Four in the Corps

[GriT]

^ Awesome, thats so cool. I'll have to pick up this book.

[mrob03]

I have the book and have been reading it on and off for a while now and it is a really good book. I recommend it!

[SamJohnston]

I would have to say "Four in the Corps" is one of the best books I've ever read. Some of the stories about Reed were pretty crazy. Kind of scary to think there are actually people out there who are like that.

[Marine84]

OK Meyer - hopefully you'll come back in here so you'll see this.....................I bought a copy of your book last night when I read this thread - once I read it, could I send it to you and have you sign it?

I started a new thing with myself this past year - ANY Marine that I run across on a site that has written a book, I try to have that author sign them and they've turned out to be really cool conversation pieces when people see them on my coffee table. So far I have: 395 and a Wake Up by Terry Sako, We Were Brothers by Dane Hoover, Parris Island - A Woman's Memoir of Marine Corps Boot Camp by Lisa Cordeiro and Leathernecks In Pink Scivvies (my favorite so far) by Jerre C Tonelli. I made out like a bandit with the last one because it's not even in print anymore but, on Barnes and Noble's site, they refer you to bookstores that have an old copy to sell - not ONLY did I find a copy but, it was signed as well...................on 11 Jan 1969 (she went through boot camp in 1943 when they started letting women in!)

I would LOVE to add yours to the stack.......................PLEASE get in touch with me with an address.

[Books]

Right now I'm reading Charles Henderson's latest Marine book called "Marshalling The Faithful" about the first Marine Corps operations in Vietnam. Great stuff. I also took it on the bus ride to the Nationals/Rockies game here in D.C., and the Marines were doing a Toys for Tots charity outside the stadium. I gave them a $20 but the otherwise cold/stern-looking officer smiled when he saw the book.

Charles Henderson also wrote the stories about Carlos Hathcock which are very good as well.

[chiariello]

i havent read all of four in the corps---just about half the stuff meyer wrote about me--i could only read so much of the book on the internet---and there are abot 5 or 6 references to me i wasnt able to read--i dont know if ill buy the book or not---ill definately take a free copy though--

[Echo_Four_Bravo]

I can't imagine the book without complaints. Complaining is the good stuff!

[Millermw0311]

Hello All,

I’m only partway through Four in the Corps, and it is written very well. Meyer doesn’t embellish or tell it different than how it happened. He recalls the events as I remember them. He mentions the missing 20 rounds incident, and I can corroborate that a lot of our senior Marines were dirtbirds, as I arrived in Golf 2/5 about the same time as Meyer, and Haberman was in my platoon. The part about them passing off all their rounds to avoid cleaning their weapons is spot on, as is the field day analysis.


Our first couple of years in, our officers and Staff NCOs were awesome for the most part. They knew what they were doing, and the officers knew enough to let the senior enlisted men do their job without getting in the way. The next couple years were rough with terrible Staff NCOs who let the officers do what they wanted. Few things are worse than sitting around in the barracks from 11AM to 9PM (1100 to 2100) doing NOTHING. We’d finish our work at 11AM and in the first couple years, we’d be on liberty. After that, we’d hang around until 9PM doing nothing but waiting to get off work.


I guess it would be easy to consider Meyer a whiner or soft for going to BAS. Well, Meyer is only telling it like it was. And about going to BAS? We were on a very intense PT, hiking, and field schedule. For over 6 months we would field day our asses off on Monday, go to the field on Tuesday, then come back from the field on Friday. Every week for 6 months. And our senior Marines certainly did their best to point out the least significant things and make huge deals out of them to punish us. Not only that, but Meyer described BAS very accurately in that you could be genuinely hurt but if you go to BAS, everyone in the unit will label you as a malingerer or worse. Great book and definitely gives a great look as to what life was like for the 4 years I spent in the Marines.

Meyer, if you're still around, you best sign my copy!!

[Marine84]

Meyer, if you're still around, you best sign my copy!!

Good luck with this........................

