thedrifter
06-23-08, 06:07 AM
Marriage and the Marines
Jim Humphrey joined the service to win his sweetheart
By Sherree Grebenstein / Journal Staff Writer
POSTED: June 23, 2008
Editor’s note: The Journal’s annual Unsung Heroes feature, which runs each Monday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day, profiles U.S. veterans who served in wars and conflicts from World War II to the present.
MARTINSBURG — People join the military for an array of reasons, but one teen’s future father-in-law insisted on it before he marry his high school sweetheart.
To this day future Berkeley County Magistrate Jim Humphrey can still recall the words told to him by his future father-in-law, Denny Cochran.
“’If you are going to marry my daughter, you’re going to have to get your military service behind you,’” Humphrey said Denny advised him matter-of-factly.
Call it an ultimatum.
Problem was, Humphrey wasn’t old enough to enlist and there was no one available to co-sign for him to go into the military before turning 18.
So after graduating in 1968 from Mount Hope High School in Mount Hope, the then 17-year-old went to live with family in Illinois where he worked in an aerosol plant outside of Chicago. Through that job he earned enough money to buy his future fiancee, Becky, an engagement ring.
Humphrey, 57, said his future father-in-law knew he would get drafted when he turned 18.
“He (Denny) knew sure as the world that I would get drafted because most of the other boys who did not enlist were getting drafted,” Humphrey said. “It was almost a given back then that if you were able bodied, you were going to get drafted.”
On Jan. 21, 1969, after eating his breakfast, Humphrey hitchhiked to the nearest military recruiting office in Beckley, W.Va., even though he still hadn’t decided which service branch to join.
The answer should have been easy. Growing up, he lived with a cousin, Jean Peck, and her husband, Jim, at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina where Jim was assigned to a military transport squadron. Humphrey’s brother-in-law, Daniel Wright, was an air traffic controller in the Air Force, and Humphrey once worked as a stock boy at a post/base exchange at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
He joined the Marines. His future wife was unhappy; she was sure Humphrey would sign up with the Air Force.
“I joined the wrong branch of service for her in her eyes,” he said from his magistrate office in the Berkeley County Judicial Center, where a large gold crest hangs on the wall between the U.S. and West Virginia flags along with his boot camp graduation picture where he can be seen fifth from the left on the top row. His buddy, Larry Perry from Oak Hill, stands next to him on the left.
On Feb 3, 1969, Humphrey was shipped off to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina. After graduating, he learned nearly the entire platoon got orders for Vietnam as infantrymen. Humphrey was assigned to personnel administration and would remain at Parris Island.
He said that he felt relief, but also “kind of a letdown,” and he regretted having taken a typing test.
“If you knew how to hunt or peck or knew the keys on a typewriter you would probably be classified under personnel administration,” he said.
While running errands on a hot day in August 1969, the 18-year-old private found an innocent misstep landed him and a superior in hot water when he asked a full bird colonel for directions on the errand and it got back to his staff sergeant who was chewed out over the faux pas. He wanted off Parris Island.
“I went to my boss and said that I didn’t want to spend my whole (Marine) hitch on Parris Island,” Humphrey said. “I said that I would go to Vietnam, ‘just get me off this island.’”
Humphrey enlisted in the Marines two more times, with a break in service from January 1971 to March 1973 when he worked as a plumber’s helper for his father-in-law. In March 1973 he re-enlisted and was able to retain his military occupational speciality as a personnel administrator.
During his military service from February 3, 1969 to May 22, 1978, Humphrey lived around the world at various duty stations, including: Hawaii; San Francisco; North Carolina; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iwakuni, Japan, and ended his military career as a testing instructor at the Armed Forces Examining Entrance Station in Springfield, Mass.
And although a “Remington Raider,” he never saw actual combat, Humphrey said he still thinks of those he knew that were shipped overseas to Vietnam, including his friend Perry, who died there. The two men’s serial number’s were different by a single numeral.
“Sometimes I feel a little bit of guilt because I didn’t serve in combat,” he said. “I am proud that I became a Marine and I hope that I did my small amount to help serve this country.”
After the Marines, Humphrey was accepted at the West Virginia State Police Academy, but quit before the first full day, something few people even know.
“The first night I was lying in my bed and asked myself, ‘Why am I having to start over again? I got up and left,” he said, adding he later had second thoughts and reapplied. Becky even wrote a letter to the personnel director at the State Police headquarters in Charleston begging them to give her husband a second chance.
“I was so used to being in uniform. I missed the sense of belonging,” he said.
He graduated as the outstanding cadet of the 33rd Cadet Class on June 29, 1979 and served in the State Police for 20 years 9 months, retiring as commander of the Martinsburg detachment in October 1999.
Becky, his beloved wife of 34 years, passed away on June 13, 2005, just over a month before he became a Berkeley County magistrate. The couple had two children, Denise and Jeremy.
Humphrey said he tries to live his life with “Semper Fi,” in mind as his years as a Marine shaped him into the man he is today.
“Those are good words for anyone to live by,” he said.
