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A secret agent can’t win a war all by himself but Archibald Gillespie tried to do it. He was a Marine. The horseman knew he was being followed. An animal perception, sharpened by loneliness and fear, told the Marine Corps lieutenant that the Indians were close on his trail. Unless he could reach Fremont’s camp by nightfall, he knew that his scalp would be passed around a Modoc campfire.

Gillespie’s scalp was not expendable. In 17 years of Marine Corps action, he had risked his neck hundreds of times. This time there was more to lose than his life. He was a confidential agent of President James K. Polk. The information he carried might decide the destiny of California.

Gillespie checked his pistols, estimated the strength left in his winded horse. The sun was low over the pines. He knew that he had two hours at the most. Then something whispered at his left ear, and a slim arrow quivered in a tree beside him. Gillespie spurred his horse and thundered through the forest.

This was Spring 1846. Seven months had passed and 8,000 miles had been covered since Gillespie had sat in the White House listening to the President’s instructions. The precise, clean-shaven Polk was concerned with one thing alone—Manifest Destiny—and moral issues didn’t enter into it. Polk wanted California. At that time California was a province of Mexico and included all of Nevada, half the state of Utah and part of Arizona. Four nations were fighting a cold war for this territorial plum: Great Britain with a good chance, France and Russia with slim chances and the United States in the golden seat. Mexico, the patsy, was taking a siesta.

There was no organized spy system then. Communications were too slow. Polk was depending on two men. One, John C. Fremont of the U.S. Topographical Engineers, operated in the California territory apparently to make maps but was actually a spy and an agent provaca­teur. The other man, Thomas O. Larkin, was American consul at Monterey.

Gillespie was dealt in on the game simply because he was a fighting ad­ven­tur­er. Polk needed a messenger—someone smart enough and tough enough to travel through several thousand miles of hostile territory and get through in one piece.
Gillespie had fought all his life. His parents in Pennsylvania had christened him Archibald, and he had left a trail of skinned noses and split lips when the boys ribbed him about it. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1828 as a private. The pay: $6 a month. In four years, he literally fought his way up to second lieutenant, which position paid the hand­some salary of $25 a month. In those days, promotions were almost impossible; they were awarded only for extraordinary heroism. No details are available as to how Gillespie made first lieutenant. He saw action on half a dozen ships and fought in the Indian Wars.

The Marine looked like a fighter. He had enormous hands, the sloping shoulders of a hitter and a tall rangy frame. A superb horseman and excellent shot, he was as equally at home with six gun and saber as he was with his two fists.

“You’ll get through,” said Polk. “If anybody can … .”
When Gillespie left the White House, the conquest of California began. Gillespie, dressed in civvies with the secret documents pinned inside his shirt, boarded a ship for Vera Cruz, Mexico. (Of course, the Panama Canal didn’t exist in those days. Ships bound for the Pacific rounded Cape Horn.)

He traveled overland by horse to Mexico City where he nearly lost his life. The Mexican Army had overthrown the government. The officers had launched a victory celebration on an ocean of tequila. They were betting on war with the Gringos and on Great Britain’s sup­port. (The Mexican ambassador had left Washington on the day of the Texas annexation.) The Mexican officers were laying bets on the cowardice of the Yanquis. To prove it, they rioted through the streets, ripping down the signs of the American merchants, and taking pot shots at any stray American businessmen they could find. Gillespie was disguised as an American businessman.

He left Mexico City faster than he’d arrived—unwounded. As soon as he had reached comparative safety, Gillespie memorized the documents he carried and built a small fire with them. If he died, the secret would go to the grave with him.
He worked his way across Mexico in spite of bandits, soldiery and hostile civilians. At Mazatlan he boarded the USS Cyane, sailed to Honolulu, and from there back to Monterey.

The first part of his mission had taken six months. He delivered the message to Thomas Larkin and shoved off immedi­ately for Yerba Buena (San Francisco) in search of Fremont.
There were all sorts of wild rumors floating around the country. Every tattered settler gave information, about Fremont and the Indians. There was talk that the Mexicans had stirred up the Indians to make war on the Americans. Gillespie rode on.

The Indians picked up his trail in Southern Oregon and stalked him at a leisurely pace, waiting for him to relax his guard, but the wary Gillespie didn’t sleep. The war party could have fallen on him in a body at any time, but they chose to wait.
Gillespie killed his horse in the ride to escape them. Just as the sun disappeared behind the trees on his third day without sleep, Gillespie reached the shore of Big Klamath Lake. A man stepped from be­hind the trees, palm held outward. Gillespie held his fire. It was Kit Carson, famed Indian fighter and advance scout for Fremont.

Gillespie’s message must have been good because Fremont and the scouts had a celebration that night. In the excitement and hullabaloo, Fremont neglected to post a guard. Even Kit Carson went to sleep with his rifle unloaded.

While the camp slept, the Modocs crept quietly upon them and split the skulls of the two men lying beside Gillespie. It was a good fight, lasting through the night and until noon the next day. Fremont and Gillespie, now second in command, trailed the Indians, killed the Modoc chieftain and most of the raiding party.

For a month, the two secret agents were a sore spot to the Navy which was trying to remain neutral until war was officially declared. Fremont and Gillespie went through California, systematically cap­tur­ing towns, fighting guerrillas, Indians, anybody who wanted a fight. Some historians say that Gillespie and Fremont were in on the birth of the Bear Flag Republic at Sonoma. (The revolutionists took over Sonoma and established a “New Texas” in California. They needed a flag. A woman sacrificed her underwear, a would-be artist painted a bear on it “that looked like a hog,” and a petticoat waved over a new republic.) The bear flag lasted less than a month, folding when the news of war reached the West Coast.

Gillespie and Fremont were now heart­ily embraced by Commodore Robert O. Stockton. Gillespie was promoted to captain and Fremont to major. With this promotion, Gillespie became the trouble shooter for the Pacific forces. He had been in hot water for a long time but it reached the boiling point in a few weeks.

Gillespie took part in most of the land­­ing operations at San Francisco, Monte­rey, San Pedro, Santa Barbara and San Diego. In two months, California had been con­quered. All known enemy forces had either laid down their arms or had been dispersed. Mexican General Castro had taken to the hills. Even the Mexican gov­ernment admitted that California was lost.

Gillespie was left in charge of San Diego with only 48 men. Gen Castro pre­pared to take the town, but Gillespie organized the settlers into a militia and showed so much strength that Castro took to his heels. This feat of holding a town in hostile territory with a handful of men snowed everybody. A week later Gillespie was in charge of Los Angeles as military commander of all Southern California while Fremont and Stockton shoved off for San Francisco where the Walla Walla Indians were reported to be on the warpath. He was allowed more men for this venture, 59 in all.

Los Angeles was a center of the Spanish population, with a proud citizenry who resented Gillespie. They had buried their silver in the hills and expected the usual treatment accorded a conquered people.

Some historians accuse Gillespie of being a petty tyrant. He established cur­fews and ordinances that irritated the people. His men, untrained roughnecks, mustered into the Navy for a short term, increased resentment. They promptly tried to drink up all the wine and aguardiente in the area—and there was plenty of it.

But the real cause of the revolt against Gillespie was the $20,000 that he had drawn from the U.S. Congress for mil­itary expenditures. As soon as the natives learned of this hunk of dough, they be­came fiery patriots. A group of adventur­ers led by Cervula Varela plotted to seize the garrison and the money.

Then Gillespie cracked down. He promptly arrested everyone who looked suspicious. He made his men snap-to. But when he looked at the proud American flag flying over his compound, he grew uneasy. The water supply was low. Provi­sions were depleted. Ammunition was short. Before Gillespie could alleviate the situation, the first attack came.

Gillespie’s men drove them back easily, and that merely increased the bitterness against him. The natives dreamed about the $20,000. Jose Maria Flores, the big shot in that area since Castro had retired from the neighborhood, heard about it and took charge. A force of 400 gathered around Flores; they unearthed the cannon which Castro had hidden in the hills and laid systematic siege to Gillespie’s command.

There was no hope for Gillespie but he wouldn’t give up. He had a few aban­doned guns which had been spiked. He drilled out the spikes, mounted them on ox carts, and improvised ammunition for them. He had never run away from a fight, and he’d be damned if he’d run away from this one.

Flores’ force grew by the hour as more patriotic Mexicans heard of the money in Gillespie’s hands. Flores met Gillespie under a flag of truce and demanded un­conditional surrender on the 25th of August. The terms of surrender were no good. Flores wanted Gillespie to lay down his arms and walk out where he could easily be shot down. Gillespie told him what he could do with his offer and warned Flores that he’d fight to the death. The Mexicans hesitated. Gillespie sent a messenger to Stockton, but there was no hope that reinforcements would arrive in time to save him.

Meanwhile Captain Watson, with 25 volunteers, rode down from the north to break the siege. He was immediately cap­tured. Gillespie’s officers and men per­suaded him to make terms. Finally with the greatest bitterness he would ever know, Gillespie exchanged prisoners, agreed to a surrender with “full honors of war” and hauled down the American flag.
That flag never left his possession in the months that followed.

It was his responsibility. He felt that he had brought dishonor to himself and to his country. He marched to San Pedro with his men, and when he learned that the Mexicans were planning to violate their agreement, he set his men aboard the Vandalia at San Pedro where they would be safe.

There was an immediate attempt to recapture Los Angeles after Captain Mervine of the Savannah arrived at San Pedro. Gillespie and his men took part in it, but the Mexicans with artillery and horses hammered away at the foot soldiers. When the Americans retired, Gillespie offered to stay in San Pedro, but Capt Mervine refused. Enough lives had been lost.

Meanwhile San Diego had been be­sieged. Gillespie was transferred there and was successful in breaking the siege. Stockton was making plans for the re­capture of Los Angeles but at this point, word was received that Colonel Stephen W. Kearney and his so-called “Army of the West” had arrived at Warner’s Pass about 50 miles east of San Diego. Some­one had to reach him in time to prevent an ambush.

Gillespie, of course, drew the assign­ment. With 26 of his ragged volunteers, he met Kearney at Warner’s Hot Springs on Dec. 5. The “Army,” consisting of less than 100 dragoons and eight officers and scouts, had marched overland from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It included the rugged Kit Carson, who got around about as much as Gillespie.

An ambush had been laid for Kearney, forming at San Pasqual, later taking posi­tions in a narrow valley behind a stream. The Mexicans were superbly mounted, armed with muskets, sabers and vicious willow lances. Their leader Dolores Higuera, “El Guero,” drew Kearney’s dra­goons into a disastrous charge by a clever fake retreat. Kearney’s horses were in no shape for a sustained gallop, and after they had strung out over several hundred yards, the Mexicans wheeled and swept back toward them. The en­gage­ment was short and bloody. In five minutes, 18 of Kearney’s men were killed, and many more were wounded.
Gillespie arrived as the Mexicans attacked. He drew his saber, spurred his horse, and drove into the thick of it. “Hold men,” he bellowed. “For God’s sake rally. Show a front. Face them.” El Guero, attracted by the loud cries, attacked Gillespie from the side and drove his bloodstained willow lance through the Marine’s cheek.

Gillespie hit the ground, fully con­scious, his face a mass of blood. He lay still, feigning death, while El Guero took his horse, saddle and even the beautiful serape lying beside the Marine. The Army of the West, now reduced to one third of its original strength was probably the most tattered, ill-fed detachment that the United States has ever mustered under her colors.
Gillespie bore a charmed life. He took part later in the overland march to Los Angeles. He led repeated charges in the battle of San Gabriel and was wounded again. He tied rags around his wounded legs and rode on to fight heroically in the Battle of La Mesa.

In January 1848, the Marine limped to the center of the plaza in Los Angeles. He carried a flag, now spotted with his own blood, but the same Stars and Stripes he had been forced to haul down four months before. He attached it to the hal­yards, gave a command, and watched Old Glory ride to the top of the mast.
That moment was his reward.

Three weeks later James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill. In the stampede that followed, Gillespie was forgotten. He earned no fame; only two history books mention his name. He stayed in the Corps until 1854, earned the title of brevet major and remained in the West until his death in San Francisco in 1871.

Executive Editor’s note: We bring you this article to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima, considered one of the Marine Corps’ touchstone battles. See page 44 to read about Harlon Block, one of the Marines who helped raise the second flag on Iwo Jima.

Robert Floyd Pounders was not the type to shrink from a chal­lenge. The self-described “scrawny country boy” refused to stay on the family farm in Pinson, Ala., while his friends went into military service. In February 1943, he presented himself at a Birmingham recruiting office, desperate to join any service that would take him—but only the Marine Corps would accept this colorblind, underweight and under­age recruit. Floyd was only 16 years old when he enlisted, but boot camp at San Diego, machine gun school at Camp Elliott and infantry training at Camp Pendleton had a transformative effect. “Aided by good food and a strict sche­dule, I gained 42 pounds, and I don’t think you could have called me fat,” he recalled. “I felt I could whip my weight in wildcats.”

As a member of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, Private Pounders crewed a heavy machine gun at the battle of Roi-Namur and carried a Browning Automatic Rifle on Saipan and Tinian. He completed three campaigns in just seven months, coming through virtually unscathed with a combat meritorious promotion to corporal and a letter of commendation for brave and efficient service. In the fall of 1944, at the ripe old age of 18, Floyd Pounders was leading a four-man fire team in a rifle platoon, training at Camp Maui and speculating about what lay ahead. Some of his buddies thought their next stop would be Japan itself—a most unwelcome prospect after facing die-hard Japanese fighters and desperate civilians in the Mariana Islands.

One morning in November, Floyd learned that his regiment was seeking volunteers for a new “Scouts and Snipers” platoon. “I don’t remember how anxious I was to volunteer, but I did anyway,” he said. “I knew that the training had to be different from the training we were doing in the rifle company.” There was another attraction for a veteran line infantryman: “I knew from experience that considering the type of fighting the Marines did, the scouting part would be minimal.” Perhaps he could pick up some new, interesting skills—and increase his chances of surviving the war. Corporal Pounders put in his name and became one of the first volunteers accepted for the platoon.

Marine Corps training for specialist “scouts and snipers” had a rough start in the World War II era. Despite the dem­onstrated value of highly trained sharpshooters in the Great War, oppor­tunities to improve on these advantages were subject to “the ebb and flow of the general pre-war indecision with regard to adopting new equipment and training personnel,” and proper evaluations of equipment and training did not begin until late 1940. The result, notes historian Peter Senich, was that on Dec. 7, 1941, “the Marine Corps was not prepared to field or equip snipers.” Nearly a year passed before dedicated training facilities could accept significant numbers of students.

Combat experiences shaped the train­ing regimen. Dismayed at the poor qual­ity of Marine patrolling on Guadalcanal, Lieutenant Colonel William J. “Wild Bill” Whaling established an on-island training program. Hand-picked volun­teers spent a few weeks with the “Whal­ing Unit” learning marksmanship and fieldcraft, stalking, laying ambushes and gathering intelligence. They were most effective when operating semi-auto­nomously in teams of two or three, de­ploying as needed to solve tricky tactical problems. Tarawa provided another stark lesson: a scout-sniper platoon could be used as shock troops, but not without prohibitively high casualties among highly trained, hard-to-replace special­ists.

On Saipan, the 4th Marine Division’s recon company had to parcel out its scout-snipers as replacements for other units, negating their combat effectiveness. The division’s report on the operation recom­mended adding a scout-sniper platoon to every infantry regiment.

First Lieutenant William T. Holder of Carbondale, Ill., took charge of the 24th Marines’ scout snipers. Described as “a little man who looked almost too young to be an officer,” the 22-year-old Bill Holder knew how to fight with every inch of his 5’6” frame.

As a junior platoon leader at Roi-Namur, he helped rally his company (F/2/24) when an exploding ammunition dump caused heavy casualties and stalled the advance. He was slammed to the ground by an artillery shell shortly after landing on Saipan, but “although painfully wounded … brilliantly led his platoon during the entire operation.” Holder’s performance earned him the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, and Fox Co was sorry to lose such “a darn good, fair, and courageous leader.”

Enthusiasm for the project was low. “They didn’t get all that many volunteers,” admitted Pounders. At the first roll call on Nov. 19, 1944, the scout-sniper platoon mustered Holder and eight enlisted men. Floyd Pounders was there with a buddy from “Baker” Company: Private First Class Charles C. DeCelles, a Gros Ventre youth from Montana commended for service on Saipan. Cpl Ben Bernal served through three battles with K/3/24; Cpl Loren T. Doerner had the same pedigree with the 4th Tank Battalion. Both wore the Purple Heart. Sergeant Ralph L. Jones was the recipient of a Silver Star for manning a mounted machine gun at Roi-Namur, and the corpsman, Hospital Apprentice 1st Class Charles “Pills” Littlefield, earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for treating wounded men under fire.

While lacking combat exper­ience, the other two volunteers at least had some advanced in­fantry training. Private Frederick J. McCarthy of South Portland, Maine, was a skilled BARman despite having only a few months in uniform. The other, PFC Frank Hatch, was coming up on two years in the Ma­rines. As the third-best shot in his recruit platoon, Hatch qualified for the “Expert” medal—“less than a dozen of us made it”—and a promotion to PFC immediately after graduation. He became a coach at the Parris Island rifle range, but the job wasn’t to his liking. “Didn’t study, didn’t advance, didn’t stay,” he said. “It was off to the Pacific to be a replacement in the 4th Marine Division.” Hatch landed in the machine-gun platoon of C/1/24 but “never did like the idea of a machine gun. I would rather connect with one bullet than spray an area with many.”

Volunteering for a sniper outfit was a no-brainer. With no more volunteers coming from the regiment, Holder turned to the 17th Replacement Draft. PFC Jack Stearn recalled sitting in an outdoor auditorium when “a lieutenant jumped on stage and said he was looking for volunteer scouts.” He received a mixture of volunteers and “voluntolds” from the group of mostly spring 1944 inductees. Stearn, one of the Marines “recommended” by a company commander, was the only one with com­bat experience. A pre-war Army enlistee, he earned a commission and served as a shore party officer on the beaches of Sicily. After multiple run-ins with a cer­tain major, First Lieutenant Stearn re­signed his commission and returned to civilian life, only to enlist in the Marine Corps one week later. He was impressed by the “higher standard, tough agenda, higher expectations [and] stern dis­cipline,” and “felt 10 feet tall the day I graduated from boot camp.”

With the platoon up to strength, Holder assigned roles to his 30 Marines. Ser­geants James D. Huff and Harry F. McFall Jr., former drill instructors, were ap­pointed platoon sergeant and platoon guide, respectively. PFC Stearn was good with maps, so Holder tapped him as a runner and radioman. Sergeant Jones took charge of 1 Squad, while the senior corporal, 18-year-old Floyd Pounders, led 2 Squad. Each squad had two groups of five men: a leader, a sniper, a rifleman/spotter, and a BAR gunner and assistant. Snipers like PFC Hatch were promised M1903 rifles with telescopic sights—as soon as any were available. They would have to make do with the M1 Garand for now.

The platoon trained separately from the rest of their regiment, practicing everything from the basics of scouting, patrolling and reconnaissance to the more complicated tasks of counter-sniping and mopping up bypassed fortifications. Holder scheduled a week-long field exer­cise, which doubled as an enjoyable goat-hunting trip through the Maui backcountry. Unfortunately, the hunt resulted in the platoon’s first casualty when a Marine was accidentally shot in the face. “I remember us carrying him on a stretcher, a bandage wound around his cheeks and head, and his eyes looking up at us,” said Hatch. A few weeks later, most of the platoon would have given anything to trade places with their injured friend.

Two last-minute additions joined the scout snipers at the very end of December—PFC Anthony J. Ranfos and Sergeant Elmer G. Smith, both combat veterans—and in mid-January, the entire 4th Marine Division embarked for Operation Detachment. The long trip was mostly unremarkable, except for the red-letter day when the snipers finally received their scoped rifles. “This was a hell of a time to get them,” Hatch said.“They needed sighting in. [I would] toss something overboard, let it float off, and shoot at it, someone beside me telling me where the bullet hit, and adjust the sights accordingly.” He couldn’t dial the weapon in precisely but figured “when we landed, I would get more practice.”

Pounders was far less flippant: when he saw topographic maps of Iwo Jima and realized it was only 600 miles from Japan, “the fear really set in and I realized that this would probably be one of the toughest battles that we had experienced. Until now the trip had been training, schooling, lounging, and eating well, but now all of a sudden things had to get serious and for real.”