As you can see from my post above, I tried this, he got back to me but only to tell me he was in Germany (at the time) and it would cost too much for me to ship it back and forth. I told him shipping no problem but.......................still (over a year later), no address.

It was an OK read. He would have been the one that you want to reach out and touch cause he won't shut his mouth complaining. It amazes me that there are people in the world who think they know more than somebody that has more rank (enlisted rank only) and has BTDT 3 or 4 times over already. Some folks just had a bad experience in the Corps. I'm glad mine was a good one.

[MarinesFTW]

Miller did you bring up this post??? There was no reason for it.. fill out your profile im sure ur bsing everyone...

[Brandon1]

...
I'm just going to go on record and say your an idiot. With that aside, I dont normally read books, but from what I've been reading here latley, I might pick up some of these. These books seem like good reading to pass the time by.

[Millermw0311]

Marine84, are you seriously suggesting that rank has anything to do with intelligence? Rank has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, be it officer or enlisted. Just because they went to college doesn't mean there aren't some officers out there that are just a shade above mentally retarded.

Put it this way, our Company XO, Lt Colombero, at one point tried to lead a charge up a hill in training against a heavily fortified machine gun position with only his Beretta 9mm. Later, when asked why he did it, his only response was "It worked in this movie I saw..."

So while I'm glad that your time went fine, Marine84, I have to wonder, are you even a grunt? If not, we can stop here since you obviously don't understand what it is about. If so, are you a lemming? I don't mean any disrespect, just that the way you associated rank and intelligence is highly questionable.

[Marine84]

Let's take this to the Hooch miller........................if you want.

I am in no way suggesting rank has anything to do with intelligence. If you understood what you read, you would see that I'm talking about enlisted ONLY because I know a lot of Officers come straight in the front door with shiny things on their collars (no offense to the Officers in the house). Obviously in the enlisted ranks, anybody with more rank has more time in and maybe you can learn a lot from them. I know I learned a lot from the ones that had more time in than I did.

And, if you bothered to look at my profile, you would have seen I'm not a Grunt. Back in my time, they wouldn't let women get 100 miles close to a Grunt unit. I was on the Air side of the house and, for the record, I helped to keep them bomb racks working properly so pilots could cover your narrow butt when needed.

[Millermw0311]

I apologize if it seemed like I wanted to start something, Marine84. I don’t. It just seemed like you were arguing that rank reigns supreme as far as intelligence. I’m sure we’ve both met very unintelligent people with rank, and we’ve also met very competent ones too.


I fully understand and agree that I learned the most from some of the Staff NCOs we had and some of the officers.


In case you missed my post though: I was in Meyer’s unit. He tells it exactly like it was. I wish I could write about it without sounding like complaining as well, but the fact of the matter is that we had VERY poor NCOs who were actually pretty sadistic and extremely poor leaders. I knew a lot of Meyer’s superiors even though I was in a different platoon in the same company. Washbourne was very competent, and so were a few others, but the majority of the NCOs in Weapons platoon when Meyer started out were absolute idiots. So knowing that and knowing that Meyer isn’t a dumb person by any means, it is easy to see his outlook, especially since the entire company had NCOs that were more interested in belittling and hazing subordinates than actually teaching and training them.

Maybe part of it is lost in translation only because Meyer spends so little time actually describing or explaining himself. He has a hell of a sense of humor too, and the book was meant to show a lot of it; just how dumb it could be and the humor of it all in the grunts.


And while we were junior enlisted Marines, I never once heard of Meyer complaining to superiors. That part wasn’t any different than any other unit I’m sure. We would gripe to peers, but it was always professional and kept away from our subordinates and done professionally, if at all, to superiors.


Again, my apologies if it seemed like I was attacking you, Marine84. I’m not. Just that I was there for the duration of the book and knew Meyer personally, and he wasn’t as big of a complainer or broke-Marine as the book would let on.

[Marine84]

Accepted...............I understand it was a little testosterone level boost.