thedrifter
03-10-03, 09:45 AM
‘Rufus’ makes a lasting impression in Kuwait
CAMP FOX, Kuwait – There are three sergeants major in the Marine Corps with the last name of Hawkins, but only one carries the big stick.
Sgt. Maj. Richard Hawkins and his mallet named “Rufus” are easy to spot.
He’s a mountain of a man, ramrod straight with huge shoulders and chest, and he looks how textbook Marines are supposed to appear.
And then there’s the mallet. “I’ve had Rufus since 1994. I picked up Rufus down in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when we were down there for Operation Sea Signal. It was part of the Air Force’s kit for their expandable air-conditioned tents and it was on the side of the road, and I decided if it was still there at (2 p.m.), it was meant to be mine … it was and it is.
Rufus has a 3-foot-long handle and a wooden head just smaller than a coffee can.
Hawkins says it is designed to make an impression.
“It’s got a Kodak (picture) of the chaplain on one side, that way if somebody needs to see the chaplain, they don’t have to wait in line, and it’s got an Eagle, Globe and Anchor on the other side in case the Marine Corps needs to make a lasting impression on somebody. I can take care of that, too.”
Hawkins was born in Charleston, W.Va., and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He moved in October to Swansboro, where his wife and children remain while he does his duty in Kuwait.
“I will have been in the Marine Corps 25 years in July,” he said.
“I’ve done six deployments with the infantry, so this is kind of a unique experience for me. It’s not bad. I think we all have a case of the Kuwait Crud.
“I think it’s a combination of the sand, the smallpox shots and the eight-hour lag traveling over here. You get kind of exhausted. Once you establish a routine, everything will be fine.”
HONEYMOON IN KUWAIT
CAMP FOX, Kuwait – Pfc. Amanda Collazo is a wife and a Marine. She’s still learning how to be both.
Collazo just graduated from boot camp on Oct. 11. She followed that up with supply school at Camp Johnson.
On Jan. 14, she got married and a few weeks later was in Kuwait with Camp Lejeune’s 2nd Service Support Group. Her husband, a cook, is also in Kuwait but working in administration. Today will mark her two-week anniversary at Camp Fox. “It’s not too bad here,” Collazo said. “There is no sand in Connecticut where I am from. As long as we have the basics, being able to shower, it’s not bad, just a little difficult. I miss being home. I just got married, and I haven’t had a chance to live my life with my husband, so that’s a little different.”
On April 19, Collazo will mark her 20th birthday. She remains stoic about all of it.
“I’ve wanted to be a Marine since I was 11. I wanted to do something different with my life, something that few other people have done,” she said while sitting outside a tent cleaning her weapon. “I wanted something that is a little bit more honorable. I wanted to say I am satisfied in my life knowing that I made a difference.”
She met her husband during classes with a recruiter before she reported to boot camp. He’s from Connecticut, too.
“I miss all my family and my friends. I miss just being able to relax and not have to worry about what is coming next. In the past month and a half, it’s been really crazy. We didn’t know if we were leaving or not.”
WARRANT OFFICERS BRING YEARS
OF EXPERIENCE TO DESERT LIFE
CAMP FOX, Kuwait – In the middle of the desert, they stood on top of a concrete and steel bunker, looked straight ahead and smiled for a photographer.
They were 37 men and women, but combined they represented hundreds and hundreds of years of military experience. They are warrant officers.
The picture was the idea of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Allen Mayfield. He’s been in the service for 21 years total, 18 on active duty. He wanted a photo to capture all the warrant officers at Camp Fox, including some from the nearby British Army camp.
Warrant officers wear collar devices with stripes of red, black or brown. They get to be what they are by having a technical expertise that is prized by the military and the maturity to know what to do with it.
“When you are selected for the warrant officer program, you go to the basic school in Quantico (Va.) and the average person there has 13 years experience,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Mark Valdov. “But I’d say in this group, you’ve got a lot more than that.”
For example, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Dusty Cooper has 27 years in the Marine Corps.
“As a CWO 5 I would like to think I am in a leadership role for all the warrant officers and a mentor,” Cooper said. “It’s my position to tell them when they’re doing the right thing and to tell them when they’re doing the wrong thing as well. I don’t have to tell them most of the times when they are doing wrong. That’s because some of the brightest, most aggressive, most professional Marines I know are warrant officers.”
Cooper, a native of Weber Falls, Okla., was in the Middle East during Desert Storm with a tank battalion. Now he’s with a maintenance battalion and closing out his career in the Marine Corps.
“I have three more years, and then I have to go. When they tell me I have to go home, I will go home and I will enjoy my family ... every minute of it.