— Staff writer Sherree Grebenstein can be reached at (304) 263-3381, ext. 182 or sgrebenstein@journal-news.net
Ellie
Jim Humphrey joined the service to win his sweetheart
By Sherree Grebenstein / Journal Staff Writer
POSTED: June 23, 2008
Editor’s note: The Journal’s annual Unsung Heroes feature, which runs each Monday from Memorial Day to Veterans Day, profiles U.S. veterans who served in wars and conflicts from World War II to the present.
MARTINSBURG — People join the military for an array of reasons, but one teen’s future father-in-law insisted on it before he marry his high school sweetheart.
To this day future Berkeley County Magistrate Jim Humphrey can still recall the words told to him by his future father-in-law, Denny Cochran.
“’If you are going to marry my daughter, you’re going to have to get your military service behind you,’” Humphrey said Denny advised him matter-of-factly.
Call it an ultimatum.
Problem was, Humphrey wasn’t old enough to enlist and there was no one available to co-sign for him to go into the military before turning 18.
So after graduating in 1968 from Mount Hope High School in Mount Hope, the then 17-year-old went to live with family in Illinois where he worked in an aerosol plant outside of Chicago. Through that job he earned enough money to buy his future fiancee, Becky, an engagement ring.
Humphrey, 57, said his future father-in-law knew he would get drafted when he turned 18.
“He (Denny) knew sure as the world that I would get drafted because most of the other boys who did not enlist were getting drafted,” Humphrey said. “It was almost a given back then that if you were able bodied, you were going to get drafted.”
On Jan. 21, 1969, after eating his breakfast, Humphrey hitchhiked to the nearest military recruiting office in Beckley, W.Va., even though he still hadn’t decided which service branch to join.
The answer should have been easy. Growing up, he lived with a cousin, Jean Peck, and her husband, Jim, at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina where Jim was assigned to a military transport squadron. Humphrey’s brother-in-law, Daniel Wright, was an air traffic controller in the Air Force, and Humphrey once worked as a stock boy at a post/base exchange at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
He joined the Marines. His future wife was unhappy; she was sure Humphrey would sign up with the Air Force.
“I joined the wrong branch of service for her in her eyes,” he said from his magistrate office in the Berkeley County Judicial Center, where a large gold crest hangs on the wall between the U.S. and West Virginia flags along with his boot camp graduation picture where he can be seen fifth from the left on the top row. His buddy, Larry Perry from Oak Hill, stands next to him on the left.
On Feb 3, 1969, Humphrey was shipped off to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina. After graduating, he learned nearly the entire platoon got orders for Vietnam as infantrymen. Humphrey was assigned to personnel administration and would remain at Parris Island.
He said that he felt relief, but also “kind of a letdown,” and he regretted having taken a typing test.
“If you knew how to hunt or peck or knew the keys on a typewriter you would probably be classified under personnel administration,” he said.
While running errands on a hot day in August 1969, the 18-year-old private found an innocent misstep landed him and a superior in hot water when he asked a full bird colonel for directions on the errand and it got back to his staff sergeant who was chewed out over the faux pas. He wanted off Parris Island.
“I went to my boss and said that I didn’t want to spend my whole (Marine) hitch on Parris Island,” Humphrey said. “I said that I would go to Vietnam, ‘just get me off this island.’”
Humphrey enlisted in the Marines two more times, with a break in service from January 1971 to March 1973 when he worked as a plumber’s helper for his father-in-law. In March 1973 he re-enlisted and was able to retain his military occupational speciality as a personnel administrator.
During his military service from February 3, 1969 to May 22, 1978, Humphrey lived around the world at various duty stations, including: Hawaii; San Francisco; North Carolina; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Iwakuni, Japan, and ended his military career as a testing instructor at the Armed Forces Examining Entrance Station in Springfield, Mass.
And although a “Remington Raider,” he never saw actual combat, Humphrey said he still thinks of those he knew that were shipped overseas to Vietnam, including his friend Perry, who died there. The two men’s serial number’s were different by a single numeral.
“Sometimes I feel a little bit of guilt because I didn’t serve in combat,” he said. “I am proud that I became a Marine and I hope that I did my small amount to help serve this country.”
After the Marines, Humphrey was accepted at the West Virginia State Police Academy, but quit before the first full day, something few people even know.
“The first night I was lying in my bed and asked myself, ‘Why am I having to start over again? I got up and left,” he said, adding he later had second thoughts and reapplied. Becky even wrote a letter to the personnel director at the State Police headquarters in Charleston begging them to give her husband a second chance.
“I was so used to being in uniform. I missed the sense of belonging,” he said.
He graduated as the outstanding cadet of the 33rd Cadet Class on June 29, 1979 and served in the State Police for 20 years 9 months, retiring as commander of the Martinsburg detachment in October 1999.
Becky, his beloved wife of 34 years, passed away on June 13, 2005, just over a month before he became a Berkeley County magistrate. The couple had two children, Denise and Jeremy.
Humphrey said he tries to live his life with “Semper Fi,” in mind as his years as a Marine shaped him into the man he is today.
“Those are good words for anyone to live by,” he said.
— Staff writer Sherree Grebenstein can be reached at (304) 263-3381, ext. 182 or sgrebenstein@journal-news.net
Ellie