As reserves, the platoon spent the better part of Feb. 19, 1945, watching the battle from the decks of USS Bayfield (APA-33). Hatch, new to combat, thought the whole spectacle “a pretty good show” until Bayfield began receiving badly wounded Marines. The less-experienced men kept up their confidence on the boat ride to the beach. PFC Stearn played “The Marines’ Hymn” on an ocarina, and Private Robert F. Ragland declared, “We’ll go through ’em like sugar through a tin horn.” Cpl Pounders thought differently. “Sgt Jones, myself, and Sgt McFall were the first ones off the landing craft,” he remembered. “I had been this route before, so I knew we must get away from the boat as soon as possible. I had no trouble getting my squad to follow me … but some of the guys who were last to get off said one of the [LCVP] gunners was hit.”

The first look at Iwo was grim. “My first sight as I climbed the beach was a vehicle like an open tank [an LVT], someone hanging half in, half out—dead,” said Hatch. Pounders noticed “more than the usual number of bodies and parts of bodies laying around … We ran past an amphibious tank with one of its tracks blown off. The vehicle was on its side. With so many bodies around, we couldn’t tell if any of them were killed when the amphib was hit.” The scout-snipers quickly dug in on a beach “white hot with artillery and mortar fire. The air was a spray of sand and jagged, mur­derous chunks of shattered shell frag­ments.” To PFC Stearn, “it seemed as if I was in a madhouse.”

At first, the scout sniper platoon functioned as intended: “running er­rands, locating lost units, and filling in gaps in the lines,” according to Pounders. They posted security around the CP at night, carried stretchers and collected identification tags from fallen Marines. Sergeant McFall led the platoon’s first successful reconnaissance patrol to caves overlooking the airfield. On their way to draw rations, Corporal Bernal and Private Carl F. Rothrock spotted two enemy soldiers in a cave and dispatched both in less than a minute. They also suffered their first combat casualties: corpsman “Pills” Littlefield on D+1, and Sgt Elmer Smith on D+2.

On one memorable night, a lone Japa­nese airplane dropped two bombs on the platoon. The first bomb, a dud, landed 4 feet from Hatch—a nasty shock when he awoke in the morning—but the other exploded near PFC Stearn’s group, caving in their foxhole. Stearn and Ranfos dug their way out, then checked on the third occupant, PFC LaRue L. Stevenson. “We saw his feet sticking out of the sand,” Stearn recalled. When we finally got him out, we laughed like crazy. Stevens was just sputtering and raising hell.” Hanging around the CP felt like sitting on a bull’s-eye. The platoon’s “restlessness and nervousness” increased, and a teenaged BARman was evacuated due to “war neurosis.”

Orders to move up toward the line felt almost like a blessing. The route led through “a broken area of death traps, blasted holes, undermined with winding labyrinths of caves,” in the words of SP3c Bryce Walton, a correspondent covering the platoon for Leatherneck magazine. At night, the island itself worked on their nerves. “They came to know the meaning of fear,” Walton continued, “fear of the unknown. The nightmare terrain, the bent dwarf trees and jumbles of rock seemed to take on life.” The Japanese were always watching. “We were hunting for snipers, and the mortars were following us,” Cpl Bernal said. “One of the mortars got me.” His long combat career was over. The same blast nicked Pvt Ragland’s leg. “Just a scratch,” he declared and continued his patrol.

Toward evening on Feb. 24, the platoon received orders to plug a dangerously wide gap between K/3/24 and E/2/25. As they moved up in a skirmish line, Japanese fire erupted all around.
“It seemed as if they were shooting from everywhere,” PFC Stearn recalled. “I zigged but didn’t zag, and seconds later felt as if I had been hit with a sledge­hammer. I grabbed my shoulder trying to stop the blood that was pouring out.” Sergeant Huff bandaged Stearn and ordered him back to the aid station—which meant running the gauntlet the other way. A sword-wielding Japanese offi­cer tried to slash at Stearn, but a quick-shooting PFC William S. North knocked Stearn to the ground, finished off the officer, then picked up his wounded buddy and ran like hell as mortars began dropping around them. Stearn survived, but his misfortune was a preview of what lay ahead.

Filling holes in the line was expected of the scout-snipers—but intended as a temporary assignment, terminating when another infantry unit took over. On the morning of Feb. 25, however, no reinforcements arrived. Instead, Holder learned that his platoon was expected to attack alongside the rifle companies. The men were tired from hours of night fighting, and although heavily armed, frontal attacks against fortifications were not part of their training. Orders were orders, and at 9:30 a.m., Holder led his platoon toward a sharp cliff a few hundred yards away.

They walked into a perfect killing field. “There was no more vegetation for cover because planes and artillery had already destroyed it,” remembered Pounders. “As we broke out into the open, all hell broke loose.” Lieutenant Holder was first to fall, blood streaming from a severe head wound. Sergeant Huff suddenly found himself in command. Ragland and Rothrock were dangerously exposed, gamely firing back at invisible enemies. Huff motioned them to a nearby crater as Sgt Ralph Jones withstood the withering crossfire to cover his buddies.

“After the three were down out of imminent danger, Jones sent a last round at the side of the cliff,” reported Walton. “Then he spun around as a return hail of machine gun fire found him.” The 1 Squad leader was dead before he hit the ground.

Huff knew at least three scout-snipers were down, but had nothing on the others. Ragland leaped into the next shell hole, landing beside Bill North and Private Edward Rindfleish Jr. North was already dead, and Rindfleish’s right arm hung useless, the bones shattered. Sgt McFall tumbled in, dragging a stunned Private John E. Sessinger. After getting the wounded men out of harm’s way, McFall and Ragland sprinted back to Huff with the casualty report. McFall brought some good news: 2 squad was taking cover in a large shell hole, mostly intact. The attack was clearly failing, and the rifle companies on the flanks were falling back to reorganize. Huff decided to follow suit—but first he had to extricate his pinned platoon.

PFC Hatch was sniping at firing ports when he got the word to withdraw. He tumbled into a hole with three other Ma­rines, almost impaling himself on their fixed bayonets. One man, nerves strained to the breaking point, urged everyone to jump and run at once. “Guess he hoped the others, not him, would be the ones to be shot at,” Hatch commented sourly. When nobody moved, the frightened Marine began repeating Hail Marys. “I countered with ‘yea, though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death.’ ” Somehow, the group made it back to relative safety.

Over in 2 Squad’s hole, Pounders was using a combat veteran’s common sense: “As far as I was concerned, we had to wait for a break or some help.” He was unmoved by McFall’s mutterings of “some­one ought to DO something,” or the sergeant’s decision to leave the hole, firing a Tommy gun at invisible enemies hundreds of yards away. When McFall’s SMG stopped, Pounders assumed he was dead. The corporal scouted a route back to their starting point, waited for the fire to die down, and led his men back with only one additional casualty. As he tried spotting positions for Sgt Huff, Pounders evidently missed seeing McFall—still alive and busy with the radio, delivering unwelcome news. The attack would resume at 1:30 p.m.

Huff did his best to even the odds, helping reestablish a machine-gun posi­tion and coordinating with the nearest company CP. An enemy bullet grazed his side as “the Japanese seemed to know another advance was gathering and were intensifying their fire.” Then a Japanese machine gun stitched across the position, and Huff cried “I’m hit!” McFall went to his aid, but the enemy was waiting. “Ragland tried to yell as he saw little puffs of dust and splintered rock run along the ground toward McFall,” wrote Walton. “Then the path of bullets traveled across the small of McFall’s back. The sergeant raised up, mumbling something towards the Japanese lines, and fell backward, firing his Tommy gun blindly.” Huff’s poncho and field glasses blunted the bullet; he was not hurt but felt sick to his stomach that McFall “died trying to save him because of a wound he didn’t even have.”

The second attack angled to the right, avoiding the open ground. Huff’s men crept cautiously through the scarred, blasted area, finding the bodies of friends along the way. One man in Pounders’ platoon stumbled into a shell hole with a dead Marine. “His mind snapped,” said Pounders, “he was crying and hanging on to me with a death grip. I can still hear him saying, ‘Floyd, you’ll be killed if you go back.’ He also kept saying he had killed the dead Marine, but he couldn’t have—he was dead long before we came up to the shell hole.” Pounders guided the broken man back to the aid station.

Finally, the scout snipers found a few deep holes in which to spend the night. “The first night up here, they had occupied 10 foxholes,” wrote Walton. “Now they did well to fill up three.” Only nine of the 32 men who landed on Iwo were left to hold the line. The dead included Sergeants Jones and McFall, PFC North, and Private Arling F. Derhammer; PFC Ranfos died of wounds three days later. Seven were evacuated with bloody wounds; five more suffered the effects of blast concussion or “war neurosis.” Frank Hatch maintained his composure all day but lost it when he realized how many friends were gone. “Boy, did I cry and cry,” he recalled. “They thought I was going to crack up.”

After Feb. 25, the ruined platoon “was used in perimeter defense of the CP until near the end of the operation.” All of the survivors were suffering shock to some degree; their recollections of the follow­ing weeks are somewhat jumbled and contradictory, a blur of mop-up missions, filling holes in the line, helping wounded Marines and searching Japanese bodies. On March 15, a front-line outfit actually requested a counter-sniper mission. Pounders collected Hatch, who was thrilled to have live targets in his sights at last, and Private Marion W. “Buddy” Saucerman with a BAR for protection. The trio crept up a small hill overlooking Japanese territory and watched their foes moving supplies into a cave. One un­for­tunate soldier carried his heavy buckets into Hatch’s crosshairs. “Hatch fired,” Pounders said.

“The [enemy] threw up both arms, his buckets went tumbling, and he grabbed the cheeks of his buttocks and ran into the cave.” Hatch chambered another round and Pounders cheered, “You hit him in the ass!”

As the scouts climbed down to check their handiwork, a Japanese machine gun opened fire on Saucerman. “I heard the snapping of bullets, and he went down in a heap, a bullet across the back of one hand opening a furrow half and inch or more deep, and one leg busted up so the foot was facing the opposite direction it should,” said Hatch. “I was in shock, and others had to grab me and pull me down.” Saucerman and the redoubtable Private Ragland were evacuated, becoming the platoon’s last casualties.

Floyd Pounders had one more sorrow­ful task to complete before leaving the island. Graves Registration accounted for every fallen scout sniper save one: Sergeant Harry McFall. “It seemed I was the only person who knew where McFall was killed and could remember how to get back to that point,” Pounders said. He led a collection party back to the battlefield of Feb. 25 and quickly found the fallen Marine. “He was on his back. Someone had cut all his pockets and removed his watch, dog tags, and all the identification he had on him. Scavenger hunters! They had taken everything ex­cept his clothes.” After lying unburied for 20 days, McFall’s body hardly looked human.

“The only way I could be sure it was Sgt McFall was by the type of clothes he was wearing and that he was in the same place he had fallen earlier,” Pounders said. “His clothes also had laundry marks to identify him.”

In their first and only campaign, the Scout Sniper Platoon, 24th Marines, suffered nearly 80% casualties. They received little recognition, individually or as a unit, for their sacrifices: a few Bronze Stars, many Purple Hearts, and the May 1945 Leatherneck article “To­ward the Ridge” by Bryce Walton. The survivors, though, never forgot their role at Iwo Jima.

“Sometimes I felt that we were real workhorses, and then at others, I felt that we were just a few to add to the total number necessary to take a place like Iwo,” Pounders wrote. “Every man there was a hero as far as I’m concerned. No matter what his job was, he helped secure the island, and that was what we were sent to do. If you lived to write about it, well … that was something else.”

Author’s note: Frank Charles Hatch died on March 16, 1989, followed by Robert Floyd Pounders Jr., on March 18, 2020. The last surviving 24th Marines Scout Sniper, Marion Wayne Saucerman, passed away on May 2, 2023, at the age of 97.
The author wishes to thank Joseph Hatch for providing the memoirs of Frank Hatch and Floyd Pounders and for his invaluable assistance with this article.

Author’s bio: Geoffrey W. Roecker is a researcher and writer based in upstate New York. His extensive writings on the World War II history of 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, is available online at www.1-24thmarines.com. Roecker is the author of “Leaving Mac Behind: The Lost Marines of Guadal­canal” and advocates for the return of missing personnel at www.missingmarines.com.

With the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific and the growth of the San Francisco Bay area military infrastructure, the United States Marine Corps expanded its presence along with the Navy. In addition to the service at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, the Marines eventually operated a large logistics center in Oakland, training facilities such as Camp Parks in Dublin, Calif., and U.S. Naval Magazine Port Chicago (later the Naval Weapons Station), Concord, Calif.

As a result of the large Marine presence in the Bay area and emerging out of ne­ces­sity in 1946, the Marine Corps decided it needed to provide a place to commem­orate the exploits of Marines in the Pacific and provide a place for leather­necks and their families to visit.

So, in 1946, after Marine Corps Com­mandant General Alexander A. Vandegrift pro­posed establishing a memorial to the Marine Corps sacrifice during the war that he directed the purchase of the Ma­rines’ Memorial as “A tribute to those Marines who have gone before; and a service to those who carry on.” With the blessings of the Secretary of the Navy, assisted by a very motivated group of Ma­rines, a building to suit the purpose was purchased in San Francisco in 1946 and, with the grand opening on Nov. 10, 1947, the Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel (MMC&H) was established.

Built in 1926 on the corner of Sutter and Mason Streets, at 609 Sutter Street, the Beaux Arts-style building originally served as the Western Women’s Club and was later leased to the Navy for service as a Women Accepted for Volunteer Emer­gency Service (WAVES) barracks in 1942. With the Japanese surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, the United States embarked on an aggressive demobilization plan that saw the Marine Corps reduced from a wartime high of six divisions, five air wings, and supporting troops and many of these returning Marines—those not on occupation duty in Japan or China—passed under the Golden Gate Bridge and arrived in the Bay Area for demobilization.

Initially opened as a memorial to Ma­rines who fought and died in the Pacific, the Marines’ Memorial served as a way­station for Marines and their families as they processed out of the Corps and provided them with an affordable place to stay in a busy and relatively expensive San Francisco. For its 78 years in service to members and veterans of the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, and the Space Force, the Marines’ Memorial has become a fixture to Bay Area visitors and veterans .The MMC&H still stands out as both a veteran landmark and a hospitality hot spot.

“San Francisco was their last stop be­fore war, and a lot of them came back here and made their fortunes,” said Lieu­tenant General Mike Rocco, USMC (Ret), President and CEO of Marines’ Memorial Association & Foundation, about World War II Marine veterans. “It is just an in­credibly historic city.”

The military history of the San Fran­cisco Bay Area dates back to the mid-19th century when the United States occupied the Presidio in 1846 during the Mexican-American War, which ended with the American conquest of California. (Ex­ecu­tive Editor’s note: see page 18 for more about the Mexican-American War.) Following the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and during the California Gold Rush (1848-1855), California was granted statehood in 1850. In that year, the U.S. military establishment of the U.S. Army garrison at Fort Point (at the Golden Gate), on Alcatraz and the Pre­sidio ensured the security of San Fran­cisco Bay. In 1854, the Naval Shipyard Mare Island (NSYMI) in Vallejo was established, followed by construction of the Marine Barracks in 1862 under the command of Major Addison Garland.

At Mare Island (and later Hunters’ Point), the Marines were responsible for guarding critical infrastructure and normal shipboard duties as Marines did then. In 1912, the Marine presence at Mare Island—after the closing of a similar facility in Puget Sound—became the sole Marine Corps western recruit depot until it was replaced by Marine Base San Diego and later renamed MCRD San Diego in 1921. In the meantime, the Marine Barracks at Mare Island remained a mainstay of the Marines’ enduring pres­ence in the Bay Area and boasted one of the best Bay area football teams. During WW II and later during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Bay area became a major arrival and departure point for Marines heading to and from the Pacific theater.

After the MMC&H was opened, senior Marine leaders acknowledged they needed to hand over the hotel and hos­pitality business and the Marines’ Memo­rial Association was established to run the club and hotel. As it happened, the Marines’ Memorial Association, now a 501(c) (19) veteran nonprofit organization, was established and took over running the Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel was the first of its kind “Living Memorial” in the United States, offering historic exhibits featuring American military history from all eras, and a library and museum with artifacts and books donated by grateful members, veterans and their families. Over the years, the Marines Memorial Association evolved into a vibrant social and hospitality destination for members of the Armed Services and civilians alike.

In 2015, the Marines’ Memorial Foun­da­tion, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, was founded by the Marines’ Memorial Association Board, driven by the As­so­ci­ation’s success and the desire of mem­bers and patriots to provide additional support.

The foundation offers giving programs and direct support to the Ma­rines’ Memorial Association, enhancing its efforts to honor the sacrifices of vet­erans and their families. Through the foundation, supporters and donors can contribute to and engage in the Associa­tion’s enduring mission to educate, com­memorate, and serve active-duty service­members, veterans and their families, en­suring that their sacrifices are rec­ognized and remembered. There are cur­rently 20,000 primary and associate (family) members.

Replete with Marine Corps and other Services’ memorabilia, the Marines’ Memorial celebrates servicemembers of all eras, and each floor is adorned with military memorabilia from past and recent conflicts.

The historic exhibits are widespread throughout the facility and include a Memorial Wall on the 10th floor mezzanine that recognizes servicemembers from all service branches that paid the ultimate price for their country since 9/11.

Lieutenant General David A. Ottignon, USMC (Ret) was particularly impressed with the wall. The recently retired Com­manding General of II Marine Expedi­tionary Force first stayed at the hotel in 2008 after participating in combat oper­ations in Operation Iraqi Freedom a few years earlier.

“When the war [on terror] really got going, the [Tribute Memorial Wall] was really moving,” said Ottignon. “… The Marines that have fallen that we served with, to see them on the wall, it’s a very moving experience.”

The Ames Library—LtGen Rocco’s favorite room in the hotel—houses an attractive collection of books and artifacts donated by servicemembers of all eras and serves as a quiet place for members and guests to settle in with a daily news­paper or one of the many books from the stacks.

According to LtGen Rocco, the hotel will be spending the next several years dedicating specific floors to each service branch. A groundbreaking was held in November in which they unveiled the yellow footprints on the Marine Corps floor, symbolizing the first steps recruits make as they walk onto Parris Island for the first time.

With 136 guest rooms, two spacious ballrooms, and professional meeting rooms, the MMC&H is more than simply a hotel or living memorial. The MMC&H offers a restaurant, a business center, a three-lane 25-yard lap pool, a contempo­rary fitness center, a 500-plus person theatre, and routinely offers events such as its “Leading from the Front” and “Meet the Author Series” that feature current military and civilian leaders and authors.

The MMC&H also hosts annual events throughout the year, including Marine Corps Birthday Balls that feature senior Marine leaders as guests of honor like Ottignon.
In addition to Club events, the MMC&H routinely hosts retirements, conferences, weddings and the annual San Francisco Fleet Week.

“They really go to the nines right around our birthday,” Ottignon said. “The community gets to see the Marines in blues, and [the hotel] has tie-ins to Fleet Week. They see [the Marines] congregate around the hotel and the light bulb goes on [for the public].”

The Marines Memorial Association and Foundation also hosts an annual Gold Star Parents event to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice and an annual scholarship program for members, their children, grandchildren and active and veteran servicemembers, all provided by generous donations from members and the public.

The MMC&H is renowned for its unique hospitality which is highlighted by free breakfast and happy hour at Chesty’s Bar and Grill on the 12th Floor where hotel guests enjoy complimentary drinks while catching up with old brothers-in-arms, all while enjoying the gorgeous views of downtown San Francisco. Two years ago, some of the last Marines to have fought at Guadalcanal took home a bottle of 1917 French cognac that was being stored at the hotel bar since World War II.

“Sergeant Major [Troy] Black was our guest of honor, so we took [the bottle] down and gave it to the members of the 1st Marine Division and they took it down to Camp Pendleton,” LtGen Rocco said.

Membership is available to all cur­rent­ly serving, active-duty and reserve, vet­eran, and retired members and fam­ilies of all the uniformed services, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Ad­mini­­stration (NOAA), the U.S. Na­tion­al Health Service (USPHS) Commis­sioned Corps, the Air and Army National Guard, ROTC/Military Academy cadets and midshipmen and all ranks are eligible to join. Annual membership for active-duty servicemembers is free when they sign up on site.

Joining the Marines’ Memorial As­socia­tion has advantages even for those who cannot visit the Bay Area. Member­ship dues are tax deductible and help support the Marines’ Memorial Associa­tion services and programs for service­members and their families. Additional membership benefits include exceptional rates on over-night accommodations, a home-away-from-home in downtown San Francisco and the opportunity to meet and socialize with their fellow veterans and retirees, they also have access to more than 240 reciprocal clubs throughout the world where they enjoy the same high-quality accommodations at deeply discounted room rates. Some of the reciprocal clubs included are: The Army and Navy Club and the Georgetown Club in Washington, D.C.; the New York Athletic Club in New York City; the Coronado Cays Yacht Club near San Diego; and London’s Victory Services Club. In addition, members’ dues and guests’ fees also help to support the MMC&H’s outreach efforts including scholarships, professional and commem­ora­tive events, the Ames’ library and Living Memorial displays throughout the club and hotel.

