played in the symphony). Two worlds collide: The U.S. Marines, and the Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestra.
I am very worried. As the time comes for him to deploy (early 2007), I will lean heavily on others and ask for daily prayers from my readers. This will no doubt be a very difficult ride for me.
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 4 months ago
This is a very moving tribute to our fighting men. I am copying some of it below as a teaser for you to go to the link I am providing here to read the whole commentary.
War, and all of its sacrifices, hit home.
Shame on me, I thought. My job puts me in a position where I have reams of information at my disposable on what’s happening in Iraq. We’re rapidly closing in on an unfortunate casualty figure since 9/11, when we’ll have lost more American lives fighting since the attack than we did on the day itself. Talk about terrible arithmetic.
My father-in-law is a Vietnam veteran very active in veteran’s affairs. And yet only now had it really hit home. Only now, as I watched shoppers stroll comfortably in the air-conditioning, did it hit me in the gut.
[ … ]
And then I wondered about all the men and women who have come home with limbs missing, with the psychological scars war inevitably brings. We see them now, sweating in a Walter Reed rehab room. Running on their space-age titanium prosthetics, and biking across the country to raise money — reminding us at every turn of the spirit that drives this country.
But where will they be in 35 years, when youth has abandoned them and war is a distant memory for much of the country?
[ … ]
Later that night, after I’d read her stories and “lights out,” we whispered conspiratorially to each other in the dark of her room. I have few memories prior to age four, and I often remind her, in those magic moments between parent and child, to remember special days and events.
“Alexa, remember the man we met today who gave you the American flag? The soldier?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said.
“Remember.”
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 4 months ago
While at Parris Island a few months ago to see my son graduate from boot camp, I saw my son look at something he called a sand pit. He looked with loathing, and I had recalled that his letters to us discussed something he called being “pitted.” Not knowing the full story, I thought I might take a picture of it and have it for a discussion topic later on.
I recall driving on to the Island and getting out of the car to have it searched. As soon as we got out we were molested by something they lovingly call sand fleas. My forearms were bloody when I finally got back into the car, and we found out that the molestation didn’t stop in the car. Hundreds of sand fleas had made their way into the car while the doors were open.
Well, the sand fleas are especially bad in the sandy areas. The picture below is a “sand pit,” and to be pitted means to go to the sand pits and do PTs (you know, running in place, crunches, pushups, etc.). One especially bad day (his unit just couldn’t do anything right that day), the drill instructor took them away from “their” sand pit (which is the picture below), and to the sand pits belonging to the other units.
In all there are more than 60 sand pits on Parris Island. That day Daniel’s unit started at their own sand pit, and ran to the next, and then to the next … you get the picture. They went to and did PTs in 60+ sand pits on Parris Island that day. The only one they didn’t get the privilege to PT in was the drill instructor’s sand pit.
That day the platoon spent the entire day in the pits doing PTs. So one day in the future when you (i.e., civilians like me) think you have had an especially bad day, just think: Things could be worse. I could have been pitted at Parris Island all day with the sand fleas sucking my blood.
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 5 months ago
Thanks to each and every one of you for your interesting comments and kind words on my posts. I read and ponder each one, even if I don’t have the time to respond to all of them.
School of Infantry Graduation was an unremarkable ceremony. It lasted fifteen minutes and within one minute after graduation the Marines were taken by bus and picked up by the fleet at Camp Lejeune. I have many comments on things I have learned recently, but all in good time.
Here is a picture of my son Daniel immediately after graduation. After thirteen weeks of Boot Camp at Parris Island, and two months of SOI at Camp Gieger, he is glad to lose the status “student,” go to Camp Lejeune and join the fleet. It has been a hard five months.
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 5 months ago
Off to Camp Geiger, Marine Corps Air Station, New River, North Carolina (near Camp Lejeune) to see my son graduate from SOI. Graduation from Boot was filled with marching, pageantry, bands, speeches and much pomp. My understanding is that this is much more austere. Five minutes, and then they get picked up by the fleet.
Standing on the parade deck at Parris Island, S.C. My father was in the 82nd Airborne. My son, Daniel, is in the middle wearing his Marine rifle expert badge the day of graduation from Boot, in his service alphas. I am the ugly one on the right.
BY Herschel Smith
18 years, 5 months ago
We made a nice visit to our son yesterday at the School of Infantry, Camp Geiger (Marine Corps Air Station, New River, North Carolina) just near Camp Lejeune. In the barracks of Company D, the following quote hangs on the bulletin board, and is very inspirational to my son. I thought I would share it with you.
Somewhere a true believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food and water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do — his rucksack weights what is weighs, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him. The true believer doesn’t care how hard it is; he knows that he either wins or dies. He doesn’t go home at 1700; he is home. He only knows the cause. Now. Who wants to quit?
