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thedrifter
11-21-06, 07:36 AM
With cameras rolling, Young Marines interview vets
November 21,2006
ANNE CLARK

The scripted questions were good — How did you pass the time while you were deployed? What were your first days in the service like? — but it was after the camera cut off that the boys became animated, surging to the table top as the Vietnam veteran brought out his can opener, the same one he’d taken to combat with him some 40 years ago.

“You could open the cans in the dark,” said former Army Sgt. Thomas Ray Kearns. He still keeps the can opener on a key chain.

It’s about an inch long, with one prong to fit over the lip of the can.

He keeps duct tape around the still-sharp edges, which at one time, in the jungles of Vietnam, slit open cans of chopped ham and peanut butter and beans.

“We need to take a picture of it!” said Swansboro Young Marine Pvt. Jonathan Reese, 13.

He and Young Marine Cpl. Jacob Farmer, 11, had interviewed Kearns as part of a veterans appreciation dinner, held at the Swansboro Family Moose Center on Sunday.

The filmed interviews will be archived at the Library of Congress as part of the Veterans History Project; the films will also go on display at the future Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas.

Swansboro Young Marines, a chapter that’s about 54 strong, began the dinner by seating veterans and taking their food and drink orders.

“They’re serving and taking care of the veterans today,” said Sen. Harry Brown (R-Onslow). He makes a tradition of coming to the annual spaghetti dinner.

And soon the cammie-clad youth, with an average age of 10, mingled with the older generations.

“It’s amazing to sit and talk to them,” said Young Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jonathon Clark, 17. “They’ve been in wars, they’ve served in combat.”

Clark is the acting First Sergeant of the Swansboro unit, and the unit’s Young Marine of the Year.

The Young Marines is a youth education and service program for kids starting at age 8 and through high school.

The program promotes character building and a healthy, drug-free lifestyle.

“They set an example for all youth to follow,” said Don Shanks, a retired Marine Chief Warrant Officer 2 and the Swansboro Young Marines’ commanding officer.

Many times it’s the teens who are the good role models.

“I drill them, PT with them,” Clark said. “We’re like a big family.”

The unit meets Friday nights, as they have for two years, for free at the Swansboro Family Moose Center.

In return, the Young Marines raised $3,500 to replace the air conditioner there, Shanks said.

The Young Marines earn ribbons, similar-looking to those worn by active duty troops, through different activities, like swimming, academics and boot camp.

“We affectionately call it boot camp,” Shanks said. “It’s where we teach them the basics, like standing at attention, Marine Corps history, and the Young Marines’ obligation.”

Being a part of Veterans Appreciation Week activities can also go towards earning a ribbon.

Many of the youth enrolled in the Young Marines program have family members who are either active duty or retired military.

Farmer said his Marine father has been to Iraq three times.

That could explain why the boys’ questions were so thoughtful and smart. And honest.

“Do you have nightmares of being in Vietnam?” Farmer asked.

“No, but my wife says I grit my teeth all the time,” said Kearns, who was infantry and served with a signal brigade.

“Would you take back your thoughts about going in the Army?” Farmer asked.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Kearns said. “I’d go back and stay in 20 years.”

The boys asked about Kearns’ deployment time — he went to Vietnam in 1967 and stayed for three years, with a break every six months to come home.

They learned that he contacted home by letter; no e-mail, hardly any telephone calls.

He described what it was like sitting on the floor of a Huey helicopter as it lifted off the jungle floor with gunners at each door.

“Do you have any guns from the war?” Reese asked.

Kearns said that, back then, troops were allowed to bring home one weapon (non-automatic) that they found, and he’d come home with a Vietnamese SKS rifle.

Reese had handled the rifle, shot it while hunting, because Kearns is his grandfather, and there’s always more to learn from him.

Ellie