From its original inception of serving Marines and their families as a place to recover from grueling Pacific duty to providing an exceptional living me­mo­rial to those who have gone before, the Ma­rines’ Memorial Club & Hotel continues to serve and to hold a special place in the hearts of all armed servicemembers everywhere. For more information, visit www
.mmaf1946.org.

Author’s bio: Kipp Hanley is the deputy editor for Leatherneck Magazine and resident of Woodbridge, Va. The award-winning journalist has covered a variety of topics in his writing career including the military, government, education, business and sports.

Executive Editor’s note: Fifty years ago, Leatherneck began looking ahead to the Marine Corps’ 200th Birthday, and started a series in the magazine called Giants of the Corps. As we are poised to celebrate another milestone birthday, we thought it fitting to revisit this article about the 5th Commandant of the Marine Corps, Brevet Brigadier General Archibald Henderson. In this month’s magazine, we are focusing on the years 1820-1840. Henderson, known as the “Grand Old Man of the Marine Corps,” was appointed Commandant in 1820 and served in that role for 38 years, shaping the legacy and traditions of the Marine Corps for years to come.

As Marines prepare to step into the third century of service to their country, it is well that we pause, reflecting on the actions, words and lives of some of the great Americans who gave so much to our Corps.

When President James Monroe appointed Brevet Major Archibald Henderson a lieutenant colonel and Commandant of the Marine Corps on Jan. 2, 1821, with date of commission of Oct. 17, 1820, he christened what has come to be known as “The Henderson Era.”

It is difficult to imagine Archibald Henderson as anything but the Commandant. It was as though he were destined for the awesome responsibilities of the office. His tenure of office was to last for 38 years of growth, tradition, respect and new glory.
There are many legends concerning the service, determination and “spirit” of General Henderson. “Spirit” defined in this case as “mind and temperament” and as an “apparition.”

Born in January 1783, he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps in June 1806. As a captain during the War of 1812, he served aboard the frigate Constitution and participated in the engagements against the Java, Cyane and Levant. With less than 15 years of service as a Marine, he was appointed Commandant!

He took over at a poor time. He had inherited a Corps weakened in morale. A private received between 6 and 10 dollars a month, and chances are, he didn’t draw even that amount. It was believed at that time that desertion could be discouraged by withholding a small percentage of a man’s pay until the individual’s enlistment had expired.

NCO’s pay started at $8, and climbed to $17, the pay of a sergeant major. Second lieutenants received $25. The Commandant was paid $75 a month.

Henderson lost no time in building what he envisioned to be “the finest military organization in the world.” He personally led an extensive inspection tour of men, gear and stations. He found his men serving with the attitude that nobody cared.
He reasoned that his Corps would be no better than its officers, and therefore stationed all newly appointed officers at his own headquarters, Marine Barracks, Washington. There they would receive his personal supervision before being assigned to sea duty.

Morale began to climb as the men realized that the Commandant himself was personally supervising all matters pertaining to their pay and allowances.

How was his morale about this time? A 39-year-old bachelor, he married 19-year-old Anne Maria Casenove in October 1822. The couple moved directly into the Home of the Commandants.
While preparing for a reception the young wife asked: “What are those tables for?”

“Why, for playing cards,” a servant told her. “Gentlemen always play cards after supper.”

“Well,” said the new mistress of the Home of the Commandant, “you may just put them away. No cards will ever be played in my house!”

Anne Maria Henderson’s first directive in the house on “G” Street was upheld for the 36 years she lived there. Six children were born to the Hendersons while they occupied the house. Archibald Henderson’s first decade as Commandant provided him time to achieve the efficiency in both the ranks and administration that he sought.

In 1824, during the Boston Fire, his Marines were called out for rescue work and additional police duties to prevent looting following the holocaust.

Not long after, one officer and 30 Marines quelled a riot of 238 prisoners in the Massachusetts State Prison when the situation became too desperate for local authorities to handle.
These incidents and others like them, although unfortunate, were exactly what Henderson needed to bring his Corps into sharp focus with the American public, for the Commandant had long recognized the political advantages which would follow—if the Marines gained outstanding popularity with the public.
His “community relations” program was to pay off on Feb. 20, 1829, when the Center Building was destroyed by fire. The Commandant reported in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Samuel T. Southard:

“The fire is supposed to have been caused by burning the chimneys in the forenoon, and to have communicated itself to the interior of the third story by some imperfection in them. The two wings were saved by the preserving and arduous exertions of the different fire companies, and the citizens generally. …”
Indians in Florida massacred an Army column in December 1835. Florida slaves had, for a long while, been making their escapes permanent by joining the Seminole Indians, often intermarrying.

Southern landowners complained to the government, and finally, a treaty was made with the Seminoles. Under the terms, the Indians would be taken under federal protection and assigned to reservations. The Indians, however, rebelled when they discovered that the reservations were situated in the territory that is now the state of Arizona.

“Snow covers the ground,” they reported, “and frost chills the bodies of men.” The bronzed Seminoles, who had for centuries lived in the balmy, breezes of Florida, were not to freeze in Arizona.

During early 1836, the Army had borne the combat load, playing a frustrating game of chase with the elusive Indians in the Everglades. Marines of the frigate Constellation, the sloop St. Louis and the sloop Vandalia had participated in the fighting.
Early in spring, Commandant Henderson wrote a letter to President Andrew Jackson, volunteering a regiment of Marines to support the Army. On May 21, the President accepted, ordering all available Marines to report to the Army.

Henderson, then 53, chose to lead his men in the swamps of the Everglades in pursuit of the Seminoles. Gathering together nearly all his officers, he reduced shore station detachments to a mere sergeant’s guard, and leaving behind only those unfit for duty, he managed to muster almost half the entire strength of his Corps.

On June 1, 1836, he placed LtCol R. D. Wainwright in charge of the Marine Barracks, “8th and I.”
“I leave you a most valuable soldier in the sergeant major,” Henderson wrote Wainwright, “whose health entirely incapacitates him from going on the expedition. He is anxious to go, but as a matter of duty, I have ordered him to remain, as I cannot take any other than able-bodied men on such arduous Service.”

In spite of the letter to Wainwright placing him in command, the legend persists that the Commandant closed up Headquarters Marine Corps, locked his door and tacked up a sign which read: “Have gone to Florida to fight the Indians. Will be back when the war is over. A. Henderson, Col., Commandant.”
While Henderson and his force of 38 officers and 424 enlisted were in Florida, his losses were heavy. He returned to Washington in the summer of 1837. He had lost 61 Marines in combat, but in addition, he had “lost” two companies totaling 189 men and officers who had remained behind. These men were stationed along the Florida coast, around the Keys, and with the Mosquito Fleet.

With his entire Corps numbering less than 1,000 men, the Commandant was having difficulty fulfilling his commitments without the loss of two companies serving where he considered their presence unnecessary.

He spent the next five years battling to get them back, stating that he no longer had “men sufficient even for an ordinary morning parade, or for a company drill.” Henderson was also fighting a battle with the Treasury Department.
While he was absent on the Seminole Campaign, the Commandant’s Quartermaster “requisitioned” a Nott stove for use in the Henderson home.

The Commandant, upon his return, was informed that the stove was apparently a luxury item, and therefore, not something for which the U.S. government would pay. He received a bill in May. Another bill arrived in June. The letter he received dated July 14, 1838, read in part:

“For Nott Stove, $98.80. … To the liquidation of which I have to call your attention, otherwise the Pay Master will be instructed to Check the amount from your pay.” Could the Commandant’s pay be “docked” for a “luxury” item …. a stove?
Evidently approval by the Secretary of the Navy for payment of the stove came later, since no further correspondence ensued. … Unless, of course, Henderson paid for the stove himself, which is doubtful.

“The Henderson Era” brought continued changes. On July 4, 1840, Commandant Henderson issued orders that the Marine uniform would be changed from green to blue with scarlet trim. In 1842, he requisitioned artillery for training purposes at Headquarters, New York, Boston, Norfolk, Philadelphia, Portsmouth and Pensacola.

The Commandant noted that various Navy Yards had begun to develop libraries, and in September 1843, he addressed the Secretary of the Navy, requesting books.
There are 54 titles on the list he submitted, but not one of them appears to have been intended for off-duty, pleasure reading. “Maury’s Navigation” and Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” were included, as well as “An Encyclopedia (Cheap Edition).”

During the next three years, unrest began to grow in a vast piece of real estate, called by the Mexicans, “Tejas.” Here, in this sparsely settled land, Americans had built homes and formed the Republic of Texas. The “republic” had been admitted to the Union, but a controversy over the designation of the Rio Grande as a boundary rekindled old Mexican contentions for ownership.
Battles had already begun to rage when, on May 12, 1846, the United States formally declared war on Mexico.

By this time, Archibald Henderson was 63 years of age. He decided to remain at home, directing the destinies of the Corps from the Marine Barracks. A Marine regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Watson was assigned to support the Army under the command of Lieutenant General Winfield Scott.

The newly formed regiment of Fort Hamilton, N.Y., was joined by 63 Marines of the Washington Barracks, and they sailed for Vera Cruz. The Marines were first a brigade with the 2nd Pennsylvania Volunteers, in reserve. When Scott attacked the approaches to the Citadel of Chapultepec, he found Mexican resistance furious and formidable. He called the Marines.

Two assault parties of more than 500 Marines, along with Army volunteers, were formed to spearhead the attack. A pioneer force of 70 Marines was equipped with scaling ladders, crowbars and pickaxes. At dawn, following a heavy shelling, the Marines ramrodded through. The general attack was a bloody hand-to-hand battle of bayonets, swords and rifle butts.

In his report to Henderson, General Scott said of the Marines, “I placed them where the hardest work was to be accomplished, and I never once found my confidence in them misplaced.”
The decade following the close of the Mexican War was an interlude of uneasy peace for Henderson’s Corps. On Oct. 31, 1850, its strength was 70 officers and 1,210 enlisted. While about half the Corps was engaged in training and shore duty, Marines serving as ship’s detachments were going ashore to protect American lives and property in Latin America.
In 1833, Marines played an important role in peaceful missions to persuade Japan to open her trade to the world.

In 1856, U.S. ships were in Chinese waters, landing Marines to protect American property. At Canton, 181 Marines and Sailors went ashore, where they manned fortifications around the American compound. On their return to their ships, a Chinese fort opened fire on the men.

In answer to the unprovoked act, the American ships began a series of attacks on Chinese forts until Nov. 16, 1856, when an emissary of the Imperial Commissioner of Canton came aboard the American flagship to apologize. That ended the hostilities.

A few blocks from his own doorstep, Commandant Henderson could hear the rumblings of trouble in 1857, when election issues were being bitterly contested. In a desperate attempt to control the election, the “Know Nothing” Party had brought in gangs of hired thugs, known as the “Plug Uglies,” from Baltimore to threaten physical harm to the voters and eventually seize the polling places throughout the Capital to halt the elections.

Civil authorities, unable to quell the rioting, asked the President for help. He went to Henderson, who was directed to send the entire force from the Marine Barracks to prevent bloodshed at the polls.

“The force,” the Commandant wrote in a report, “was prepared with all possible dispatch and the cartridge boxes filled with ball cartridges. … It was formed in line, and I addressed a few words to the troops.”
Henderson, now 74, did not attempt to lead them, but he did stroll in civilian clothes, toward City Hall. He arrived as the Marines were deploying in front of the building.

“I repaired to the office of the Mayor,” Henderson’s report stated, “and offered my services to him, as a citizen to aid him in the performance of his duty. He accepted my offer very cordially.”

Henderson followed the mayor into the streets, where they heard rumors that a cannon had been set up near the market. Determining that the rumors were true, Henderson instructed one of his companies to capture it.
Henderson himself strolled through the crowd and to the rear of the gun. Advancing toward the muzzle (placing himself between the gun and advancing Marines) the Commandant instructed: “Now is the time to order the capture!”

He then directed Maj Zeilin, “the soldiers, quick, quick,” and with a rapid charge, the rioters were driven from the gun.
After the capture of the cannon, the Plug Uglies continued to fire pistols. Marines returned the fire. Believing that the skirmish was over, Henderson ordered the Marines to hold their fire.

“A man came rapidly through one of the openings in the Market House,” Henderson wrote, “discharging a pistol in the direction of a sergeant and myself, then turned to save himself by flight … I jumped forward and seized him by the collar and made him my prisoner. …”

In 1858, the strength of the Corps was at a new high of 63 officers and 1,789 enlisted and its reputation as a dependable force in readiness had reached an unprecedented stature.
It was on this excellent plane of efficiency that Archibald Henderson left his beloved Corps, when on Jan. 6, 1859, he returned from a walk to Alexandria, laid down on a sofa before supper and died quietly in his sleep.

Funeral services for Brevet Brigadier General Henderson were conducted at the Marine Barracks. President James Buchanan, his Cabinet and many high-ranking officers of other services attended. The President is said to have walked behind the hearse from the Barracks to the old Congressional Cemetery where the Commandant was interred. His wife followed him in death 13 days later.

One son, Charles A. Henderson, a second lieutenant in the Corps, had fought in the Mexican War and served his father as an aide. With the approach of the Civil War, he resigned his commission to join the Confederate States Marine Corps, remaining loyal to Virginia, his father’s native state.
There is a legend that he willed the house on “G” Street to his wife. The legend is easily disproved.

But there are other Henderson legends that are more difficult to explain. The wife of a much later Commandant awoke during her first night in the house and found an elderly man with a white fringed beard and wearing a historic Marine dress uniform, sitting quietly in a chair before the smoldering embers of her bedroom fireplace. Aware that his presence had been observed, the man arose, bowed politely and vanished.

The following morning, she described her visitor of the previous night. When the Commandant returned home that evening, he brought with him a portrait of General Henderson.
“That,” said his wife, looking intently at the painting, “is the gray-bearded gentleman who was in my room last night!”
Many years later, Feb. 13, 1945, General Thomas Holcomb was entertaining dinner guests. He mentioned that, among other affairs that day, he had signed an order establishing the Women’s Reserve.

“Old Archibald,” he said, “would turn over in his grave if he ever found out that females could become commissioned officers in his beloved Marine Corps!” Scarcely had the words been said when Henderson’s portrait crashed to the floor.

If, indeed, these legends of Henderson’s metaphysical visitations are true, it may also be true that he reserves his manifestations for the old house, knowing that his spirit with which the young Marine Corps was so thoroughly imbued, still remains strong in the Marine of today, who needs no reminder from the past to help him uphold the glory of his Corps.

In this digital age, video games have become a more common pastime for many people. With newer technology, better graphics, game variety, as well as top-notch game development teams that constantly strive to improve and in­novate new ways to enhance a player’s in-
game experience, it’s no surprise that “competitive gaming” has become some­thing of a sport. Electronic sports, or “esports,” is a form of competition that uses video games as the playing field.

Esports include much of the same structure as traditional sports. There are leagues, professional teams and coaches. During tournaments teams can win trophies and cash prizes. In fact, some esports players can even gain spon­sorships on streaming platforms like Twitch. Though not all of them are con­sidered professionals, you can find “gamers” in nearly every community or organization you could think of, including the Armed Forces.

In May 2022, the military gaming community’s competitive drive was put to the test when the U.S. Air Force, in tandem with the Armed Forces Sports program, hosted the first ever Armed Forces Esports Championship in San Antonio, Texas. This tournament was marked as the first federally sanctioned esports competition, and the first gaming program officially adopted by the Armed Forces Sports program. The competition was held during FORCECON, a massive military gaming and technology event that celebrates the intersection of video games, technology and innovation. Ma­rine Corps Gaming (MCG), an esports organization created by Marines, put together a team of Halo players along with a professional Halo coach to represent the Corps as they faced off against players from the Army, Air Force, Navy, Space Force and Coast Guard.

The game used as the playing field was Halo: Infinite, a team-based, science fiction first-person shooter (FPS) game that offers both single and multi-player experiences for its users. The tournament utilized Halo’s game modes “King-of-the-hill,” where each team’s goal was to maintain control of the objective at any cost, and “Team Slayer,” where the first team to reach 50 eliminations won the round. Scores were based on the number of rounds won or lost within a match, making teamwork and communication vital to move forward and compete against the next team.

MCG placed third in the tournament overall after defeating the Space Force, Navy, and Coast Guard gaming teams. And though FORCECON’s all-service esports competition was the first time a group of Marines had participated in a large-scale gaming event officially sanctioned by the government, competing against peers, other services and allied forces is nothing new for Marines. But as gaming continues to grow, so does the need to create a space for the community of Ma­rine gamers within the Corps. MCG works to build that community for its members, giving them a platform of their own, created by their own, with a mission to connect all Marines who share the Corps’ “fighting spirit” and have a passion for esports and video games.

After being founded conceptually in 2020, MCG officially hit the ground run­ning in 2021, when they built a community platform utilizing Discord—a voice, video and text chat program that allows its users to create community servers that its members can use regularly. But having a community space didn’t serve much of a purpose without any Marines to occupy it. The next step was to broad­cast MCG’s existence to any Marines who may be interested in joining.

“After that [the Discord] was established, we launched the website and reached out to every Single Marine Program across the service to spread the word. Additionally, we leveraged social media, word of mouth and in-person activations to share the community with Marines,” said Staff Sergeant Ian Mills, an imagery analysis specialist stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico and current director of MCG.

After launching the organization’s official website later that same year, MCG has also established itself on other social platforms like Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram and LinkedIn, where they have amassed over 3,000 followers across all four sites. As their organization gains more traction, MCG hopes to continue building a more consistent presence on streaming and video platforms like Twitch and YouTube as they continue competing against other services and allied military esports teams. To do that, MCG develops teams that specialize in a specific game to represent the Corps at events. But in most cases, their selection system differs from that of esports organizations outside of the Armed Forces.

Professional esports organizations have a different team building structure than that of military esports groups like MCG. In most cases, esports organiza­tions can choose to officially play as many games as they want, but each game played only has a small set of designated players called a “standing team” that specializes in one game. And much like in traditional sports, when a player is selected to play on a team, they sign a contract and join the organization as a “pro.” Similarly, these teams have sub­stitute and alternate players who can take the spot of a standing team member if they were unable to play. In either case, those predetermined teams go on to participate in the annual tournaments for their specialty game. Tenure for members of these teams can last for long periods of time, especially if contracts are re­newed, making the available spots for new players rare. But due to the volume of individuals associated with MCG and the organization’s purpose as a com­munity hub, team selection requires a different approach.

“Marine Corps Gaming really doesn’t have a standing team. We build teams as the requirement comes about,” said SSgt Mills. As a free-to-join, interest-based organization, any group of Marines who have formed or are interested in forming a team have a chance to compete at larger scale events. Marines meet, form teams and communicate with each other through the organization’s official server on Dis­cord.

From there, MCG leadership posts announcements for events and gaming tournaments. Marines who have a team and are interested in competing can apply to play. If there is a large interest in one game, MCG holds a “qualifier” tourna­ment, and the team that wins represents the Marine Corps as the current standing team for that event. “Marines also under­stand that they have to be in good stand­ing. So, you can’t have any administrative issues, legal issues, any type of BCP or RCP. You have to be physically fit and mentally fit to participate. We still hold the same standards and want Marines to be at their best while competing at the highest level,” said Mills.

There are multiple national and inter­national events that MCG attends like the Call of Duty (CoD) Endowment Bowl, presented by USAA, which raises funds to help veterans secure quality jobs after their service. MCG also regularly attends the United Service Organization’s (USO) Commanders Cup, which features teams from different services that specialize in Rocket League, an arcade-style ve­hicular soccer game. But gaming events and championship tournaments don’t exclusively determine what games Ma­rines at MCG play. Though games like Rocket League, Call of Duty and Halo have a larger group of players, MCG still has Marines who play games like Overwatch, World of Warcraft and much more. Even Marines who are interested in competing individually through fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, or sports games like Madden or the NBA2k video game series, can compete if the need arises.

“We had two Marines competing in the USO Salute to the Service Madden tournament,” Mills said. “Those Marines got the opportunity to travel to Las Vegas to compete in the grand finals and won their respective brackets. With those winnings they won all expense paid tickets to bring a plus one to the Super Bowl. One of those Marines got PTAD during his deployment to go to the Super Bowl. So he was on ship, and his CO signed a letter to get him off ship to go.”
Marines at MCG are stepping up to the challenge and competing to win, not just during the tournament but also in the moments leading up to it. They are constantly preparing for the next event by running practice drills with fellow Marines and participating in scrimmages with civilian teams and sister services.

