thedrifter
03-07-03, 06:47 AM
03/07/2003
General heading to Gulf
By ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Former Camp Lejeune commander Maj. Gen. Ray Smith is headed to the Persian Gulf, even though he has been retired nearly four years.
Now president of the proposed downtown Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas, Smith, of Jacksonville, ran the base from July 1997 to July 1999. Smith has had a long and storied combat career in the Marine Corps.
“I’m really going over there as a journalist, for three purposes,” Smith said Thursday. “As a technical adviser for the Marine Corps public affairs team making a documentary film, and I’m under contract to write a book with the working title ‘From Hue to Baghdad’ and to do commentary with expert analysis for ABC radio.”
Smith will leave for the Persian Gulf within the week, but he does not yet know where he will go, how long he will be gone or with whom he will be spending his 57th birthday on March 13, except that it will likely be somewhere in the “sandbox.”
It is the combination of his four urban combat experiences in Hue, Quang Tri, Grenada and Beirut that make Smith a sought-after commodity for expert commentary during a possible war in the Middle East.
In 1968 as a first lieutenant, Smith was a platoon commander with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in Vietnam. When his company commander was wounded, he assumed command as the company entered Hue City during the Tet Offensive. He received his first Silver Star for that action.
“I had many good fights after that,” Smith said.
Over the next four years, he received the Navy Cross, the country’s second-highest medal, and another Silver Star.
“Those medals are the most important, although there were a bunch of others including three Purple Hearts,” he said.
He served some of his time as a military adviser to the South Vietnamese military and participated in the battle of Quang Tri in 1972 that once again took the war to the city streets.
A decade later, he was a lieutenant colonel and commander of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, assigned to the 22nd Marine Amphibious Unit. The unit departed eastern North Carolina in 1983 for a regularly scheduled patrol in the Mediterranean Sea but was rerouted to Grenada.
During that detour, 273 Marines, sailors and soldiers died in a terrorist bombing at Beirut International Airport’s main terminal that 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment and the 24th MAU were using as headquarters for peacekeeping operations in Lebanon.
“Two days before we landed in Grenada, the bombing in Beirut happened, and after a week we got back on the ship and went to replace what was left of 1/8,” Smith said.
That wealth of experience will play a significant part in the book. Smith will work with Francis “Bing” West, who has written nonfiction books on small unit combat based on his own experiences in Vietnam and a fictional story called “The Pepperdogs” about a Marine Corps reconnaissance unit in Kosovo, Smith said.
Their next collaborative book will focus on the last 30 years of urban combat.
“It’s about the evolution, or some say revolution, in Marine Corps operational combat matters, especially combat in the city, from then to now,” Smith said. “My technical advisor role with public affairs is voluntary.”
Organizers of the Marine Corps Museum said Smith will be missed during his absence. His office duties will be taken over by museum vice president retired Sgt. Maj. Ihor Sywanyk, a local military historian and collector of Marine Corps artifacts.
“That’s why we have a vice president,” said museum executive director retired Sgt. Maj. Joe Houle. “When the president is away, we continue to march.”
Contact Eric Steinkopff at esteinkopff@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 236.
Sempers,
Roger
General heading to Gulf
By ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Former Camp Lejeune commander Maj. Gen. Ray Smith is headed to the Persian Gulf, even though he has been retired nearly four years.
Now president of the proposed downtown Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas, Smith, of Jacksonville, ran the base from July 1997 to July 1999. Smith has had a long and storied combat career in the Marine Corps.
“I’m really going over there as a journalist, for three purposes,” Smith said Thursday. “As a technical adviser for the Marine Corps public affairs team making a documentary film, and I’m under contract to write a book with the working title ‘From Hue to Baghdad’ and to do commentary with expert analysis for ABC radio.”
Smith will leave for the Persian Gulf within the week, but he does not yet know where he will go, how long he will be gone or with whom he will be spending his 57th birthday on March 13, except that it will likely be somewhere in the “sandbox.”
It is the combination of his four urban combat experiences in Hue, Quang Tri, Grenada and Beirut that make Smith a sought-after commodity for expert commentary during a possible war in the Middle East.
In 1968 as a first lieutenant, Smith was a platoon commander with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment in Vietnam. When his company commander was wounded, he assumed command as the company entered Hue City during the Tet Offensive. He received his first Silver Star for that action.
“I had many good fights after that,” Smith said.
Over the next four years, he received the Navy Cross, the country’s second-highest medal, and another Silver Star.
“Those medals are the most important, although there were a bunch of others including three Purple Hearts,” he said.
He served some of his time as a military adviser to the South Vietnamese military and participated in the battle of Quang Tri in 1972 that once again took the war to the city streets.
A decade later, he was a lieutenant colonel and commander of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, assigned to the 22nd Marine Amphibious Unit. The unit departed eastern North Carolina in 1983 for a regularly scheduled patrol in the Mediterranean Sea but was rerouted to Grenada.
During that detour, 273 Marines, sailors and soldiers died in a terrorist bombing at Beirut International Airport’s main terminal that 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment and the 24th MAU were using as headquarters for peacekeeping operations in Lebanon.
“Two days before we landed in Grenada, the bombing in Beirut happened, and after a week we got back on the ship and went to replace what was left of 1/8,” Smith said.
That wealth of experience will play a significant part in the book. Smith will work with Francis “Bing” West, who has written nonfiction books on small unit combat based on his own experiences in Vietnam and a fictional story called “The Pepperdogs” about a Marine Corps reconnaissance unit in Kosovo, Smith said.
Their next collaborative book will focus on the last 30 years of urban combat.
“It’s about the evolution, or some say revolution, in Marine Corps operational combat matters, especially combat in the city, from then to now,” Smith said. “My technical advisor role with public affairs is voluntary.”
Organizers of the Marine Corps Museum said Smith will be missed during his absence. His office duties will be taken over by museum vice president retired Sgt. Maj. Ihor Sywanyk, a local military historian and collector of Marine Corps artifacts.
“That’s why we have a vice president,” said museum executive director retired Sgt. Maj. Joe Houle. “When the president is away, we continue to march.”
Contact Eric Steinkopff at esteinkopff@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 236.
Sempers,
Roger