thedrifter
12-01-05, 12:10 PM
Once More Unto The Breach
November 30, 2005
by Bob Newman
The email came in this morning.
A Marine officer from the Ground Combat Element-Multi-National Force (GCE-MNF) in western Iraq was informing me that the 2nd Marine Division would be awaiting my arrival in al Anbar Province in the first week in January 2006. My media "embed" request had been approved.
In my mind’s eye, time turned back to May 1977, Platoon 3037, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, Recruit Training Regiment, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. Private Newman was standing at attention in the "DI hut" in my platoon’s squad bay. Seated before the recruit was the recruit’s senior drill instructor, Staff Sergeant John Mock, the most intimidating and fearsome man the recruit had ever encountered in his 19 years of life. Having just called the recruit into the hut from his duty as fire watch that evening, the recruit was sure his days were about to come to a gruesome and graphic end because of some crime against the Corps he had unwittingly committed.
But my demise was not in the cards. Instead, Staff Sergeant Mock, knowing that in a few days this recruit would become a Marine, was curious to see what this recruit thought about what he thought life in the Corps would be like.
"Newman, what are you set to do in the Corps?" he asked without screaming.
"Sir, the private is going to be a grunt, sir."
"You ask for that, Newman?" the senior DI asked calmly as he actually handed me a half a cup of black coffee.
"Sir, yes sir." My slightly shaking hand reached out for the cup, sure it was an ambush.
"Well, Private Newman, in the Corps, you have to be careful about what you ask for. Now take your coffee and get back on duty."
I did so.
Reading the email a second time, I recalled the famous line from Henry V: "Once more unto the breach, my friends, once more."
In the blink of an eye, my usual Wednesday morning was anything but. Far to the east on the other side of the planet, Marines were on patrol; Marines I would soon meet and be on patrol with. I tried to imagine their faces, the steel in their young eyes and the grim visages of living legends with a deadly mission. I, too, once wore that face. A face I would retrieve from a dusty, olive-drab footlocker in my garage, where are stowed the signs and symbols and memories of another lifetime; a hideously sharp KA-BAR knife, a pair of desert combat boots, desert camouflage utilities, a web belt with gold buckle, dog tags, a photo of my platoon in the Gulf War in Kuwait, and a thousand more reminders of what I once was: a hired gun among hired guns.
Pulling the KA-BAR from its sheath, I read the inscription on the blade, put there by the non-commissioned officers of my Gulf War platoon, some of whom are now the gunnery sergeants leading Marines in combat.
I walked into my backyard with the KA-BAR and stood facing the east and Iraq and the 2nd Marine Division, my dog looking at me curiously.
"Gunny Newman, incoming." After I said that to no one in particular, I realized I was smiling. It was the smile you wear when destiny comes calling and you greet it as a friend.
I secured the knife, draped my dog tags around my neck, pulled my faded seabag from the footlocker, and started packing my trash.
Bob Newman
Bob Newman, a decorated, retired US Marine, is host of the “Gunny Bob Show” on Newsradio 850 KOA in Denver. A ground-combat veteran, he is the director of international security & counterterrorism services for The GeoScope Group. He can be reached at bobnewman@clearchannel.com.
November 30, 2005
by Bob Newman
The email came in this morning.
A Marine officer from the Ground Combat Element-Multi-National Force (GCE-MNF) in western Iraq was informing me that the 2nd Marine Division would be awaiting my arrival in al Anbar Province in the first week in January 2006. My media "embed" request had been approved.
In my mind’s eye, time turned back to May 1977, Platoon 3037, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, Recruit Training Regiment, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. Private Newman was standing at attention in the "DI hut" in my platoon’s squad bay. Seated before the recruit was the recruit’s senior drill instructor, Staff Sergeant John Mock, the most intimidating and fearsome man the recruit had ever encountered in his 19 years of life. Having just called the recruit into the hut from his duty as fire watch that evening, the recruit was sure his days were about to come to a gruesome and graphic end because of some crime against the Corps he had unwittingly committed.
But my demise was not in the cards. Instead, Staff Sergeant Mock, knowing that in a few days this recruit would become a Marine, was curious to see what this recruit thought about what he thought life in the Corps would be like.
"Newman, what are you set to do in the Corps?" he asked without screaming.
"Sir, the private is going to be a grunt, sir."
"You ask for that, Newman?" the senior DI asked calmly as he actually handed me a half a cup of black coffee.
"Sir, yes sir." My slightly shaking hand reached out for the cup, sure it was an ambush.
"Well, Private Newman, in the Corps, you have to be careful about what you ask for. Now take your coffee and get back on duty."
I did so.
Reading the email a second time, I recalled the famous line from Henry V: "Once more unto the breach, my friends, once more."
In the blink of an eye, my usual Wednesday morning was anything but. Far to the east on the other side of the planet, Marines were on patrol; Marines I would soon meet and be on patrol with. I tried to imagine their faces, the steel in their young eyes and the grim visages of living legends with a deadly mission. I, too, once wore that face. A face I would retrieve from a dusty, olive-drab footlocker in my garage, where are stowed the signs and symbols and memories of another lifetime; a hideously sharp KA-BAR knife, a pair of desert combat boots, desert camouflage utilities, a web belt with gold buckle, dog tags, a photo of my platoon in the Gulf War in Kuwait, and a thousand more reminders of what I once was: a hired gun among hired guns.
Pulling the KA-BAR from its sheath, I read the inscription on the blade, put there by the non-commissioned officers of my Gulf War platoon, some of whom are now the gunnery sergeants leading Marines in combat.
I walked into my backyard with the KA-BAR and stood facing the east and Iraq and the 2nd Marine Division, my dog looking at me curiously.
"Gunny Newman, incoming." After I said that to no one in particular, I realized I was smiling. It was the smile you wear when destiny comes calling and you greet it as a friend.
I secured the knife, draped my dog tags around my neck, pulled my faded seabag from the footlocker, and started packing my trash.
Bob Newman
Bob Newman, a decorated, retired US Marine, is host of the “Gunny Bob Show” on Newsradio 850 KOA in Denver. A ground-combat veteran, he is the director of international security & counterterrorism services for The GeoScope Group. He can be reached at bobnewman@clearchannel.com.