“They also have meetings; they go through field review. They’re treating this like a real-deal job,” said Mills. With guidance from the team captain and in­structional support from the team coach, Marine esports gamers are learning how to improve positions, work as a team and be more aware of themselves and others to become an intimidating force that can put any opposing team’s skill to the test.

Though connecting through a shared interest in video games is at the heart of MCG, the organization offers more to its Marines than just the opportunity to compete. It also gives Marines the chance to lead. Staff Sergeant Zachariah Shanahan sets the example of discipline, commitment and leadership for his teammates as the captain of MCG’s Call of Duty team. After completing his duties as a formal school’s instructor during the day, SSgt Shanahan dedicates his free time to pursuing his passion for competitive gaming.

“I’ve been a fan of competitive Call of Duty for a very long time, and I’ve been playing games since I was a kid,” he said. “As a family, we would play ‘Pac-Man World 2’ on the PlayStation 2. We played it in the living room all the time. And so, I kind of started liking games from there.”

Shortly after the release of the “Cold War” game season of Call of Duty Warzone in 2021, SSgt Shanahan began searching for gaming groups within the Corps, hoping to find others in the service who shared a similar passion.

“I wanted to know if the Marine Corps had anything … so, I just Googled Marine Corps esports and Marine Corps Gam­ing’s website popped up,” SSgt Shanahan said. “I went to the Discord, got in contact with Ian [SSgt Mills] about competitive Call of Duty and now, after two years we have a good relationship with each other … I’m more or less his right-hand man through all things MCG and spe­cifically CoD.”

As team captain, SSgt Shanahan leads from within the game, maintaining a positive mindset and competitive drive, not only for himself, but for other Marines on the team. When practicing against rival teams in scrimmages, it’s easy to feel the need to come out on top. SSgt Shanahan reminds his teammates that, while winning is the goal, it doesn’t always help the group play better as a team.

“A lot of people view scrimming as ‘You need to slam every team you play’… when in reality it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “If we win every map, but we’re not learning from anything, the practice was pointless. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like losing, but those are the practices we learn a lot from. We always try, at least when we’re scrimmaging now and we’re booking scrims, to find a team that’s just maybe one or two steps ahead of us so we can learn from them.”

In esports, players also utilize a gamer­tag, similar to a “call sign,” to identify themselves and others on different teams. These players often have a personal con­­nection to these names. Like other Marines at MCG, SSgt Shanahan uses a gamertag when he competes. SSgt Shanahan’s gamertag symbolizes his connection to the “Origins” map in Call of Duty Black Ops II’s “zombies” mode. “When I first really started streaming [on Twitch], I played zombies a lot. My favorite map was Origins, and I was really good at it,” he said. “I called myself a God at the map, so my gamertag became ‘Zach_theOG’, Zack the Origins God.” While there is no official rule in creating a gamertag, typically the goal is for the name to be concise, and intimidating. “We recently played the Royal Air Force and one of their player’s names was … Fluffy Hippo, and that name doesn’t scare anybody,” SSgt Shanahan said. “One of our players just changed his gamertag last year. It used to be ‘IconicXLegends,’ which also doesn’t scare anybody. He changed it to ‘Mills.’ Short, sweet, and way more intimidating.”

In addition to his work as a team captain, SSgt Shanahan has taken on coaching responsibilities within the MCG Call of Duty community. In May 2023, a team of Marines traveled to Toronto, Canada, to participate in the Call of Duty League tournament hosted by Toronto Ultra, a professional Canadian Call of Duty esports team. SSgt Shanahan rep­resented the Corps as a coach, in­structing a team of four other Marines on the stand­ing team roster. But coaching is more than just knowing the game. The job of the coach extends outside of the in-game role of the team captain.

“Coaches have to not only be exper­ienced in the game but be able to manage a team inside and outside of a video game,” said SSgt Mills. “It takes an ex­ceptional level of maturity to be able to coach because not only are you managing a team inside a game, understanding how the game functions, and how the team functions inside of a game, but you’re also expected to manage personnel … that requires a level of tact and expertise that I would expect a senior NCO or a staff NCO to have.”

At times, esports coaches end up managing more than coaching, and this is also true for coaches at MCG, especial­ly when organizing and clearing Marines to attend events. Ensuring that team mem­bers have approval from their command, have adequate leave, and have no admin­­istrative issues are just a few of the things coaches do to support their standing team members.

Aside from virtual community spaces like Discord, MCG also encourages its members to meet their fellow Marine gamers off-screen, in places like the USO Quantico Gaming Center, which opened Feb. 17, 2022. The gaming center acts as a community hub for Marines to relax and game with fellow servicemembers. Present at the grand opening ceremony was Sergeant Major Troy E. Black, 19th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, who spoke to Marines about the evolution of gaming and its importance in connecting Marines with their brothers and sisters in arms. The center houses multiple com­puters built to run high resolution games, virtual reality machines, tabletop arcade games and more.

The organization is also in the process of becoming officially endorsed by the Marine Corps, which could open oppor­tunities for Marines to be evaluated and improve upon their Marine Corps com­petencies while participating in an activity that they have a deep-seated passion for. Marine Corps Gaming en­visions a future where gaming enabled training tools can be utilized to increase force readiness and lethality while supporting Marines and their quality of life by utilizing re­sources like the Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) program, the Single Marine Program (SMP) and Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS). But despite the potential training and resource benefits that an endorsement could provide, MCG is and has always been a community space for Marine gamers to share their love for video games, not to replicate combat in any way.

“We’re not using video games to re­place the war fighting function that Ma­rines do,” SSgt Mills said. “It’s an entertainment medium. At best it can be a training medium, but it will never replace the realism of warfare, and we’ll never aim to do that in this community.”

Instead, MCG looks to innovate ways to incorporate new players with seasoned competitive gamers. One of those avenues involves the creation of “game academies” for high traffic games. These academies are designed to help new players build the skills they need to compete while working toward a spot on one of the competitive rosters that represent the Corps at tournaments and other gaming-related events.

“Anybody can join the organization, it’s welcome to all. If you want to play, you’ll get your shot to play,” said SSgt Shanahan.

MCG’s goal is to build a community and foster camaraderie among fellow Marine gamers. Whether Marines join to play casually or on a competitive roster, MCG is an organization that encourages its Marines to communicate and work together. It’s also an organization that challenges Marines to push themselves and to constantly strive for improvement.

But most importantly, MCG works to break down barriers and create an even playing field for all Marines who call themselves gamers. At MCG, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re sta­tioned or why you decided to join. It’s the work you put in and the connections you make that count. In the years since its inception, MCG has solidified itself as a platform for Marines to expand upon what the Corps has taught them and show the best versions of themselves to each other and any opposing team they face.

Author’s bio: Briesa Koch currently works as an information professional at the Richmond Public Library and is earning her MLIS at Old Dominion University with a concentration in archives and special collections. Koch is a former editorial assistant for Leatherneck.

In May 2024, a group of Marine officers rallied together for a final time in Las Vegas. The event marked the eighth official reunion these veterans have held over the last 26 years. A trag­ically dwindling number of attendees, now all in their 80s or 90s, faithfully journeyed to the gatherings, recognizing the opportunities to embrace and re­con­nect with their brothers are coming to an end. Like Marines of any age who have earned the eagle, globe and anchor, these veterans have felt the immense pride and impact that accomplishment brings. Unlike many of us, however, they have had a lifetime of experience and reflection to understand how the bonds they formed long ago would affect them so deeply. Many of the group remained in the Marine Corps for their entire career, retiring as general officers or colonels. Still more left the Corps as soon as their initial contract ended, finding success in the civilian world. For all, the bond they share reaches back to the early 1960s on the island of Oahu.

Fresh from The Basic School, the newly minted lieutenants arrived at their first duty station with the “Pineapple Marines” in Hawaii. It was a unique time and place for them to serve together. The nation prepared for large-scale conflict in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the individuals stationed with the 1st Marine Brigade in Kaneohe Bay were isolated from events happening around the world. The single Marines living in the Bachelor Officer Quarters spent every day with each other, some of them for several years. The married Marines settled their families into the cramped base housing and watched their children play all weekend while their wives formed friendships as lasting as their own. Simply being on the island, away from anyone else they knew and insulated from outside communi­cation, forced the Marines and their fam­ilies to establish a tight-knit community.

“I think the reason we’ve stayed to­gether is because we knew each other before we ever went to combat,” said Edwin Nash, a platoon commander with 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion attached to the brigade. “We trained together, our families knew each other, and that was true for the officers and the enlisted. I knew my NCOs and their families, and they knew mine. That was a tie that I don’t think was found in a lot of other units.”

Everything changed in March 1965. With little notice, the brigade received orders to embark on ships bound for Cal­ifor­nia. Operation Silver Lance, the largest amphibious landing exercise since World War II, was taking place at Camp Pendleton. The generals in charge wanted the Pineapple Marines there for support. Across the island, Marines rushed to settle their families and put their affairs in order, not knowing when they were leav­ing or how long they would be gone. Wayne Henderson had just joined the brigade as a new artillery forward observer in late February. His wife gave birth to their first child shortly after they arrived.

“They put me on leave so I could take care of my wife and the baby and get them home,” Henderson remembered. “We were still on a waiting list for base housing when I got a call from one of the sergeants in our battery and he said, ‘Hey lieutenant, grab your 782 gear. We’re having a recall.’ I told my wife we were having some sort of drill, and I’d give her a call later to let her know what was going on. That was the last time I got to speak with her before we left. We loaded the ships that night. I left her in a motel with our firstborn, and since we weren’t on base, she had no idea where I went or what was happening.”

The ships departed Pearl Harbor from the south side of Oahu. A few Marines aboard noted their immediate right turn out of Mamala Bay with confusion. For most, reality struck home the following morning.

“I remember waking up on ship and realizing the sun was coming up behind me,” said Nash. “It was supposed to be coming up in front of me! And that’s when I knew we weren’t going to California.”

“Everything started to get filled in that we were going to Okinawa to stage before heading into Vietnam, wherever that was,” said Brian Fagan, a young infantry officer in 1965 who eventually retired as a col­onel. “It was all just Southeast Asia or French Indochina to us. But we were so tight that I really think it didn’t matter where the Marine Corps was going to send us. We were going to go, we were prepared to go. We worked hard and were very proud of that. We didn’t know much, but the theme was, ‘Home Alive in ’65.’ We didn’t know how long it would take, but we figured we’d put a couple reg­iments online, sweep through South Viet­nam, and come home.”

The green lieutenants followed the ex­amples set by their leadership once they arrived in the combat zone. Nearly all the senior enlisted and officers were vet­erans of World War II or the Korean War. At that time, they were not yet called “the greatest generation.” Still, the young Marines stood in awe of them and rec­ognized the place they earned in Marine Corps history.

Starting at the top, Marion E. Carl commanded the brigade. Carl achieved renown as the Marine Corps’ first fighter pilot ace, flying at Midway and Guadalcanal and earning two Navy Crosses and five Distinguished Flying Crosses. Closer to the grunts, battalion commanders such as Joseph R. “Bull” Fisher, a Navy Cross recipient from the Chosin Reservoir, commanded 2nd Bat­talion, 4th Marines. Alfred I. “A.I.” Thomas commanded the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines leading up to their deploy­ment to Vietnam. A recipient of his first Silver Star from the landing on Iwo Jima, and his next two from the battle at Chosin Reservoir, Thomas played a critical role in preparing his Marines for combat. His successor, Harold D. “Bud” Fredericks, another hero of the Korean War, took the battalion into Vietnam.

“I remember our first night out there in country,” said Kent Valley, a platoon commander serving under Fredericks in 1/4. “We got the troops all dug in, we got the command post all set up, perimeter security was out, and everybody was feel­­ing jumpy. All of the sudden, I heard this, ‘BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!’ Two or three fighting holes around the perim­eter just opened up. I don’t know what the hell they were shooting at. I got a call down to the command post, so I ran down there. I reported in and Bud Fredericks looked at me with those steel blue eyes and said, ‘Lieutenant, I haven’t heard this much shooting since the Chosin Reser­voir! There’s nobody out there, damnit!’ So, I ran back out and yelled at everybody to cease fire.”

They did not know it at the time, but the brigade’s deployment as a whole unit also proved a unique combat experience. These Marines who lived together and trained together for so long in Hawaii went to war together, where the bonds they had already forged were tested and cemented in the ultimate high-stakes setting. Before their deployment ended, the Marine Corps adjusted its methods of sending fresh troops into combat.

“There was a big change when the Ma­rine Corps suddenly realized that if they didn’t do some personnel changes, the units who went over initially were all going to leave at the same time,” stated Gary Brown, a platoon commander with 2/4 who received two Silver Stars and a Purple Heart, eventually retiring as a brigadier general in 1993. “In my bat­talion, we had to put together a company and send it off to another battalion. In turn, we received another company of Marines with much later rotation dates. We absorbed them and they became part of the battalion, but it wasn’t like working with the men we had trained with, de­ployed with, and fought with for five or six months. It made me really appreciate my time with all the Marines I worked with in Hawaii before we deployed.”

Throughout their time in combat, the quality of the Pineapple Marines was put to the test time and time again. Many highly decorated individuals emerged. The list of men like Gary Brown, who received one or multiple Silver Stars, is impressive in length. Martin Brandtner, then an infantry officer in 1/4, on a later deployment became one of only two Marines from the Vietnam War to earn two Navy Crosses. In 2005, more than a decade after retiring as a lieutenant general, Brandtner wrote a letter to A.I. Thomas, his first commanding officer in Hawaii, crediting Thomas’s leadership as the foundation of his distinguished career.

“For the record, sir, I want you to know that serving under your command in that magnificent battalion was one of the truly great experiences of my life. You provided me and every Marine in that battalion with the greatest example of outstanding leadership that any of us had ever seen—or were ever to see.”
The veterans solemnly remember their brothers who did not return home. They proudly tell stories of men such as Frank Reasoner, a Recon lieutenant who deployed with them. In July 1965, Reasoner led a Recon patrol deep be­hind enemy lines where the Marines encountered nearly 100 Viet Cong. The lieutenant courageously fought to protect his men as several fell wounded until he was cut down by an enemy machine gun. For his heroic actions and sacrifice, Reasoner posthumously received the Medal of Honor.

The officer group of Pineapple Marines dispersed after their Vietnam deployment ended in 1966. Some like Gary Brown and Martin Brandtner remained on active duty and returned to combat. Others, like Edwin Nash or Kent Valley, moved on to civilian life. Their paths would not converge as a whole again for more than 30 years.

Some of the Pineapple Marines main­tained their relationships in small groups. On his first day in the Marine Corps at TBS, Kent Valley met another brand new lieutenant named Ed Roski. The two immediately bonded. They went through training together, arrived in Hawaii to­gether, deployed to Vietnam together and left active duty together. During Oper­ation Starlight in August 1965, Roski was wounded multiple times, re­ceiving two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. In the civilian world, Roski joined his father’s real estate company in Cal­ifornia in 1966 and brought Valley on as part of the team. Roski eventually took over the company and, over the last 60 years, transformed it into one of the largest, privately held business park de­velopment companies in the nation. He is also co-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings.

Valley remembers the first Gulf War as his initial motivation for reconnecting with more veterans from their original Hawaiian group. Images from the con­flict played on TV, featuring senior Marines such as Robert B. Johnston, then a major general serving as Norman Schwarzkopf’s Chief of Staff, and Michael Myatt, the brigadier general in command of the 1st Marine Division and a Silver Star recipient during his time as a lieutenant in Vietnam. Valley recognized the faces as two young offi­cers who were with him in Hawaii.

“Desert Storm was the first time after I got out of the Marine Corps that I really thought about it,” Valley said. “Seeing General Myatt with his Marines, watch­ing Bob Johnston debrief the nation. I called Ed up and said, ‘oh my gosh, we’ve got a bunch of our guys who are running this thing right now.’”

Another small group of Pineapple Marines, Pete Paffrath, John Martin, and Lynn Terry, reminisced about their Marine Corps experiences over the years during an annual backpacking trip in the High Sierra. In the late 1990s, they decided to call some men with whom they had served about a reunion. Paffrath, then an IBM executive, called Roski, who was intrigued by the idea and said, “I own a hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Let’s have it there, and I’ll host the event.”

The Pineapple Marines finally gathered for the first time in 1998. Forty-five vet­erans attended the inaugural reunion, many with their wives, hosted and funded by Roski. All young men the last time they saw each other, the veterans were shocked by the outstanding levels of success their peers had found in every walk of life. Six became Marine Corps general officers, with many more retiring as colonels. Others, like Roski, found success in the business world; with one be­coming CEO of two fortune 500 com­panies and another founding a multi-billion dollar medical supply company. One became the deputy director of the CIA, while another served as the chief legal counsel for a global pharmaceutical and medical device company. They were teachers, authors, physicians, psychothera­­­pists, lawyers, ranchers; their live­s after the Marines as varied as their origins be­fore the Corps assembled them all in H­awaii.

“The number of guys and their wives who are giving back to society, doing something beyond themselves, is over the top,” said Father John Martin, an in­fantry officer who now serves as a Jesuit priest in California. “That speaks to the basic goodness of these men. I am always energized seeing that goodness.”

Many of the veterans entered the re­union hesitantly, having kept their demons from Vietnam locked away for 30­ years. If ever a place could exist where those memories might be safely unearthed, the reunion seemed hopeful. Everyone dis­covered the decades-long interruption in their friendships meant little.
“There’s something about going to war together that is unlike anything else,” reflected Nash. “You spent time doing something together when you were at the top of your game. You got to know these people in a way that you don’t get to know anybody else. You put more emphasis on what you shared together than you do on your differences, and that’s not normal. Everyone always wants to get all upset about differences. So, when you get back together with these folks, it’s like you were there yesterday. It’s like you can almost finish a sentence you started years ago.”

“For a long time, there were no re­unions,” stated Henderson. “We just sort of ducked and covered and didn’t talk about Vietnam because you never knew what you were going to encounter. So, at first, the reunions were a little tentative, but ever since they have been so uplifting and life-affirming. Marines have very low-maintenance relationships. We may not see each other for a couple years, but we always pick up right where we left off. It goes unspoken, but we know how deeply we love and care for each other.”

The Marines attending the first reunion found their rekindled relationships just as important and perhaps even more im­pactful now in retirement than the friendships they formed in Hawaii and Vietnam in the 1960s. In the years since, the Pineapple Marines have held a total of eight reunions, seven graciously hosted in Las Vegas by Roski, and one at the Marines’ Memorial Club in San Francisco, Calif.

“The Pineapple Marines is the only reunion group I have ever attended,” said Lloyd Brinson, a former artillery officer and retired teacher and school administrator. “I lived in denial about Viet­nam for nearly 30 years. These reunions have helped me finally settle the beasts that have been running around in my life for so long.”

“There is a lot of storytelling at the reunions, stories of what people lived through in Vietnam,” said Paffrath. “Things that people had questions about that they just wanted to talk to someone else about. I think that has been very therapeutic.”
The Pineapple Marines revere their time together in Hawaii for bringing them all together. Their bond, however, stems not from the island. Their connection, exponentially more important as the decades have passed, comes from the title they earned as Marines. Whether they spent their entire career wearing the uniform, or left active duty after coming home from Vietnam, all find their sense of identity equally tied to the Corps.

“My Marine Corps experience took a guy who was less than outstanding, and probably ended up not outstanding, but at least I could walk among people who were outstanding without looking totally out of place,” said Bob Morrison, a Silver Star recipient who is the retired CEO of Quaker and Kraft Foods. “It gave me a great deal of confidence. It was the most important four years of my development. I really grew up, learned to trust people, and hopefully learned to be trustworthy.”
“The Marine Corps imbues something inside of you that changes you, and any time you meet another Marine, even if you didn’t serve with them, there’s some kind of simpatico thing going on,” said Paffrath. “You can call it a fraternity if you want, but it’s more like a religion.”

Today, the Pineapple Marines support active-duty servicemembers and veterans younger than themselves through numer­ous nonprofit organizations or events in their local areas. To them, they can never give back enough to account for every­thing they have gained from their time in the service and the brotherhood they have perpetuated. The Pineapple Marines have dedicated their lives to fulfilling the oath they took when accepting their commission so long ago.
“It’s a commitment to integrity,” re­flected Father Martin. “That is a com­mit­ment not fulfilled in any four-year contract. It is something you work on your entire life.”

