PDA

View Full Version : Life Goes On Brotherhood of war veterans



thedrifter
09-12-05, 05:28 AM
Life Goes On Brotherhood of war veterans
Fred Wilber

Lately I’ve been running into a lot of old servicemen, as you might expect, hanging around the VA Health Center. Not many WWII’s. Mostly Korea and Vietnam veterans.

There’s always a common story about some port everybody visited en route somewhere, so the stories start and end often in the same place where many servicemen traveled.

We don’t get into combat tales very often; we talk mostly about the conditions where we were stationed, about foreign civilians, and the odd things that happened–pretty much the humorous stuff, like the sailors and Marines mutual admiration tradition: a kind of perpetual misunderstanding that sometimes arose when Jarheads and Swabbies get together on shore leave.

You see, I was in the Navy, so I have to take the objective nautical side on this topic. Marines are part of the Navy, not the other way around. If that were reversed, maybe sailors would have been the reactionaries.

I don’t want to put any unfair blame on the Marines for causing trouble, although that is the way sailors saw it. The Navy felt the Marines always started the fracas, and that old story about Marines taking off their belts and wrapping them around a hand and whacking somebody with the buckle was just a rumor. You can’t rumble with your pants falling down. I blame sailors for making up the belt story.

I ran into a couple of old Marines at a golf course recently, Korean vets. We had a nice visit. I asked one guy what he did in San Diego with all the Navy around there. He said he had a good time knocking the stuffing out of sailors. I said in a friendly and understanding Navy way that I was a sailor and had witnessed several events similar to which he described, but just the reverse happened with me.

In fact, I told him, I was so concerned about Marines falling and injuring themselves I frequently was able to catch one falling and lower him gently to earth. He was so inspired by this brotherly act, so uncommon in the Navy Marine relationship, he begged to hear more.

Inspiring other branches of the armed service is the Navy way, so I told him about the time two of my shipmates and I, having just left an evening church service, went into Eddie’s Bar in San Diego to discuss sudden crop failures due to drought in the midwest. Immediately upon entering the bar, several Marines, who were apparently fighting among themselves, fell into our trio by accident.

Again, demonstrating Naval courtesy, fearing they might injure themselves in falling, we lowered them gently to the floor. Two shore patrolmen came upon the scene and threatened us with the brig for sitting at the bar minding our business.

Fortunately, the SP’s were able to grasp the benevolence of our explanation leaving us to our discussion of Iowa’s corn crop. The Korean Marine was so pleased to hear that all Navy and Marine contacts didn’t end in conflict, that the inspiration of brotherhood overcame him. He glanced at his watch as he was leaving, saying if he hurried he could make an afternoon church service near his home. Another misunderstanding handled with gentility, the Navy way.

Old Dogfaces and Flyboys show up in these gatherings, too. They never seemed to enjoy shore-leave sports as much as Swabs and Jars. I don’t know if any service branch won the war, as we all like to joke about, and the gab concerning that is probably about even, too.

Ellie