“I have a 15-year-old son back in Jacksonville. He’s a good boy. He actually took this deployment in a more mature manner then I would have. He and I sat down in the garage and had a long conversation. I told him what my job as a Marine was and what America’s position was in the world. He understood and shockingly he announced that should the draft come back, he’d stand in line and join. Like I said. He’s a good boy.
“The thing is some of America’s brightest Americans are at Camp Fox. I have no second-guessing of America’s youth because these kids are awesome. They work and work and work They may ***** and they may complain, but when the bugle calls, every one of them is running out of their hootch with a gas mask and a weapon. I am very, very proud of them.”
EVERY MARINE DOES SECURITY’
CAMP FOX, Kuwait – The slogan is “Every Marine is a rifleman.”
At Camp Fox it might be “Every Marine does security.” A lot of Marines who may be trained as cooks or clerks find themselves manning a guard post.
Marines like Mike Hassler from Camp Lejeune. The lance corporal joined the Marine Corps hoping to become an air traffic controller, but when that didn’t work he was trained in legal. On Friday evening he was manning the guard post at headquarters and support battalion at this base in the Kuwaiti desert near the border with Iraq. He was clean- ing sand out of the hand-cranked siren used to warn of gas attacks.
A guard post here is something you stand in. There’s no sitting. A sandbag and wood frame about the size of a phone booth is about all the protection from the elements that can be found.
There are levels of security across Camp Fox. The first is a manned guard tower at the entrance to the base. Other measures follow.
On Friday Hassler was manning his post with Lance Cpl. Louis Guthrie from Tampa, Fla.
Hassler’s cloth helmet cover over his Kevlar has “Camel Stalker” written on the front with a black marker. The words “Mess with the best, die like the rest” are written on the back. “I made it up on the plane ride over,” the Lexington, S.C. native said.
Teams stand guard 24 hours a day, and each team has six hours on and six hours off. Even when they are off they are on, because they can be called out of the sack to supplement guards on the outer perimeter.
Some of it can be boring, like making sure vehicles that enter the compound have a “ground guide” to walk in front of them for safety. But all of the guard duty is critical in this country where once in a while Marines still get shot at.
“The best thing about the Marines is making new friends, going around the world,” Hassler said. “This is my first time overseas, but I have been to Rhode Island and Florida so I got to travel up and down the East Coast.
“It kind of worked out because now I am back at Lejeune and closer to home.”
continued..........
CAMP FOX, Kuwait – There are three sergeants major in the Marine Corps with the last name of Hawkins, but only one carries the big stick.
Sgt. Maj. Richard Hawkins and his mallet named “Rufus” are easy to spot.
He’s a mountain of a man, ramrod straight with huge shoulders and chest, and he looks how textbook Marines are supposed to appear.
And then there’s the mallet. “I’ve had Rufus since 1994. I picked up Rufus down in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when we were down there for Operation Sea Signal. It was part of the Air Force’s kit for their expandable air-conditioned tents and it was on the side of the road, and I decided if it was still there at (2 p.m.), it was meant to be mine … it was and it is.
Rufus has a 3-foot-long handle and a wooden head just smaller than a coffee can.
Hawkins says it is designed to make an impression.
“It’s got a Kodak (picture) of the chaplain on one side, that way if somebody needs to see the chaplain, they don’t have to wait in line, and it’s got an Eagle, Globe and Anchor on the other side in case the Marine Corps needs to make a lasting impression on somebody. I can take care of that, too.”
Hawkins was born in Charleston, W.Va., and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He moved in October to Swansboro, where his wife and children remain while he does his duty in Kuwait.
“I will have been in the Marine Corps 25 years in July,” he said.
“I’ve done six deployments with the infantry, so this is kind of a unique experience for me. It’s not bad. I think we all have a case of the Kuwait Crud.
“I think it’s a combination of the sand, the smallpox shots and the eight-hour lag traveling over here. You get kind of exhausted. Once you establish a routine, everything will be fine.”
HONEYMOON IN KUWAIT
CAMP FOX, Kuwait – Pfc. Amanda Collazo is a wife and a Marine. She’s still learning how to be both.
Collazo just graduated from boot camp on Oct. 11. She followed that up with supply school at Camp Johnson.
On Jan. 14, she got married and a few weeks later was in Kuwait with Camp Lejeune’s 2nd Service Support Group. Her husband, a cook, is also in Kuwait but working in administration. Today will mark her two-week anniversary at Camp Fox. “It’s not too bad here,” Collazo said. “There is no sand in Connecticut where I am from. As long as we have the basics, being able to shower, it’s not bad, just a little difficult. I miss being home. I just got married, and I haven’t had a chance to live my life with my husband, so that’s a little different.”