Author’s bio: Kyle Watts is the staff writer for Leatherneck. He served on active duty in the Marine Corps as a communications officer from 2009-13. He is the 2019 winner of the Colonel Robert Debs Heinl Jr. Award for Marine Corps History. He lives in Richmond, Va., with his wife and three children.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the December 2016 issue of Leatherneck Magazine. It is being re-published in remembrance of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Sergeant Delmar “Dick” Lewis was exhausted. Having recently returned to Hawaii after being sent to build airstrips on the islands in the Central Pacific, he was preparing to relieve the guard who was on duty at Ford Island a few minutes before 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941.

“Four of us were standing there at the end of the runway,” Lewis recalled in a later interview, “and I looked over my shoulder and saw these planes flying right at us. I thought they were Army planes at first and wondered why they were flying maneuvers on Sunday morning,” Lewis said.

“Then I noticed … meatballs on the wings and wondered why they covered up the stars on the bottom of the wings. That’s how dumb I was at first. Then I saw something coming out of the planes and didn’t know what it was that was hitting the airstrip and making fire jump off the runway. ‘That looks funny,’ I said. ‘They’re throwing something that’s landing on the ground out there.’
“They were still quite a ways away from us, and pretty soon something went, ‘Yiiinnnggg,’ and I went end over end. I got a ricocheted bullet in my right shoulder. And I knew it was for real then.”

Bleeding badly, Lewis yanked off his dungaree jacket to get down to his under­shirt, which he tore off. He used his fingers to push the shirt into the hole in his shoulder to stop the bleeding. But his arm was hanging straight down and he couldn’t move it.

“We’re under attack, boys,” Lewis shouted, watching the Japanese airplanes fly over the island. “This is the real thing.”

By that time the smoke was beginning to billow up over the harbor. Lewis said they were on the other end of Ford Island, about 3 miles from Battleship Row, and smoke was billowing up over the hangars, too. Aircraft were folded up and burning right in front of them.

“There was a big stack of empty, 50-­gallon oil drums out there, not far from where we were standing, and I think the plane that did get me was after [the] drums, thinking they were probably full of gasoline. They were shot full of holes and nothing happened, and he didn’t waste any more rounds,” said Lewis.

Lewis said he tried to find a corpsman.

“I was walking,” he said, “and I was better off than a lot of others and didn’t find one who wasn’t busy.”

Since he couldn’t get medical attention, Lewis and the three other Marines tried to get a boat back to Marine Corps Air Station Ewa at Barbers Point, where they previously had been stationed and had built an airstrip before going to the Central Pacific.

According to Lewis, the four of them couldn’t find a boat, so they volunteered to help remove the dead and wounded in Pearl Harbor. Later, when they finally got near Ewa, they were able to go ashore and found that it had been hit hard.
“They destroyed about every … plane at Ewa,” Lewis said. “We were an army without anything to fight with. I only had a .45, and you can’t shoot planes with a .45.”

Lewis received medical attention on the base, but went back to duty after the wound was dressed and bandaged. “I don’t need to be in the hospital,” Lewis told the medical personnel.

Like many men who joined the military during the Great Depression, Lewis had traveled around the country looking for work. Originally from Illinois, he spent the majority of his life farming, but went to Chicago in November 1939.
“I’d hitchhiked around 25 states looking for work. I’d hear of a job somewhere and take off for it but never found much. I finally got tired of it in Chicago and joined the Marine Corps.”

Assigned to the Marine air wing in San Diego, Lewis met pilot Loren “Doc” Everton and served with him through the first years in the Pacific in what became Marine Fighting Squadron (VMF) 212. They served together again during a sec­ond tour in the Pacific from September 1943 to November 1944, when Everton took command of VMF-113. Everton was awarded the Navy Cross and a Distin­guished Flying Cross for his service.

In VMF-113 pilot Andrew Jones’ book, “The Corsair Years,” he writes: “Doc Everton’s devotion to his people paid off not only in up-and-down loyalty, but in horizontal lockstep at every level. It was much in evidence among the salty non-coms he’d hand-picked for enlisted leader­ship—Sully and John Cates, Delmar Lewis and Nick Sheppard, George Duffy, Abie Greenhouse, Jack Carol, Al Ackerman, Fred Scroggins and my plane captain, Joe Gonzales, to name a few. Some of them had served with him before Pearl Harbor. They called themselves ‘the airfield build­ers’ for they had prepared the airstrips and built facilities at Ewa, Espiritu Santos, Efate, Guadalcanal and here on Engebi, and they had let it be known throughout the organization that they would lay a strip down the mainstream of hell if Doc asked them to.”
In early 1941, the forward echelon was sent to Ewa to build an airfield at Barbers Point.

“When we first went out there, we called it Ewa Mooring Mast,” Lewis said. “You won’t find many people that know that, but there was a big old mooring mast out there. They were looking around to see how it would be to have those big dirigibles haul people from the States out there. Of course that didn’t work out, but this moor­ing mast was a place they could land in. And around that we build an airstrip.”

From there, they went to Guam and other islands building airstrips in prepara­tion for the war Lewis said they felt was coming. “… We went on to Midway and helped build an airstrip on Eastern Island and got on ship and came back to Ewa on the fourth or fifth of December. And we came into Pearl Harbor and unloaded all our planes and things,” said Lewis.

“And for some reason, right then they took a number of ships out. Now I’m not talking about battleships. I’m talking about troop transport ships like I was on. [They took them] out in the ocean so these bigger ships, the battleships, could come in. Lots of our material went back out. We hadn’t gotten it all unloaded yet—and I was down at Ford Island, which is right in the middle of Pearl Harbor. I was sergeant of the guard, and I was off at 8 o’clock that morning. I’d gone out to relieve the old guard and put the new guard on.”

The enemy aircraft flew over the moun­tain range to the north, over Schofield Bar­racks, and came right in over Barbers Point, Lewis said. Another group came down the middle over the bay and Aiea Heights.

“They never did realize they were flying over the tank farm on the other side of Aiea Heights where there was 50-75 30,000-barrel tanks with tanker oil for the ships. They never strafed or bombed that area,” Lewis said.
“We couldn’t get off the island; other guys wanting to get on couldn’t get on. I saw them bring in Navy men. Well, they could have been Navy or Marines. They were bringing them off the ships. They brought them in in front of that administration building, which was prob­ably a block long. It had a big arched drive in front of it and a sidewalk in front of it and a piece of grass between the sidewalk and the building. They brought them in there, [they were] covered in tar and oil, dead, and I saw a stack of men there when I went around trying to find a doctor to do something for me,” said Lewis.

“For the full length of that administration building, which I’m going say was 200 feet, there were bodies stacked up four and five high like cord wood,” Lewis said, because when the men were pulled out of the water, there wasn’t anything that could be done to save them.

The men had been blown off the ships out into the oil-covered harbor.
“Most of it was burning and they jumped in it, then they had to come back up through it and come right back up in the fire. They had oil all over them and they couldn’t see anything over their head and face. And a lot of [men burned] to death right there … . That night, after that hectic day, wherever you were, it was a good idea to stay there or you could get shot. You could hear machine-gun and rifle fire all night. Everybody was gun happy that night.”
Within a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lewis said, volunteers were asked to man the forward echelon “going south.” They didn’t know where there were going, but they thought they were going right into battle.
“They sent us to Johnston Island and we built an airstrip, then we went to Palmyra [Atoll] and we built an airstrip and went on down to the Hebrides Island.”

Lewis spent more than six years in the Marine Corps, including two different tours in the Pacific. He was discharged on Dec. 7, 1945, exactly four years after he was first wounded while relieving the guard on Ford Island on the morning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
“What I saw there … is still very, very vivid in my mind,” he said in an interview a few years before his death in 2005. “They killed more than 2,000 men [2,403 killed and 1,178 wounded] and destroyed our battleships and planes. I couldn’t believe we let them drive up to our back door and shoot us. But that’s exactly what they did.”

Author’s bio: Marine veteran Ray Elliott is an English and journalism educator who has written three novels and edited numerous others. He was communications director of the Iwo Jima Association of America and Black Sands editor, and currently edits The Spearhead News for the Fifth Marine Division Association and serves as its secretary. The three-time president of the James Jones Literary Society, he worked as the military adviser in London on the 2013 production of “From Here to Eternity—the Musical.”

One of the first international chal­lenges facing the newly formed United States in the 19th century came from the Barbary States on the northern coast of Africa and their lucrative business of state-sponsored piracy. In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson seized an opportunity to split the leadership of the Tripolitan pirates, forging an alliance with Hamet Karamanli, the former bashaw of Tripoli. Expelled by his brother, Yusuf, Karamanli desired a return to the throne. The United States supported the overthrow of Yusuf in exchange for a favorable treaty with the Barbary States.

William Eaton, a former Army officer, was appointed United States Navy Agent for the Barbary Regencies. It was his responsibility to negotiate with the un­manageable North Afri­can states and expedite the transfer of power in Tripoli by force. Eaton planned an audacious ex­pedition to capture the fortified city of Derna, one of the wealthiest cites in the Tripolitan re­gion. In taking Derna, the road would lie open for further advance to the capital city of Tripoli, and ultimately return Karamanli to the throne over one of the most powerful Barbary States. How­ever, Eaton’s expedition required traveling over 400 miles through the un­forgiving desert to reach the objective.

Eaton requested the American warships of Commodore Samuel Barron’s naval squadron in addition to 100 Marines. He was denied the men. Under his authority was Lieutenant Presley N. O’Bannon, who requested 20 Marines from his own command over USS Argus. He was allowed only six. Corporal Arthur Campbell and Privates Bernard O’Brian, David Thomas, James Owen, Edward Stewart and John Wilton were selected for the incredible 400-mile journey.

The selected six were relative new­comers to the Marine Corps, all having enlisted in 1803 and served on USS Argus for almost all of their enlistment. Private Thomas was typical of the men selected, having been promoted to corporal on Sept.10 of that same year and returned to the rank of private nine months later for being “drunk in quarters.” Bernard O’Brian reached the rank of corporal during the expedition but reverted back to private several months later as well.

Knowing what awaited him at Derna, and the unpredictable qualities of his own hired Bedouins, Eaton again requested more men for the expedition, repeating his requirement for 100 Marines with bayonets to “place the success beyond the caprice of incident.” He was again denied. Lieutenant O’Bannon and his six Marines remained the American support for the expedition, leaving just 14 Marines on the Argus.

On March 6, 1805, Eaton’s “band of brothers” began their march for Derna. The colorful procession was composed of 12 nationalities, offering a picturesque view of approximately 300 Bedouin cavalrymen leading the journey and 70 Christian Egyptians recruited by Eaton at Alexandria and 67 Greek mercenaries, interspersed with 190 camels bearing supplies. Lieutenant O’Bannon and his six Marines joined the march, accom­panied by two Navy midshipmen, George W. Mann and Pascal Paoli Peck. The un­usual column’s first day’s march proved impressive, making it 40 miles before halt­ing for camp. But they were initiated into the reality of what awaited them on the road to Derna when their water source turned up dry.

“Here commenced the first of our suf­ferings,” recalled Mid­shipman Peck. “After marching near 40 miles in burning sun, buoyed up with the idea of finding water at the end … not the least sign of water, nor was a green thing to be seen.” The next morning, a search discovered a nearby supply of putrid water. Little worried about the questionable nature of the water, the men considered it re­juvenating, declaring it “more delicious than the most precious cordial.” The column trudged on.

Several times in the coming days and weeks the Bedouins refused to move on without pay or venture further into the desert, leaving the Marines stranded. Un­fortunately, deals made in the desert were more suggestions than contracts; they drained Eaton’s available cash sup­ply. Even when Karamanli’s men received pay, they departed with it to Cairo. Eaton’s plan to reach Derna seemed doomed to fail.

Eaton tried to calm the remaining Bedouin leaders by prom­ising the arrival of American warships at Bomba, but they declared no further movement would be made until a messenger confirmed the ships’ arrival. Eaton’s response was emphatic. He furiously ordered all rations cut off from them. The small but potent detachment of Marines shaped the backbone of the security, ready to protect the American supplies and put an end to any further duplicity as they waited for messengers from the American Naval Squadron.

“I left the Arab Chiefs in the Bashaw’s tent confused and embarrassed,” Eaton wrote in his journal that night, “and re­tired to my own markee and reflections.” The American mission seemed hopelessly stuck in the desert, far from help. “We have marched a distance of [200] miles,” Eaton recorded, “through an inhospitable waste of world without seeing the habita­tion of an animated being, or the tracks of man … o’er burning sands and rocky mountains.” However, fortune favored the Americans when Karamanli’s re­main­ing Bedouins considered their choices of starvation or marching, and agreed to rejoin the expedition.

Better news arrived on April 6 as Eaton’s men discovered the welcome but stagnant liquid of a well, dug 70 feet into the ground. The dubious contents, “feted and saline,” caused some concern, but Eaton’s horses were thirsty, having had no water for 42 hours, and the men had had only a single drink of nauseating water the night before. Overwhelming dehydration became the driving force of both man and beast as they crowded together around the well. Their frantic efforts toward being the first to gain access to the brackish liquid resulted in tragedy, when a horse slid backwards through the crowd, crashing into the well. The fall killed the horse instantly, but the crowd drank anyway.

The combination of hunger and thirst tested even the strong­est men. Doubts of the ships’ arrival at Bomba grew with every disappointment.

Karamanli grew suspicious and dis­patched couriers on his own to contact the American squadron, supposed to be at Bomba. Eaton was outraged at this turn of events, knowing only six more days of rice remained. He insisted the march must continue or they would starve, but the bashaw and his chiefs vowed to proceed no further. Eaton countered by cutting off the rice supply, causing them to recognize hunger as the major flaw in their power play.
When the Bashaw made a show of pack­ing up his tent and baggage, be­ginning his own march, Eaton noted that he “waited without emotion the result of this movement” as not to “betray a con­cern for ourselves.” Calm handling of the situation allowed him to discover the bashaw’s plan to capture all of the provi­sions for the Bedouins.

Eaton’s drummer beat the call to arms, bringing Lieutenant O’Bannon’s Marines into line before the supply tent to defend the invaluable rice. The Christian Egypt­ians joined the seven Marines, as they had few options in the middle of a barren desert. Two hundred of Karamanli’s cav­al­ry­men drew up in a show of force. The opposing forces faced each another for one hour, each side reluctant to be the first to open fire.

As if on cue, the bashaw appeared with his entourage, dis­mounted, and raised his tent, as a message that he would now stay. He convinced the Bedouins to with­draw from the field, end­ing the confronta­tion. Eaton ordered O’Bannon and his Marines to go through the manual of arms as a sign the Americans were also standing down. The Bedouins watched the Ma­rines and immediately roared, “The Christians are preparing to fire on us!” The bashaw leapt back on his horse, calling out to his people, “For God’s sake do not fire! The Christians are our friends.”

Despite his best efforts, the 200 cav­alry­men charged across the field at a full sprint. Most of Eaton’s demoralized Greeks ran, leaving the American Ma­rines on their own. “Mr. O’Bannon, Mr. Peck, and young [British mercenary Richard] Farquhar stood firmly by me,” Eaton recalled. The charging horsemen halted only a few feet away from the small band of loyal Marines, allowing time for Eaton an attempt again to end the confrontation. Farquhar stood in the midst of the crowd, receiving a pistol thrust against his chest, but the weapon misfired, leaving him unhurt. A clamoring swarm of voices erupted, drowning out any attempt to enforce order before a single accurate shot would initiate a fatal battle in the middle of the desert.

With drawn swords, the bashaw’s offi­cers rode into the melee. They forcefully separated the two sides, preventing the impending slaughter. Eaton chastised Karamanli for generating the clash. “The firm and decisive conduct of Mr. O’Bannon, as on all other occasions, did much to deter th[ose] by whom we were surrounded,” Eaton confided in his journal, “as well as to support our own dignity and character.”

On April 9, the column advanced peace­fully, traveling 10 miles toward the salva­tion of the American warships at Bomba. They were lucky enough to locate a water cistern containing potable water. The column made camp near the water among the ruins of ancient houses and walls, perhaps portending their own ruin. Worse was the discovery of two swollen, rotting corpses in the well. They were thought to be murdered by local tribesmen, but Eaton confided in his journal: “We were obliged nevertheless to use the water.”

They traveled another 10 miles on April 10, where they came upon a pic­tur­esque valley with water at last un­tainted by death. The men were starved now, existing on half rations of rice alone. Apprehension arose in camp, centered on whether the supply ships had arrived in Bomba Bay. Eaton countered the starved panic by calling a council of war addressing the collapse of his command. Some of the bashaw’s people would not take another step without proof of the arrival of the ships at Bomba. Eaton coun­tered with a two days’ march fol­lowed by a halt to await the messengers dispatched to find the ships. With only handfuls of rice left and no hope of gain­ing more from the bleak countryside, Eaton, O’Bannon and the Marines gambled three days would somehow prevent an uprising by the starved mem­bers of his command.

The arrival of the ships “alone will prevent a revolt among our Arabs,” Eaton wrote, “who undoubtedly take any side which will give them the best fare.” If rebellion erupted, Lieutenant O’Bannon and his six Marines faced tall odds for survival. A massacre in a lonesome ra­vine would end a bloody chapter in the American effort to suppress the piracy of the Barbary States.

A mutiny began that evening, when Greek cannoneers de­manded their share of provisions. Eaton confided only in Lieu­tenant O’Bannon the gravity of the situation. He dispatched a messenger to inform the insurgents “on pain of death, not to appear in arms to make any remon­strances with me.” With deadly con­fron­ta­tion to break out at any moment, the Bomba messenger returned with word of the presence of supply ships. The mood in camp changed instantly to celebration.

The bashaw assured Eaton he would lead his men to Derna. At 9 p.m., how­ever, the only one not cele­brating was the bashaw, who began a series of “spasms and vomiting,” which “continued the greater part of the night.” Eaton con­tinued his expedition 6 more miles toward Bomba before establishing camp without water. The halt resulted when Karamanli could go no further.
His Excellency the Bashaw Yusuf of Tripoli finally took an active interest in his brother’s invasion force on April 12, moving closer to his stronghold at Derna.

Captain William Bainbridge, command­ing the blockading squadron off Tripoli, received an angry message from Yusuf, acknowledging his “particular resent­ment” of his brother traveling with the American expedition. He threatened his Ameri­can prisoners with death. Marine Captain John Hall, Lieutenants William S. Osborne, Robert Greenleaf and John Howard and 44 enlisted Marines were part of American captives taken during the disastrous capture of USS Philadel­phia. The prisoners were informed that “if the Americans drove him to extrem­ities, or attacked his town, he would put every American prisoner to death.”

Bashaw Yusuf might have been less concerned if he had known of the true condition of the American invasion force. The last rice had been consumed raw. Starvation plagued the camp. The bashaw allowed one of his camels to be slaughtered to feed his men, trading another to the Bedouin families for one of their sheep. Full rations of camel and sheep were provided to the hungry Marines, but “they were without salt or bread” to make it more appetizing. The fresh meat allowed the column to continue the march to Tobruk, but a daily loss of pack animals meant eventual disaster. The only choice remaining was to reach Bomba Bay at any cost.

On April 15, Captain Samuel Barron ordered Master Com­mandant John H. Dent to proceed with his schooner, USS Nautilus, to establish communication with Eaton. Dent found no sign of the expe­dition, as the coastline proved des­olate. With no word from Eaton, disaster seemed a logical conclusion. Without knowledge of Dent’s foray, Eaton’s pros­pects were bleak. as the day of USS Nautilus’s de­parture, Eaton and his starv­ing command finally reached the Mediterranean Sea. Their excitement quickly vanished as they gazed at an empty sea.

“What was my astonishment,” Eaton admitted, “to find at this celebrated port not the trace of a human being, nor a drop of water.” Three locals claimed they saw two ships in the bay a few days before, but they departed without landing. The famished Bedouins saw yet another betrayal in Eaton’s promises, who “abused [them] as imposters and infidels,” and “all began now to think of the means of individual safety.” The collapse of Eaton’s promises erupted in disparate overnight discussions by all factions of the expedition. Lt O’Bannon’s Marines remained resolute, but few others could be depended on.

The Bedouins threatened to depart the following morning, but Eaton somehow yet again persuaded everyone to continue toward Derna. He took the Christian mem­bers of his command to a high point above the bay, kindling fires all night to signal to any ship passing in the night that the expedition was there at Bomba, waiting for support.

The morning of April 16 dawned with a hunger-fed depression, followed by the breakaway of some of the Bedouins. A final messenger rode up the high moun­tain for one last glimpse across the sea. Incredibly, the sails of the USS Argus appeared!

Eaton wrote, “Language is too poor to paint the joy and exaltation” in every person in the camp, including Lieutenant O’Bannon and his Marines. Overjoyed, Eaton went aboard to confer with the Navy officers over the path ahead.

Seven thousand Spanish dollars were transferred by Master Commandant Isaac Hull to Eaton, ensuring the travelers re­mained loyal to the United States. Per­haps believing his role in the attack might prove fatal, Eaton gave Hull his cloak and small sword in thanks for his support and requested his Damascus sabre and gold watch be sent to Captain Barron, “due to his goodness and valor.”

But Eaton faced a new challenge when Hull unexpectedly ordered Lieutenant O’Bannon and his Marines back on USS Argus. O’Bannon penned a letter requesting permission to continue with the expedition at least “during his stay on land, or, at least [until] we arrive at [Derna].” Navy Ensign George Mann also requested to accompany Eaton, “by a wish to contribute generally by my services to the Interest of my Country.” Hull granted the requests in exchange for the return of Midshipman Peck. More than pleased to depart, Peck recalled the hardships as he sailed away. “We were very frequently 24 hours without water, and once 47 hours without a drop … for the space of 450 mile we saw neither house nor tree, nor hardly anything green, and, except in one place, not a trace of a human being.”

On April 23, the expedition left camp for the final 60 miles to Derna, led by O’Bannon’s ever faithful Marines. They soon encountered the welcome sight of cultivated farmland and a natural spring. The column made 15 more miles the following day, marching under the shade of huge and beautiful red cedar trees, the first trees of any semblance to a forest since they began their journey. Eaton camped that night only five hours from Derna.

A courier entered the camp, con­firm­ing the near arrival of enemy re­inforcements from Tripoli, joining the forces already defending the city. “Alarm and consternation” overwhelmed the Bedouin chiefs and the bashaw into a private night conference, to which Eaton was not invited. However, the American consul had problems of his own. No further advance could be made as a fierce storm scattered the American warships. And no attack could be made without their cannons. Coordination between the American forces on land and sea was critical for any hope of success.

On April 25, drummers woke the sleep­ing Marines and men at 6 a.m., just as Eaton issued orders for the day’s march to finally close on Derna. “The Arabs mutinized,” Eaton wrote later, “The Sheiks il Taiib and Mahomet at the head of the Arab cavalry took up a retrograde march, and the Bedouins refused to strike their tents.” Only Lt O’Bannon’s Marines and the Greek mercenaries stood ready to march to Derna. Once again, failure seemed immensely possible, despite the many weeks of travel over 400 miles of desert misery. For the first time, the reali­z­ation of combat loomed, giving pause to many in the expedition.

Eaton quickly but skillfully navigated the various hazards of the morning, satis­fy­ing the concerns of his men with per­suasion, negotiation, and $2,000 dollars issued to various leaders. Lt O’Bannon and his Marines watched the proceedings carefully, made the march as planned, and occupied a knoll with a commanding view of the city and the Mediterranean Sea beyond. Despite all of the trials and tribulations which would have frustrated commanders from any era, Eaton’s expe­dition finally arrived within sight of the rooftops of Derna.

Eaton’s perch above the city allowed for a quick assessment of their task ahead. A water battery of eight formidable 8-pound­er cannon looked ominous to naval attack while a fort on a nearby hill over­looked the city, commanding the Ameri­can approach to the city. Hastily built breastworks interlocking with the walls of old and new buildings along the bay were filled with firing positions. The gov­ernor’s palace was defended by a 10-inch howitzer positioned on the terrace, defending the city in all directions.

Several of the Derna Sheikhs came to the American camp in the evening, swear­ing their loyalty and that of two thirds of the city’s population to Hamet Karam­anli. However, they warned the party that the governor boasted of 800 soldiers supported by formidable artil­lery, soon to be strengthened by Yusuf’s reinforce­ments ap­proach­ing from Tripoli. Worst of all, the waves of the Med­iter­ranean Sea revealed no sign of those essential American war­ships. Even Karamanli looked ex­tremely nervous, perhaps de­siring to walk “himself back to Egypt.”

Retreating 441 miles to safety was never an option, nor was a frontal assault on a fortified city defended by superior numbers. Eaton reviewed the cards of chance which had been dealt to him and came up with yet another option—that of diplomacy. “I want no territory,” Eaton wrote to Governor Mustafa, who oversaw the defenses of the city. “With me is advancing the legitimate Sovereign of your country. Give us a passage through your city; and sup­plies of which we shall need you shall receive fair compensation.” He assured the governor that his position would remain the same and offered, “Let no differences of religion induce us to shed the blood of harmless men who think little and know nothing.”

A message soon arrived from Mustafa, wasting few words in reply: “My head or yours.”

Good fortune favored Eaton and O’Bannon once again. The welcome sight of approaching sails changed the course of events at Derna yet again. Master Com­mandant Dent arrived, guiding USS Nautilus close to shore. “Make my respects to O’Bannon,” Dent signaled, “and all of your followers and wishing you all the success you so fully deserve.”

“I expressed my determination to at­tack the town tomorrow,” Eaton wrote that night, “if the other vessels came in seasonably.” With or without the essential gunfire from the sea, the dominant fort must be captured before any further prog­ress could be made inside the city walls. Providence again interceded, with the arrival of USS Hornet and USS Argus arriving at 5:30 a.m. on April 27.

The break of dawn revealed all three warships in tandem, ready for combat.
Alarming intelligence reached Eaton that morning, indicating a large relief column of Tripolitan soldiers approach­ing. This column was estimated to be only two days and 14 hours’ march away from the city, leaving no time for delay by the Americans. Understanding victory this day was absolutely essential, Eaton prepared to take the head of his opponent, Mustafa, along with his city. Orders sent the Marines and men advancing toward the walls of Derna, comforted by the presence of the three warships in position as close to land as they could be, daring the enemy cannons to fire.

A good wind coming offshore allowed the Nautilus and Hornet to anchor close to Derna’s ocean­front, where they un­loaded sup­plies for Eaton, in­cluding both of the cannon rowed ashore in small boats “with much difficulty.” Sailors then hauled one of guns up a steep downslope of boulders but left the other gun behind on orders from Eaton, who feared the time expended would result in “losing this favorable moment of attack.”

The mass of Marines, Bedouins, Greeks, Egyptians, and Christians reached their forward positions without dispute, while Navy Lieu­tenant Samuel Evans maneuvered the Hornet to within 100 yards of the formidable water battery, an­choring on the seaport side of Derna. Evans immediately open fire on the Tripolitan cannons at pistol range, guar­an­tee­ing the gunners would hardly miss their targets. The fair winds allowed the Nautilus to anchor close to shore as well, where he unleashed a continuous barrage against the now beleaguered battery.

Lieutenant Evans’ duel with the water battery proved epic, chal­lenging his 6-inch brass guns against the heavy 9-pound cannon of the fort. Both sides traded volleys, with Evans spraying the Tripolitan gun crews with grapeshot, silencing the heavier cannon in 45 min­utes. However, one of the enemy shells cut the Hornet’s flag from the halyard. Navy Midshipman Samuel G. Blodgett gathered the flag and climbed into the rigging, nailing the colors to the mainmast.
Blodgett’s foray provided an easy target for the enemy marksmen on the wall, but he escaped harm from the hail of musket balls passing through the sails around him. One lucky bullet lodged in his pocket watch chain, saving his life. At the same time, Commandant Hull maneuvered Argus to a position just to the south of Dent close to shore, dispatching shell after battering shell into the city. His 24-pounder cannon proved particularly effective in lobbing projectiles into the streets, scattering both soldiers and townspeople.

Covered by the warships’ fire, Lieu­tenant O’Bannon led the ground assault on the left, taking position under the cover of a hill overlooking the main body of Mustafa’s infantry. Eaton held the ground between O’Bannon and the sea with a small detachment of Christian infantry. Curiously, the Hornet’s six Marines, Nautilus’ 17 Marines and the 15 Marines of O’Bannon’s own detachment of Argus remained aboard ship.

O’Bannon and his six Marines, 24 artil­lerymen, 26 Greek mercenaries and a scattering of Bedouin cavalry gazed across the open ground, sizing up the opposing defenders. The Marines posi­tioned themselves to face the newly dug parapets and a sheltered ravine on the southeast side of the city. As a backdrop of shells tore into the city from the Ameri­can warships, O’Bannon observed another threat to the southwest. Mustafa’s men defended an old castle, supported by a body of cavalry deployed on the plain beyond. These flanking forces thankfully remained out of the fight.

The intensity of the shelling reached a crescendo just before 2 p.m., striking everywhere the Tripolitans showed them­selves. Forty-five minutes of constant fire silenced the sea battery, forcing most of the supporting infantrymen to disperse. The walls were still held by the bravest soldiers, clinging tightly to their positions. Another threat emerged in front of Eaton’s Christian detachment along the coast, however, forming their “most vulnerable point.” The cannon hauled ashore from the USS Nautilus was no longer effective. In the excitement of battle, the gunners fired the rammer along with a shell into the city.

Rifle fire from the city intensified on the attackers. “Our troops were thrown into confusion,” Eaton noted, “and un­disciplined as they were, it was impossible to reduce them to order.” The assault stalled as the whine of bullets whistled overhead. With defeat in the air, “I per­ceived a charge,” Eaton decided, as his “only resort.” Although they were out­numbered, the men of the 441-mile trek across the North African desert would not be denied victory. The warships paused, allowing an opening for the Marines and their party. Lt O’Bannon seized the moment, charging across the open area into the battery.

“We rushed forward against a host of [enemy],” Eaton reported, “more than [10] to our one.” A well-aimed bullet struck Eaton’s wrist just as the charge began, instantly taking him out of the fight. The defenders of Derna held out, content to exchange fire with the American co­alition behind their defensive walls and breastworks, even under the renewed fire of the three warships.

As O’Bannon approached, the defend­ers of the fort had to decide: engage in a deadly brawl with the attackers or flee to safety. The audacity of the Marines panicked the defenders, who chose flight. The defenders abandoned their position quickly, leaving behind their cannon fully primed and ready to fire one last salvo at the sprinting Marines. Mustafa’s men broke without firing the cannon, unwill­ing to face close combat with the Marines.

O’Bannon and his men leapt over the breastworks, surprised to find the battery abandoned by the fleeing enemy cannon­eers. O’Bannon ripped down the sultan’s flag from the ramparts, replacing the enemy flag with that of the United States, announcing American victory. This was the first time the colors of the United States waved above a captured fort in the “old” world. The battle was not without cost. Marine Private John Wilton was killed in the assault, with Corporals David Thomas and Bernard O’Brian wounded. This left only four Marines still in the fight. Ten Greek soldiers were wounded in the charge, but the flag of the United States flying over the captured battery announced defeat for the Tripolitans.

The Marines promptly turned the guns on their previous owners, who were still not inclined to offer firm resistance to the Americans. The Tripolitans continued to fire from every palm tree and city wall in retreat, but sheltering in the houses proved disastrous as point blank shells from the American warships rooted out the Tripolitans one by one. Karamanli and his advisors captured the now-empty governor’s palace, but Mustafa eluded capture. He first found safety in a mosque, but then retired to the sacred sanctuary of a harem, where safety was more assured.

The battle lasted only two and a half hours, with gunfire ending at 4 p.m. The bashaw’s cavalry completed the victory by flanking the enemy’s retreat, ending the fight. Derna was now under complete American control, except for the sanctity of the governor’s harem. The conduct of Lieutenant O’Bannon and his Marines drew the admiration from all who wit­nessed the attack. Their bravery and leadership inspired the entire coalition force, as did the three Navy commanders who Eaton declared “could not have taken better positions for their vessels nor managed their fire with more skill and advantage.” The Hornet’s cannon fired so often their plank shears gave way, disabling the guns, which required a time in port for repair.

Eaton saved his finest words for Lieu­tenant O’Bannon, whose “conduct needs no encomium, and it is believed the dis­position our Government has always dis­played to encourage merit, will be extended to this intrepid, judicious and enterprising Officer.” Eaton also served as a recruiter for the Marine Corps in recommending Farquhar, who “has in all cases of difficulty, ex­hibited a firmness and attachment,” to the rank of lieutenant in the Marine Corps. No record exists of Farquhar serving in the Marine Corps.

The price of victory proved high for the six enlisted Marines in the battle. In addition to the loss of Private Wilton and Thomas and O’Brian’s injuries, Private Edward Stewart was badly wounded and eventually died on May 30, 1805, in Derna. Only Corporal Arthur Campbell and Private James Owen were uninjured.

Fighting continued on June 3, when the 16,000 soldiers from Tripoli, commanded by Commander in Chief Hussein Bey, finally reached Derna to drive Karamanli and the American coalition back to Egypt. Karamanli’s men held their own for a time but were driven back into the walls of the city. O’Bannon led his four Marines and other reinforcements through Derna to reinforce Karamanli. They were greeted by “every body, age and childhood, even women from their recluses, shout[ing], “Live the Americans, Long live our friends and protectors!”

The American warships opened fire with the ships’ guns and captured artill­ery, easily crushing the attack from the city walls. Lieutenant O’Bannon “was im­­patient to lead his Marines and Greeks, (about 30 in number),” to further disperse the attackers, who fled in great disorder, ending any thought of Bashaw Yusuf driving his brother out of Derna. Bey deserted his forces because of his defeat, fleeing to the desert to escape retribution for his failed leadership.

On April 29, Master Commandant Hull wrote to Commodore Barron from Derna, informing him, “I am clearly of the opinion that three or four hundred Christian soldiers, with additional sup­plies, will be necessary to pursue the expedition to Benghazi and Tripoli.” The way lay open to carry the war to the capital city, freeing the American prisoners and putting an end to the conflict. Instead of allowing Eaton and O’Bannon to march on Tripoli, Barron chose the now more certain path of diplomacy.

With the fall of Derna and repulse of his army, Yusuf ended hostilities with the United States. He sent a message to the Americans through the Spanish consul in Tripoli that the time had come for peace negotiations. By chance, Tobias Lear, the United States Consul General to the Barbary States, was visiting Barron at his headquarters on the island of Malta. Barron entrusted Lear to begin negotia­tions with Yusuf to end the war with Tripoli. A former secretary to George Washington, Lear proved a skilled diplo­mat as well, ready to take on his opponent to create a lasting peace.

On April 30, Lear noted the failure of previous negotiations “on the part of the Bashaw to make peace on admissible terms. Lately there seems to be a Change in his sentiments … a few weeks will decide the matter, by negotiation or try the effect of our cannon.” The USS Essex transported Lear to Tripoli on May 26, where he received a formal salute of nine cannons instead of the previously common seven, admitting the new prom­inence of the United States.

Bashaw Yusuf immediately threatened to kill all of the American prisoners if the march from Derna continued, but should his brother withdraw, the captives would be freed. This concession brought America to a quick treaty on June 3, 1805. The United States paid a $60,000 settlement, thereby liberating the 400 American prisoners in 24 hours, with an agreement protecting American trade with no further payment to Tripoli. Lear admitted Karamanli “was entitled to some con­sideration from us, but I found this impactable, and if persisted in would drive him to measures which might prove fatal to our countrymen in his power.”

On May 19, 1805, Commodore Barron wrote to Eaton, informing him that Kara­manli “has not in himself energy or the talent, and is so destitute of means and re­sources, as not to be able to move on with successful progress … he must be held unworthy of further support … you will state explicitly to his excellency, that our supplies of money, arms, and pro­visions are at an end.”

Outraged, Eaton wrote directly to Sec­retary of the Navy expressing his view of the treaty and the denial of his request of 100 Marines to support the expedition. Barron “had not seen Tripoli during the last eight months,” he pointed out, “his squadron had never been displayed to the enemies’ view, nor a shot exchanged with the batteries of Tripoli since Commodore Preble [of earlier conflicts in the Barbary States] left the coast.”

In retrospect, Eaton still regretted that he had not been permitted a larger Marine Corps detachment at Bomba, “within an hour’s march of the main force of the enemy … only for the want of [200] bayo­nets! …In a bombardment or a cruise, Marines are of little more use in a man of war than cavalry or pioneers,” he wrote, “and while laying in port they are used only as badges of rank and machines of ceremony. Why not send them where they could be useful … Gentlemen of that corps, I am well assured, actuated, like their brethren of the navy, by a manly zeal to distinguish themselves, were ready to volunteer for the expedition. And it did not require a greater latitude of discretion to indulge to fight at Derna, than to furlough them on parties of pleasure at Catania. … Would such a detachment have defeated the great operation carrying on by the squadron?”

If Lieutenant O’Bannon and six Marines led the capture of Derna and repulse the soldiers sent to recapture the city, the presence of 100 Marines might well have overrun each coastal town before them, including the capital of Tripoli. Eaton also despaired at Lear’s payment of $60,000 for the release of prisoners while he held Derna, one of the most prosperous and largest cities under Yusuf’s rule, with a population between 12,000 to 15,000 citizens who could have been exchanged for the captive Americans.

Consul Lear’s final pronouncement over the embarrassment of Karamanli was direct and to the point. “This is all that could be done,” Lear wrote, “and I have no doubt the United States will, if deserving, place him in a situation as eligible as that in which he was found.” Hamet Karamanli never regained his rule over Tripoli and returned to his exile in Egypt, accompanied by Eaton. In ex­change for his withdrawal, a provi­sion of the treaty insured his wife and children, held hostage by Yusuf, were re­turned to him. Unfortunately, his Bedouin fol­low­ers were rumored to be massacred by Yusuf’s forces, never to rise against the throne again.

The lessons of American power re­verberated across North Africa, resulting in new peace agreements with Algeria and Tunis. “The Mediterranean was the cradle of the American navy,” wrote M.M. Noah, the former United States consul in Tripoli in 1804. “It’s character and dis­cipline—subsequent success in war—its influence in peace, and its pres­ent high character throughout the world have their origin in the wars declared against the several powers on the Barbary coast.” The Marine detachments aboard those ships and on land at Derna earned the same honor “to secure forever to the American flag that freedom which it claimed.”

Lear did acknowledge Eaton and the Marine Corps’ accomplishments, closing his letter with praise, writing, “I pray you will accept yourself and present to Mr. O’Bannon and our countrymen with you, my sincere congratulations on an event which your and their heroic bravery has tendered to render so honorable to our country.” The deaths of Private Wilton and Stewart and the wounds of Corporals Thomas and O’Brian are evidence enough of the valor required to end the hostile relations between Tripoli and the United States.

On March 18, 1806, the Senate of the United States passed a resolution reward­ing the surviving Marines, Lieutenant O’Bannon, Corporals Campbell, O’Brian and Thomas, and Private Owen, for their services in North Africa. O’Bannon and Midshipman George W. Mann each re­ceived a thousand acres of land in the territory that would become Kentucky, and “each of the four enlisted Marines awarded 320 acres, to be granted to them respectively, their heirs, and assigns for­ever.” Eaton was also rewarded with the establishment of a town 6 miles square in the new territory, to be named Derne.

Lieutenant O’Bannon and his six Marines became celebrated heroes for the young United States, establishing the nation’s admiration of the fighting spirit of the Marine Corps. The events of 1805 are remembered with every rendition of “The Marines’ Hymn” with the words, “To the shores of Tripoli.”

Author’s bio: Mike Miller has written five books and many articles about Marine Corps and Civil War history. A longtime Leatherneck contributor, he retired in 2016 after a 34-year career in the Marine Corps archival, museum and history programs. His latest book is “The 4th Marine Brigade at Belleau Wood and Soissons: History and Battlefield Guide.”

Staff Sergeant Harry Harth’s remark­able, pain-filled journey back to being a Reconnaissance Marine has come to a storybook conclusion.

On Sept. 25, 2022, Harth fell 100 feet off a beachside cliff on the night he was celebrating his rank promotion with a fellow Marine. The freak accident nearly killed him and left him with severe damage to his right foot and leg. But after countless hours rehabbing in the Wounded Warrior Battalion-West at Camp Pendle­ton, Calif., Harth passed his Reconnais­sance Physical Assessment Test on Sept. 27. He is now awaiting deployment with the 1st Recon Battalion, possibly to the Philippines.

For a boy growing up determined to serve his country, all the blood, sweat and tears were worth it in the end.

“People will tell you that you’re des­tined to live a certain way, or that you’re stuck in a certain situation,” SSgt Harth said. “They’re wrong, you are the master of your own fate, you can choose the ending of your own story.”

His mother Linda Harth put it more succinctly.

“Harry has been a positive force ever since he was conceived.”

The Fall
When Harth started his military career after high school, his goal was to be a Recon Marine. But he pushed himself too hard, too quickly. He ended up dislocating three disks in his back, which gave him permanent scoliosis and temporarily paralyzed him from the waist down. In 2016, the Marine Corps gave him an option of staying in for four years as a data administrator if he could pass a physical fitness test.