On April 19, Collazo will mark her 20th birthday. She remains stoic about all of it.
“I’ve wanted to be a Marine since I was 11. I wanted to do something different with my life, something that few other people have done,” she said while sitting outside a tent cleaning her weapon. “I wanted something that is a little bit more honorable. I wanted to say I am satisfied in my life knowing that I made a difference.”
She met her husband during classes with a recruiter before she reported to boot camp. He’s from Connecticut, too.
“I miss all my family and my friends. I miss just being able to relax and not have to worry about what is coming next. In the past month and a half, it’s been really crazy. We didn’t know if we were leaving or not.”
WARRANT OFFICERS BRING YEARS
OF EXPERIENCE TO DESERT LIFE
CAMP FOX, Kuwait – In the middle of the desert, they stood on top of a concrete and steel bunker, looked straight ahead and smiled for a photographer.
They were 37 men and women, but combined they represented hundreds and hundreds of years of military experience. They are warrant officers.
The picture was the idea of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Allen Mayfield. He’s been in the service for 21 years total, 18 on active duty. He wanted a photo to capture all the warrant officers at Camp Fox, including some from the nearby British Army camp.
Warrant officers wear collar devices with stripes of red, black or brown. They get to be what they are by having a technical expertise that is prized by the military and the maturity to know what to do with it.
“When you are selected for the warrant officer program, you go to the basic school in Quantico (Va.) and the average person there has 13 years experience,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Mark Valdov. “But I’d say in this group, you’ve got a lot more than that.”
For example, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Dusty Cooper has 27 years in the Marine Corps.
“As a CWO 5 I would like to think I am in a leadership role for all the warrant officers and a mentor,” Cooper said. “It’s my position to tell them when they’re doing the right thing and to tell them when they’re doing the wrong thing as well. I don’t have to tell them most of the times when they are doing wrong. That’s because some of the brightest, most aggressive, most professional Marines I know are warrant officers.”
Cooper, a native of Weber Falls, Okla., was in the Middle East during Desert Storm with a tank battalion. Now he’s with a maintenance battalion and closing out his career in the Marine Corps.
“I have three more years, and then I have to go. When they tell me I have to go home, I will go home and I will enjoy my family ... every minute of it.
“I have a 15-year-old son back in Jacksonville. He’s a good boy. He actually took this deployment in a more mature manner then I would have. He and I sat down in the garage and had a long conversation. I told him what my job as a Marine was and what America’s position was in the world. He understood and shockingly he announced that should the draft come back, he’d stand in line and join. Like I said. He’s a good boy.
“The thing is some of America’s brightest Americans are at Camp Fox. I have no second-guessing of America’s youth because these kids are awesome. They work and work and work They may ***** and they may complain, but when the bugle calls, every one of them is running out of their hootch with a gas mask and a weapon. I am very, very proud of them.”
EVERY MARINE DOES SECURITY’
CAMP FOX, Kuwait – The slogan is “Every Marine is a rifleman.”
At Camp Fox it might be “Every Marine does security.” A lot of Marines who may be trained as cooks or clerks find themselves manning a guard post.
Marines like Mike Hassler from Camp Lejeune. The lance corporal joined the Marine Corps hoping to become an air traffic controller, but when that didn’t work he was trained in legal. On Friday evening he was manning the guard post at headquarters and support battalion at this base in the Kuwaiti desert near the border with Iraq. He was clean- ing sand out of the hand-cranked siren used to warn of gas attacks.
A guard post here is something you stand in. There’s no sitting. A sandbag and wood frame about the size of a phone booth is about all the protection from the elements that can be found.
There are levels of security across Camp Fox. The first is a manned guard tower at the entrance to the base. Other measures follow.
On Friday Hassler was manning his post with Lance Cpl. Louis Guthrie from Tampa, Fla.
Hassler’s cloth helmet cover over his Kevlar has “Camel Stalker” written on the front with a black marker. The words “Mess with the best, die like the rest” are written on the back. “I made it up on the plane ride over,” the Lexington, S.C. native said.
Teams stand guard 24 hours a day, and each team has six hours on and six hours off. Even when they are off they are on, because they can be called out of the sack to supplement guards on the outer perimeter.
Some of it can be boring, like making sure vehicles that enter the compound have a “ground guide” to walk in front of them for safety. But all of the guard duty is critical in this country where once in a while Marines still get shot at.
“The best thing about the Marines is making new friends, going around the world,” Hassler said. “This is my first time overseas, but I have been to Rhode Island and Florida so I got to travel up and down the East Coast.
“It kind of worked out because now I am back at Lejeune and closer to home.”
continued..........