Harth not only passed the test, but he became a Recon Marine in 2021 thanks to his rigorous off-duty health and fitness routine. Unfortunately, all that hard work was soon put into jeopardy. During his free time away from a shooting package, Harth was celebrating his promotion to staff sergeant at a bar in Encinitas. After having a few beers, Harth stepped outside to relieve himself instead of waiting in a long line inside the bar. Before going to the bathroom, he noticed an inebriated fellow bar patron stumbling behind the building, so he helped the man arrange an Uber ride to get home.

A few minutes later, Harth decided to take a walk near a cliff further down the road instead of going back inside the crowded establishment. Eventually nature called, and when he stopped to urinate, the section of ground he was on gave way. He started sliding down a bluff.

On his initial descent he broke his tail bone on a tree root. But instead of the tree breaking his fall completely, he continued going. Seconds later, he was clinging to a clump of pickleweed, 100 feet above the beach. He could not manage a firm grip on the vegetation and eventually plunged to the coastline below.

The fall shattered Harth’s right femur, broke every metatarsal in his right foot, tore up his right knee and opened up his femoral artery. To complicate matters, he was out of cell phone range and the tide was coming in. The next few hours were agonizing for Harth, dragging his mangled leg behind him as he crawled along the sand. He finally got a hold of emergency responders after multiple calls and immediately passed out from the pain.

He was rushed to the emergency room where hospital staff considered amputat­ing his leg due to the severity of the in­jury. Doctors then considered removing his foot when they discovered that necro­sis was turning his appendage black. Harth said the only reason he lived was due to the compression shorts he was wearing that night. The snug shorts helped prevent him from bleeding out from his femoral artery.

After several emergency surgeries, Harth recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital. He moved in with his Marine friend, SSgt Nicholas Reid, and his wife Chelsea. The couple had become fast friends since they met at a local gym after Nicholas was stationed at Camp Pendleton. In fact, texts from Harth late at night became so commonplace that they almost didn’t respond to his text from the hospital.

“During one of my feeding times with my [infant] son, I look over and my phone is blowing up,” Chelsea said. “And [it’s] Harry again. We just had this discussion [about him texting]. So, I just ignored it and finally I heard my husband’s phone going off the hook. So, I was like, ‘there is something going on.’ ”

After a few weeks of Harth mostly being immobile on their couch, the Reids went out of town for a brief vacation and were concerned about whether their friend would need assistance while they were gone. Not only did he refuse any sort of help, but by the time they got back, Harth was hopping around on one crutch.

The Road Back
For nearly two years, Harth has dealt with daily pain. But each day, the 27-year-old Marine pushed his physical limits on his reconstructed leg. Each day, he trained. Each day he found a way to better both himself and others around him.

Whatever it took to be a Reconnaissance Marine again, Harth was willing to do.
His drive and passion to regain his elite fighting group status is partly why the Virginia native was named the Wounded Warrior Regiment’s Recovering Service Member of the Year. The regiment honored Harth on May 1 for his contri­butions during an awards lunch hosted by the Marine Corps Association.

“The Marine Corps Association is proud to recognize the incredible achieve­ments of Marines through our awards program,” said Colonel Tim Mundy, USMC (Ret), the Vice President of MCA’s Foundation. “Marines like SSgt Harth, who have wounds or injuries, but over­come them to continue to serve certainly deserve recognition.”

Many of the recovering servicemembers never go back to active duty, their lives permanently changed due to a traumatic injury or a terminal illness. But that didn’t stop Harth from being a positive influence in their lives.
“I tell them, ‘You’re not forgotten when you came here, you are still part of this organization, you are just in a weird transitional period,’” Harth said. “You are still a Marine.”

According to fellow Wounded Warrior Regiment RSM Ashley Christman, there are times when you are lacking confidence during your rehabilitation and all it takes is one person to help you get over that obstacle. On many occasions, that person was Harth.

“He is constantly encouraging others, constantly there for others,” said Christman, who is battling neuroen­docrine cancer. “He has been a reliable and important part of my support system, which I appreciate his brotherhood and have really benefitted from his brother­hood, and support and encouragement.”

Harth even motivated the regiment staff. His athletic trainer at Wounded Warrior, Nick Tavoukjian, wakes up at 2:30 every morning and commutes 100 miles to get to work. Getting to see Harth every day was one of the highlights of his job.

“He motivates me to get into work every day, to get him going,” Tavoukjian said.

Harth’s daily workouts varied from weightlifting to rucking to even surfing. He also stuck meticulously to a healthy diet and even quit drinking alcohol altogether, even though it had nothing to do with his accident. Physical therapist Patrick Everett said Harth’s ability to recover quickly is quite unusual com­pared to the average person.

“He’s been one of the most insane healers in terms of his own body working and repairing itself,” said Everett, who runs Cuirim Sports Recovery in Costa Mesa, Calif. “He has broken every time­line, every expectation. … In fairness, for what he’s done and how hard he’s pushed himself, [his healing] doesn’t make sense in terms of by-the-book medicine.”

Destined to Be a Marine
Harth’s commitment to serve started at a young age. Long before he could run long distances or hold a rifle, Harth was fascinated with the Armed Services. His brother Zechariah Blatz, served in the Army and a family friend, Sean Callahan, was serving in the Corps when he tragically lost his life in an IED blast in 2011. Harth’s father had taken Callahan under his wing when Harry was around 9 years old, and the older teenager quickly became Harry’s idol.

“I remember when we were around 8, and Harry had this little soldier’s uniform and he would wear it around all the time,” sister Kerry said. “That’s what he wanted to do even before he really knew what he wanted to do. … So, Sean was like a hero to him.”

“When he [Callahan] died, I made the decision to go honor his legacy,” Harth said.

As a teenager, Harth participated in the Young Marines program while wrestling and swimming for Osbourn Park High School in Manassas, Va. Harth joked that the only reason he made varsity as a senior was because the swim coach felt sorry for him. But when Harth joined the Marine Corps after high school, he immediately began pushing himself to his physical limits, even off duty.

Harth remembers passing a sign-up for a marathon near a mall in Carlsbad, Calif., and remarking how cool it would be to finish it. The race was the next day, but he decided to pull over and sign up despite never having run more than 10 miles in his life.

Finishing that race gave Harth a jolt of confidence, and he went on to complete 65 half-marathons and another marathon as a Marine. Post fall, Harth continued to compete. He was a member of the 2024 Marine Corps’ Department of Defense Warrior Games team and is scheduled to participate in the international Invictus Games in 2025. In the DOD Games this June, Harth won a gold medal in the 50-meter freestyle in swimming and the bronze medal in the 100-meter dash in track.

Early in Harth’s recovery, there were moments of self-doubt once the realiza­tion of what happened to him kicked in. Harth’s ankle can’t move the same way as a normal one due to the fact that two of his foot bones—the talus and the navicular—are fused together. This has forced him to run with an unusual stride. It also puts more stress on his left leg. He’s also had multiple surgeries since his emergency surgeries after the accident.

“I have no mobility in my ankle, it’s kind of locked in one spot,” Harth said. “Running on that, which I do every day, creates its own set of problems.”
But Harth did not let his physical ailments distract him from his ultimate goal.
“I came back from such a debilitating [back] injury back then that I just thought there has to be a way around this,” Harth said. “It is a daily struggle. [I ask] Am I going to make it? What happens if I don’t? Am I doing this for nothing? … But I have never said I am going to give up or take the easy way out.”

And his family remains amazed at what he has accomplished.

“I felt like I was just hoping that he would be able to compete in the Invictus games in February, but he has, again, way exceeded my hopes and expectations,” Linda said. “I’m still amazed that he can walk. … Harry is truly inspiring.”
“Was this a sign that maybe he should do something different,” Kerry asked herself after her brother’s accident. “But I truly believe that Harry is, by far, the most determined person. I honestly didn’t think he’d be able to walk or run again. … But if anybody can do it, to have that much of a 180 [degree] recovery story, it’s Harry.”

Author’s bio: Kipp Hanley is the deputy editor for Leatherneck and resident of Woodbridge, Va. The award-winning journalist has covered a variety of topics in his writing career including the mil­itary, government, education, business and sports.

The American fire service and Marine Corps maintain a long-standing relationship, enjoyed and perpetuated by veterans of both services. Though dramatically different at face value, one seeking to close with and destroy the enemy while the other seeks to save life and protect property, the identities harmonize within the men and women who have worn both uniforms. Thousands of Marine veterans today have discovered this gem in the civilian world, offering a lifestyle with stunning similarity to service on active duty. In­deed, veterans from every branch find fulfillment, community, and a natural career fit within the fire service.

A select group possesses the rare op­por­tunity to hold both careers simulta­neously, serving as Marine Corps Air­craft Rescue and Firefighting (ARFF) Specialists. Out of more than 170,000 personnel on active duty, less than 800 of these firefighters exist within Marine Wing Support Squadrons (MWSS), or as permanent staff of the Marine Corps Air Stations (MCAS). To achieve their 7051 Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), ARFF Marines begin their train­ing with the U.S. Air Force.

The Department of Defense (DOD) Fire Academy trains firefighters from the U.S. Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and even a few from the Navy, at Good­fellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. After three months, students grad­uate with basic certifications in structural firefighting, aircraft rescue and fire­fighting, hazardous materials operations, and Emergency Medical Responder. From the schoolhouse, ARFF Marines move on to their respective duty stations, either “wing side” or “station side.”

“Station side” firefighters staff MCAS fire departments around the world. They work in a non-deployable capacity, op­erating in similar fashion to typical state­side firehouses. Crews remain on shift for 24 to 72 hours at a time. During their tour of duty, Marines work together, train together, cook, clean, and exercise together. Their primary mission is re­sponding to any sort of aircraft-related emergency, thus enabling the flying squadrons of each air station to maintain flight schedules 24/7.

The primary apparatus utilized for aircraft firefighting is the P-19R. These behemoth trucks have served the Marine Corps in various configurations since the early days of the Global War on Terror. In addition to fire hose, ladders, and compartment space for tools and firefighting equipment, a P-19 hauls 1,000 gallons of water, 130 gallons of foam, and 500 pounds of Halotron, an auxiliary firefighting agent. Dual turrets mounted to the roof and front bumper dispense up to 750 gallons of water per minute. Without hydrants around a flight line, station fire departments also utilize water tankers, hauling up to 4,000 gallons.

ARFF Marines serve as subject matter experts on aircraft and vehicle extrication. With axes and Halligan bars, or hydraulic spreaders, cutters, and rams, firefighters train to extricate patients from vehicles or different types of aircraft. The Ma­rines’ training as Emergency Medical Responders works closely in conjunction with their extrication skill set, as inci­dents in any form often involve patients needing immediate medical care.

Station fire departments work in con­junction with the local departments sur­rounding their base. Even in places like Japan, where a language barrier poses a significant obstacle to overcome, Marines train with their Japanese coun­ter­parts to understand each other’s tactics and capa­bil­i­ties and develop plans for mutual aid in the event of significant incidents.

This past summer, the ARFF Ma­rines from MCAS Iwakuni, Japan, were rec­og­nized for their outstanding perfor­mance, earning top scores as the 2023 USMC Medium Fire Department of the Year. The award marked the second year in a row these Marines earned the title for their department size category, and no small achievement. They displayed an outstanding example of performance and professionalism, while maintaining stand­­ards of excellence in both their qual­ifica­tions as airport firefighters and those re­­quired of every Marine, such as weap­ons qualifications and the physical fitness test.

One Marine from the Iwakuni ARFF department stood out even further. In June, Sergeant Yasmine Huley-Morris received the 2023 Military Firefighter of the Year Award. This immense in­dividual honor was awarded by the DOD following a competitive selection process. Nominees included not only firefighters  from the Marine Corps’ comparatively small pool, but servicemembers across every branch of the U.S. military. Huley-Morris serves as a station captain, re­sponsible for 22 Marines and four pieces of firefighting or rescue apparatus. Dur­ing her tenure with at Iwakuni, Huley-Morris has responded to numerous in­cidents, including Nov. 29, 2023, when a U.S. Air Force CV-22B Osprey lifted off from MCAS Iwakuni and crashed in the water off the Japanese coast, killing eight airmen.

On the flip side of the same coin, “wing” firefighters with the MWSS lead a significantly different lifestyle. While the number of personnel assigned to station fire departments varies depending on the size of the airfield and the type of aircraft it supports, the Table of Organiza­tion for a MWSS calls for 43 firefighters. These Marines hold the same certifica­tions and utilize most of the same equip­ment but work in forward deployed avi­ation ground support elements. Their capabilities include supporting operations such as Forward Arming and Refueling Points (FARPs), Aircraft Salvage and Recovery, Base Recovery After Attack, and casualty evacuations.

“The biggest difference between MWSS and station firefighters is the simple fact of deployable versus non-deployable,” said Gunnery Sergeant John Ritchie, who currently serves as the ARFF Assistant Chief of Operations, Headquarters and Headquarters Squad­ron, MCAS Yuma, Ariz. “In my opinion, you cannot learn the trade of a 7051 without spending time in both types of units.”

On Aug. 22, Ritchie was honored as the 2024 Expeditionary Warfare Non­com­missioned Officer of the Year for his recent role on deployment with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). Beginning in November 2022, Ritchie served as the Marine Wing Support De­tachment Operations Chief. In addition, he was the senior firefighter on the deployment.

A typical MEU deploys with only four or five firefighters. The 13th MEU set sail with a larger detachment, including nine ARFF Marines split across two ships. Their primary focus centered around FARP operations, enabling more than 500 flight hours in over 200 sorties from multiple FARPs throughout the deployment. To support firefighting oper­ations, the MEU embarked the Marine Corps’ HMMWV-mounted Fire Suppres­sion System (FSS) rather than the bigger and heavier P-19. Though significantly limited in firefighting capabilities when compared to the P-19, the FSS offers a lightweight, off-road-capable platform. The Marines executed the deployment free of aircraft mishaps and returned home in June 2023. The most memorable call for service during their time abroad came in Thailand when the firefighters helped extinguish a wildfire lit off during a live-fire training range.

Early in Ritchie’s career in 2009, he deployed to Afghanistan. His ARFF pla­toon from MWSS-372 served aboard Camp Dwyer and Camp Bastion during the deployment.

“One of the first emergencies we had in country was a Huey and a Cobra that collided in midair and crashed outside the wire,” Ritchie remembered. “We were tasked to respond, so we met up with a quick reaction force in our P-19s and went out to do what we had to do.”

Other calls for service ranged from minor fires to forklifts rolled over. Much of the firefighters’ time was dedicated to medevac missions, helping move casual­ties of every nationality, friendly and enemy, from helicopters to ambulances for transport to the hospital.

Shortly after Ritchie’s squadron re­turned home, Marines from MWSS-274 battled a massive inferno at Camp Leatherneck, the Marine Corps base adjoining Camp Bastion. In May 2010, the Supply Management Unit lot, packed full of every sort of supply, somehow lit off. By the time ARFF arrived, heavy equipment operators were plowing fire lines through boxes and pallets with bulldozers working to stem the fire spread. The blaze increased dramatically as the sun set. A massive sandstorm de­scended as the firefighters dragged hose through the burning lot. Visibility decreased less than 6 feet. The winds fed the fire as it consumed everything in its path. Even the air seemed on fire, glowing hot hues of orange and red. The firefighters and equipment operators battled the blaze undeterred, salvaging everything they could. By morning, the inferno was finally under control.

Two years later, ARFF Marines fought fire while under fire during one of the most catastrophic attacks to occur through the entire 20-year war in Afghanistan. Shortly after 10 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2012, Sgt Justin Starleigh was in the MWSS-273 office on Camp Leatherneck when a Marine walked in and began putting on body armor. When Starleigh asked what he was doing, the Marine told him the British-controlled airfield at Camp Bastion was under attack.

“I called the team stationed over at the airfield and the sergeant we had over there was irate,” remembered Starleigh. “I asked what was going on and he was like, ‘there’s Taliban everywhere, there’s fire, we’re under attack!’ I realized this was not a drill and told him we were on the way.”

Starleigh and two other sergeants loaded their firefighting gear, combat gear, and a backpack full of rifle mag­azines into a P-19 and headed toward the flight line. They paused at the runway, awaiting clearance from the Brits to cross over. In the distance, an orange glow illuminated the night sky.

Unknown to them, 15 enemy fighters had penetrated the base perimeter. One team of insurgents killed two Marines and went to work destroying aircraft lined up near the runway. Another team attacked the flight line’s cryogenics facility. At the other end of the runway, massive bladders storing hundreds of thousands of gallons of aviation gas lay in a designated fuel farm. A third insurgent team fired Rocket Propelled Grenades into the farm, igniting a raging fuel fire.

Starleigh’s P-19 finally arrived on scene. Marines in another truck geared up for primary fire attack and nosed up to the berm surrounding the fuel farm. Intense heat radiated from the fire as the aviation fuel burned at temperatures over 1,000 degrees. A firefighter standing in the roof hatch aimed the turret toward the blaze and opened the nozzle. Starleigh positioned his P-19 behind the primary truck to provide additional water. Enemy rounds cracked through the air. The Marines not actively engaged in fire­fighting fanned out around the trucks, lying prone behind their rifles.

A Marine assigned to the fuel farm  approached Starleigh and reported they had potential casualties missing. He pointed away toward a nearby hangar where they had last been seen. Starleigh and another ARFF Marine formed a fire team with two fuel specialists and set out to the hangar. They cleared the inside of the structure then went outside. Large shipping boxes and storage containers funneled them into a corridor down the side of the hangar. Pallets of water and other supplies littered the area, offering concealment throughout the alley.

Starleigh moved on point through the darkened maze as the Marines approached the back corner of the hangar.

“We got about 15 feet from the end of the building when an insurgent stands up from behind a Palcon at the end of the road and started shooting,” Starleigh said. “I immediately returned fire and the figure fell down. In my brain, I don’t know if I hit him or if he just went down to take cover. I don’t know what he’s hiding behind, and I don’t know who else might be behind him. I just knew we needed to get out of that corridor.”

Starleigh fired a magazine to cover the Marines as they withdrew toward the P-19s, still fighting the fuel fire nearby in their direct line of site.
“There was a lot going on,” he remem­bered. “Our ARFF leadership arrived and was looking for accountability. We were in contact right there at the hangar. We were fighting the fire and establishing 360 security. Rounds were flying. One Marine was providing aid to a British sol­dier who got shot. All the while, Harriers were getting blown up on the other side of the airfield, the Marines over there were engaged, and there was another fire going at the cryogenics lab.”

When the attack began, Corporal Vincent Colombo and three other fire­fighters from MWSS-373 drove their P-19 toward the aircraft along the runway. Multiple AV-8B Harriers had lit off, igniting the fabric sunshades covering them. Smaller spot fires burned through­out the vicinity. The firefighters stretched hose lines and extinguished each aircraft one by one as gunfire echoed around the structures. A quick reaction force, filled out by a hodgepodge of mechanics, sup­port personnel, and even British fire­fighters, dispersed through the area re­pelling insurgents while the Marines fought the fire.

“I have always joked with people, we are like the ultimate POGs,” Colombo said today. “We are not meant to close with and destroy the enemy. We are meant to save lives and protect property. We were in such a unique position. It’s not like we were wearing flak and Kevlar underneath our firefighting gear. We couldn’t carry our rifles because we were carrying hundreds of feet of hose to put out the fires.”

With the Harrier fires extinguished, Colombo’s team moved to the cryogenics facility, an interconnected group of ship­ping containers modified to house the lab where liquid oxygen was stored for the jets’ on-board oxygen systems. A single door led into the facility. The limited ventilation contained all the heat and smoke inside, making conditions un­tenable even for firefighters in full gear. The Marines advanced a hose line and began flowing water while pulling items outside to create space. Thick black smoke pulsed through the open door, rolling upwards like an inverse waterfall. Heat baked the Marines through their gear. The opening fed the fire with the oxygen boost it needed to flashover. Every­thing inside that could burn, including the im­penetrable smoke banking down from the ceiling, simultaneously ignited in an explosion of fire.

Mercifully, the Marines remained unharmed as they backed out the door. They lugged a saw to the back side of the containers and cut a large hole, creating a flow path through which the smoke and heat could escape. Running low on air, the Marines swapped bottles in their self-contained breathing apparatus and went back to work.

Under normal circumstances, multiple trucks with numerous firefighters would be on scene to accomplish every task and rotate fresh crews into the structure. They also would not be getting shot at. The ARFF Marines at the cryogenics facility fought alone for nearly two hours to con­trol the blaze, enduring everything the fire and the enemy could throw at them.

British ARFF personnel brought tank­ers to the fuel farm, providing many thou­sands of gallons of water needed to knock down the fire. Apache attack helicopters circled overhead, hunting down any insurgents remaining inside the wire. After four hours the attack ended, but ARFF Marines continued extinguishing spot fires all night. Two British firefighters suffered gunshot wounds while battling the fuel farm blaze. In total, the fire consumed 119,000 gallons of fuel. The insurgents destroyed eight Marine Corps Harriers and a U.S. Air Force C-130, and damaged other air­craft or equipment to varying degrees. Two Marines died and a total of 17 U.S. and British personnel were wounded.

When the sun rose, multiple enemy bodies lay around the vicinity where Colombo and his team fought the Har­rier and container fires. They were rec­og­nized later in press releases and after actions for their role containing the hanger fires and saving millions of dollars worth of equipment, but received no personal awards or Combat Action Rib­bons. Starleigh learned the insurgent his team encountered by the hangar was dead, cut down by his covering fire.

For his actions and initiative leading the ad hoc fire team in search of the casualties, Starleigh received a Combat Action Rib­bon and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Combat Distin­guished Device.
Starleigh reenlisted and moved onto the drill field immediately after leaving Afghanistan. He is now a master sergeant serving with MWSS-273 out of Beaufort, S.C. At his present rank, Starleigh holds one of the most senior roles within his MOS where Marines are still certified as firefighters and actively involved in the daily operations of their respective fire departments.

Beyond master sergeant, career Marine firefighters have two available paths. Fewer than 10 hold the rank of master gunnery sergeant, serving in Corps-wide planning or training roles. Considerably more progress into warrant officer ranks as a 7002, Expeditionary Airfield and Emergency Services Officer. Colombo serves in this capacity today, now a chief warrant officer 3 serving with Marine Air Control Group 38. These senior Marines serve at each MWSS, air station, Wing, and Marine Expeditionary Force. They hold primary responsibility for planning and overseeing the installation, operation, and maintenance of expeditionary air­field equipment and aircraft recovery equipment. They can serve as Incident Commander during aircraft emergencies, structure fires, rescue operations, and hazardous materials responses.

Despite the available career paths, some ARFF Marines choose to leave the Marine Corps following their first enlistment. Marine firefighters have the op­portunity to leave active duty with direct­ly transferrable skills, performing the exact same job in the civilian world. The decision, in the end, boils down to which uniform, which identity, each individual wants to wear.
“In my opinion, you have to love be­ing a Marine more than you love being a firefighter,” said GySgt Ritchie. “The guys who love being a firefighter more than anything else in the world are prob­ably better suited to serve with a civilian or federal fire department. I think you have to love the ability to be forward de­ployed. You have to wake up every morn­ing, put the uniform on, look in the mir­ror, and still have a lot of pride wear­ing that eagle, globe, and anchor.”

For those who move on, the civilian fire service offers a familiar and promising career. ARFF Marines may find the shift more seamless, but Marines coming from any field will discover in the firehouse a world full of people and experiences that likely checks all the same boxes that earlier convinced them to join the military.

Todd Angell left the military in 2012 after serving as a U.S. Navy corpsman with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. The cita­tion for his Silver Star details a three-month period during 2010 in Afghanistan where Angell single-handedly rescued multiple Marines or Afghan soldiers who were blown up by improvised explosive devises, grievously wounded, and trapped inside a minefield. It later describes his critical role in gunfights, personally account­ing for multiple enemy dead. Today, Angell serves as a firefighter with Hillsborough County, Fla., and as a flight paramedic flying out of a hospital in Tampa.

“Being a Fleet Marine Force corpsman was a dream of mine,” he said. “I’m super proud of it and it is something that’s always going to be a part of me. But that was a goal I accomplished in another life, and goals change. Not everyone wants the military to be their identity forever, but even if you just serve four years and get out, hanging up that uniform is one of the hardest things you’ll do.”

Similar to transitioning ARFF Marines, as a Navy corpsman, Angell’s path into the fire service might appear natural or inevitable, moving from one “first re­spond­er” role into another.

“I’ve talked to several younger guys who are still active duty, and I tell them don’t look at this job like it’s the only thing you can do when you get out. It’s a great job. It’s definitely not for everybody, but those of us who are in it love it. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. I think a lot of guys coming from the military would fit that mold.”

The baseline values and life lessons Angell gained from the military set him up for success. Simple things learned as early on as boot camp prove especially applicable in the fire service; showing up on time, pride in your appearance, and the humility to shut up and listen when someone is trying to teach you something, even if you think you already know the answer. Perhaps most important is the understanding that the fire service, like the military, should be approached as a noble calling, not for everyone and not just the next job.

“We served our nation, and now to be able to serve our communities is a natural fit for us,” said Dakota Meyer, Marine veteran who is now a firefighter. “We all served in the military because we wanted to be needed, to be part of the greater good, and to do something that not everybody had the opportunity to do. The fire service fills that same cup; being able to be whatever it takes to make the world that you’re a part of just a little bit better.”

Meyer left active duty in 2010 after seeing combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and becoming the first living Marine recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Ten years later, in 2020, Meyer enrolled in the fire academy in his home state of Texas and joined the volunteer firefighters serving with Spicewood Fire Rescue in Burnet County.

On Feb. 22, 2022, Meyer and two other volunteer firefighters responded to a reported vehicle in water. Once on scene, Meyer spotted a pickup truck that ran off the road, through a fence, and was now completely submerged in a pond just below the surface of the water. A civilian on the bank told him a victim remained trapped in the truck. Meyer stripped off his heavy bunker gear and jumped in. He swam to the truck and searched for a way inside, treading in the frigid water for several minutes before another firefighter successfully broke out a window. Meyer dove down into the cab, located the un­conscious victim, and helped drag him back to shore. The firefighters performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation until para­medics arrived in a helicopter to rush the victim to the hospital. By the time the helicopter landed, the victim’s pulse re­turned, and he started breathing on his own. Miraculously, four weeks later, he walked out of the hospital fully recovered. For their swift actions and lifesaving measures critical to the patient’s outcome, Meyer and the other firefighters involved in the rescue received the department’s Firefighter Medal of Valor.

“The level of creativity being in this job is kind of like being a Marine,” Meyer said. “Every gunfight is different. Being a warfighter requires a level of creativity, taking everything that you have, your skills and capabilities, and putting those things together in a way to provide a solution to the problem that you face. That’s exactly what being a firefighter is. You’ve got what you’ve got and how are you going to fix the problem that’s at hand?”

Today, Meyer serves as a Fire Captain with Spicewood, as well as serving part-
time with another professional depart­ment in Burnet County. He is one of many Marines who have found and embraced this new uniform and identity, continuing the long-standing relationship between Marines and the fire service.

Another example from years past is Gunny Sergeant Fred Stockham . Stock­ham was a firefighter in Detroit, Mich., before enlisting in the Marines in 1903. When his four-year contract ended, Stockham returned to the fire service in Newark, N.J., where he remained until reenlisting once again in 1912. By 1918, Stockham achieved the rank of gunnery sergeant while serving in the trenches during World War I. On the night of June 13 to 14, Stockham’s company endured heavy German bombardment with high explosives and mustard gas. Stockham donned his gas mask as the yellow-brown chemical seeped across the front spilling into the trenches. A Marine next to Stock­ham lay wounded in the mud, his gas mask shot off his face. Without hesitation, Stockham removed his own mask and placed it on the wounded Marine. Mustard gas seared his lungs and blistered his skin as Stockham evac­uated the casualty to safety. He continued evacuating other wounded until the effects of the gas finally overwhelmed him. Stockham died in a hospital eight days later. For his heroic, selfless sacri­fice, he posthumously received the Medal of Honor.

Bobby Wayne Abshire is another name every Marine (and firefighter) should know. Abshire graduated from high school in 1961 and enlisted in the Marine Corps. He spent nine years on active duty, serving three combat tours in Vietnam. In May 1966, Abshire worked as a crew chief aboard a Huey conducting medical evacuations. The call arrived one day for an infantry platoon in dire straits. Viet Cong trapped the grunts in an open rice paddy with more than half the platoon dead or wounded. Abshire’s pilot dropped in over the rice paddy, but enemy ma­chine-gun fire drove the helicopter back. The pilot landed on his second approach. Casualties lay all around the helicopter. With no one else able-bodied enough to help the wounded to the chopper, Abshire jumped out. Enemy bullets dug into the earth all around him as he assisted two wounded Marines into the Huey. The chopper struggled into the air once more, delivering the casualties to safety.

Back at the airfield, ground crews deemed the Huey too shot up to fly again. Abshire unhesitatingly transferred his gear to a new Huey and volunteered to return. During eight separate trips into the rice paddy, Abshire left his Huey to collect fallen Marines. On one of these occasions, he found a grenade launcher and wiped out an enemy machine gun. Abshire and his crew evacuated 23 cas­ual­ties from the field. For his outstanding resolve, courage, and dedication, Abshire was nominated for the Medal of Honor. His award was downgraded to the Navy Cross.

Abshire left the Marines in 1971 as a staff sergeant. He returned home to Texas and joined his father as a firefighter in Fort Worth.
“I remember one night we were coming home from a ballgame and a young kid had been hit on a bicycle. He had to stop and help,” Abshire’s wife, Jean, said in a 1984 Fort Worth Star-Telegram story. “He was always doing that. He’d tell me, ‘I could be the difference between someone living and someone dying because I know what I’m doing.’ ”

His belief proved true. In 1974, Abshire received his department’s meritorious service award for resuscitating a 2-year-old boy who nearly drowned in a fishing pond. Abshire served the Fort Worth com­munity for 10 more years.
He performed his final act of service on Jun. 9, 1984. Driving home off duty, well after midnight, he happened upon a driver with a disabled vehicle stranded on the side of the road. Abshire stopped and walked back to the driver to help. While they talked, a drunk driver speed­ing down the road lost control as he passed by. The tires squealed and the headlights illuminated both men as the car careened off the road directly towards them. “Watch out!” Abshire yelled and shoved the other man out of the way. The vehicle missed the other driver but hit Abshire at full speed. He died an hour later at the hospital. He was 41 years old.

The willingness to place others before yourself is a hallmark trait of firefighters and Marines. Stockham and Abshire’s stories are just two examples of how this trait is interchangeably applied between both services and, for them, resulted in the ultimate sacrifice. Staff Sergeant Christopher Slutman represents a modern example, loved and remembered by both communities. Slutman served simultane­ous­ly as a Marine reservist and a 15-year veteran of the Fire Department of New York City. In 2014, he earned a medal for valor after climbing in full gear to a 7th floor apartment that was on fire, crawling through the smoke to locate a victim in the back bedroom, then drag­ging her to safety. He died in April 2019 at age 43 while wearing his other uniform. Assigned to “Echo” Company, 2nd Bat­talion, 25th Marines, Slutman deployed to Afghanistan where a vehicle-borne improvised explosive devise struck his convoy near Bagram Airfield. He and two other Marines died in the explosion.

Every Marine understands the incalcu­la­ble value and personal meaning of shar­ing pleasure and pain with your brothers and sisters in uniform. Combat veterans rely on those who fought alongside them to interpret the lasting effects of their shared trauma and help each other heal. Uncanny parallels to combat unfold for veterans running calls in the civilian world, at times sitting around the dinner table with their shift mates working through the horrible calls they all hope to forget, other times doubled over in pain around the same table laughing as hard as they ever have before.

“I think my combat experience helped set me up for success but having it doesn’t necessarily make you a better firefighter,” reflected Angell. “Serving with the in­fantry was a hard, back-breaking job, but there is so much pride and camaraderie to come out of it. I see the fire department the same way. You are going to work. Any­body who has been on a single structure fire will tell you it’s probably one of the most physically demanding things you can do. When you get back you clean all your tools, clean all your gear, and get it ready for the next run, just like the Marine Corps. Do your mis­sion and when it’s over, get ready for the next one. The camaraderie with your crew is huge. I quickly realized that, as a civilian, you’re going to run calls that are as bad, and maybe even worse, than combat. Having guys at your firehouse that you can trust to talk about things is key. That’s an ability I learned from the Marine Corps. You’re not a victim, you have 50 guys from your platoon who just went through everything you went through, and you’re not alone.”

“We in the military try to make our PTSD like it’s something that nobody understands,” echoed Meyer. “We try to make it like it’s this exclusive trauma nobody will get, like the only way you can understand me is if you’ve been in a gunfight, and that’s simply not true. I’ve ran two shifts back to back in the firehouse that made everything I saw in combat look like child’s play. The fire service is the closest thing that I have found to being with the type of people who are in the Marine Corps and that’s because the stakes are high. Nobody’s calling us when everything is great. We are there to be problem solvers for people in their worst moments. With that, it’s kind of like combat; you deal with combat and hard times with humor, and it’s the same thing in the fire service. There’s this unspoken support of each other, a sense of brotherhood where having each other’s back is unconditional.”

The dual identities of Marine vet­eran firefighters face off in friendly com­petition. The idea of, “once a Marine, always a Marine” proves challenging to assimilate with their new profession and equally defining lifestyle. Their trucks sport Marine Corps stickers down one side of the rear glass, while fire depart­ment decals fill the opposite side. Ma­chine guns, bayonets, and MOS codes decorate their skin alongside Halligan bars, Maltese crosses, and “Never Forget” 9/11 tattoos. Their professional counter­parts on active duty, meanwhile, remain singularly identified; they are Marines. But whether military or civilian, Marine firefighters or Marines who became firefighters, those who claim both titles enjoy the best job in the world and wear it with pride.

Author’s bio: Kyle Watts is the staff writer for Leatherneck. He served on active duty in the Marine Corps as a communications officer from 2009-2013. He is the 2019 winner of the Colonel Robert Debs Heinl Jr. Award for Marine Corps History. He lives in Richmond, Va., with his wife and three children.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the November 1959 issue of Leatherneck Magazine.

Anyone digging into Marine Corps archives of the years just before the War of 1812 might be startled to see there on the rolls of officers the name Ichabod Crane-perhaps one of the best known names in American literature. The discovery is particularly interesting because Washington Irving was then beginning to write, and it was just seven years after Lieutenant Crane resigned from the Marine Corps that “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was published-date 1819.

The beloved story offers various local guesses as to what became of the schoolmaster after the hapless fellow’s encounter with the “headless horseman” and subsequent disappearance. Different villagers said he “had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same time; had been admitted to the bar, turned politician, electioneered, written for the newspapers, and finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound Court.”

Not one of the villagers of Sleepy Hollow said that perhaps Ichabod had gone and joined the Marines. He may, indeed, have tried but been sent kiting by a supply sergeant at wit’s end, attempting to furnish a uniform. For Ichabod, you will recall, was “exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels.”

At any rate, it is logical today to speculate that Washington Irving did take the name for the village school-master from a Lieutenant Ichabod B. Crane of the Marine Corps, having most certainly encountered the name not long before he wrote the tale, and, what is more, having quite probably met the officer. The author’s fancy may have been caught by the name. The schoolmaster was a period piece, who merely needed a name. The model was not uncommon.

Ichabod B. Crane was a native of Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth) New Jersey, a descendant of a first settler of the town. He was appointed a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps on 26 January, 1809, from Irving’s State of New York, receiving $25 a month and subsistence. Ichabod’s father, General William Crane, had been a Revolutionary artilleryman, wounded at the attack on Quebec, but surviving to serve as Major General of New Jersey Militia during the War of 1812. Ichabod’s brother, William Montgomery Crane, entered the Navy as a midshipman in May, 1799, serving on the United States, becoming a lieutenant in 1803, and a commander by 1813.

Ichabod, upon joining the Marine Corps, was assigned in February, 1809, to command the Marine detachment on board the United States, which was a 44-gun frigate, a sister ship to Old Ironsides, and herself affectionately termed the “Old Waggon.” The detachment was authorized to number two sergeants, two corporals, two musics (a fifer and a drummer), and 50 privates, but it was seldom near that strength. Lt Crane’s routine experience as commander of the seagoing Marines may well have consisted partly of settling arguments between Marines and Sailors of that rough period. Your “rights . . . are sometimes liable to be infringed on.” warned Lieutenant Archibald Hender-son. later a Marine Corps Commandant. All through the 19th century a Marine detachment on board a ship was known as the Marine Guard. In peacetime they composed a disciplinary force at sea, deterring mutiny—”the bulwark between the cabin and the forecastle.”

Lt Crane continued on the United States until December, 1810. when he was detached to Marine Corps Headquarters at Washington. In March, 1812, he was due to relieve a Captain Williams at a Florida post, but a change of plans kept him at Washington.

In May, 1810, Captain Stephen Decatur, a close friend of Washington Irving, was ordered to command the United States. Thus, for almost a year. Lt Crane had served under living’s friend-in charge of the Marines on that ship.

Decatur and Irving once roomed together in New York, and through the years, before Irving went to England (1815) the two men saw each other often. The author could, therefore, well have been introduced to Decatur’s Marine officer. Decatur may at least have mentioned the man.

Irving possessed what William Cullen Bryant called a ”frolicsome fancy” -certainly exhibited in his stories of Dutch New York. He delighted in naming literary characters after persons he knew or heard of. In 1809 he wrote Diedrich Knickerbocker’s humorous history of New York. In it he freely employed old Dutch family names—“but I did not dream of offense,” said the amiable Irving.

Irving wrote “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” while on a visit to England. The story, like others of the Sketch Book series, appeared in America in 1819 under Irving’s pen name, Geoffrey Crayon. Few persons, either in America or abroad, ever did learn who the real author was. Many, especially in Great Britain, thought it was Sir Walter Scott, the literary lion of the hour and a most admiring friend of Irving.

The Sketch Book series became at once popular, selling rapidly, and Ichabod B. Crane must surely have either read of the schoolmaster or had his attention called to the coincidence of names. Whether he knew, however, that “Geoffrey Crayon” was actually Decatur’s friend, Irving, is less presumable. By that date, Crane was a major in the Army. After resigning from the Marine Corps on April 28, 1812, he had accepted a captaincy from the Army. It was the military which engrossed the life of Ichabod B. Crane. He was not a horseman-nor did he ever write, like Washington Irving or his own descendant, Stephen Crane, the New Jersey author of the Civil War story, “The Red Badge of Courage.” Lt Crane of the Marine Corps would have been interested to foresee that Stephen Crane, as a war correspondent, covered a Marine landing in 1898 at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Washington Irving’s interest in the Navy must surely have included the Marine Corps, which then, as today, was a part of the Navy Department. The author became well acquainted with Charles Nicholas of Philadelphia, a son of Samuel Nicholas, the first Marine officer appointed by the Continental Congress after it voted for two battalions of Marines on 10 November 1775, the historic birthday of the Marine Corps.

Although Irving showed a zest for naval exploits and affairs, his role was essentially that of a detached bystander, rather than a participant. He declined two offers of a post in the Navy Department. In 1818, Commodore Decatur was serving on the Board of Navy Commissioners at Washington, a sort of directorate composed mainly of ex-naval heroes. So Decatur had no difficulty obtaining the job of first clerk in the Navy Department for his good friend Irving but entirely unsolicited by the author, who was then in Europe.

William, Washington’s brother, then a Congressman, wrote enthusiastically to the author: “Commodore Decatur informs me that he had made such arrangements, and such steps would further be made by the Navy Board, as that you will be able to obtain the office of first clerk in the Navy Department, which is similar to that of under-secretary in England. The salary is equal to $2400 per annum, which, as the Commodore says, is sufficient to enable you to live in Washington like a prince.”

But Irving was indifferent to so bright a prospect. He turned down the job, explaining that it meant a “routine of duties” which would “prevent my atending to literary pursuits”—although William had emphasized that he could still do that while holding the clerkship. Practical William was concerned about the declining family fortunes. Their long-time hardware business had just gone through bankruptcy, and young Washington, then 35 years old, was not yet the prosperous author. To brother William, as well as to Decatur, the Navy clerkship seemed a profitable and secure plum until Washington’s literary talents were more appreciated.

In 1838, President Van Buren, a personal friend, like Decatur, wanted Irving to become Secretary of the Navy. But then, as 20 years before, and despite a permanent interest in the Navy, Irving still did not care for a desk job at the Department. In declining this time, he said that “a short career of public life at Washington . . . would render me mentally and physically a perfect wreck.”

During subsequent years Irving enjoyed the life of a celebrated author at his home, “Sunnyside,” near Tarrytown, New York. Meanwhile, at some Army post, Crane was serving as a colonel of artillery. He died in 1857, just two years before Irving, on Staten Island, New York.

Ichabod B. Crane’s Marine Corps service was just a brief three years. It provided no occasion where he could win fame in the heroic annals of the Corps. Nor did the Army supply a chance for remembered glory. Yet, as men sometimes do, he achieved a quite unexpected kind of immortality. Because of Washington Irving, his name wells forever on the pages of American literature.