S. Maturin wrote:
Quantico - They Renamed The "Ball-Busting Trails"
I remember watching 'a news clip' of a Marine Infantry Unit preparing to deploy from Camp Lejeune during the First Gulf War. I watched a young squared away Sergeant move competently among his men checking their gear and speaking quietly to them despite the intrusive rude glare from TV Camera Lights. Damn!!! I was proud of him and there was 'a muted urge' to be there and be part of it again welling deep from up inside of me. A few years later I stopped at Quantico when I had a chance to go back there for a visit in conjunction with a Northern Virginia Business Trip. I walked out on "The grinder'' at the old "T&T Regiment" near "Main Side" and shielded my eyes against the afternoon sun. It looked different from when I was there in 1962 and '63 and the changes they made were long overdue. Off in the distance, I could see a figure walking rapidly across the asphalt surface; and as he noticed me, he changed his route and approached me. When he got closer, he said, "May I help you, Sir?" He was a trim, hard-bodied Captain on his way to "Company Headquarters" with a clipboard under his arm.
I explained that I had been there many years ago and just wanted to stop in and see if it were still the same. Upon hearing that, he came to attention, saluted me smartly, and said 'Welcome Home, Sir!' In that brief moment, everything good or bad that had ever happened to me while in The Corps was suddenly worth it! I felt like crying, I was so proud. He didn't know me from Adam. All that mattered was that both of us were Marines, him actually, me spiritually. We chatted about training and caliber of men that the Officer Candidate's Program was attracting these days; there were fewer of them but they were as good as and probably better than we were, I quietly surmised from his comments. They renamed the "Ball-Busting Trails" we used to hump over back then to more accurately align their difficulty with sacrifices of heroes in prior wars who faced and overcame a difficulties of their own. It was no longer the "Hill Trail,'' it is now the "Medal of Honor Trail," replete with stations along the way depicting Marines who got the ''Big One,'' many of whom never lived to have the Blue and White Ribbon slipped over their Head by the President of the United States.
Candidates running that trail had to stop at each station, learn their story and commit it to memory; despite the fact, that they were ready to puke, their thighs and ham-strings burning and even the ones in the best shape were gasping for breath. The message to them was..."Although you might feel "pressed to the edge of your endurance than the Corps expects; no... 'The Corps' expects more...like the men whose name on these plaques delivered on the demands when their turn came." A powerful association exercise...these men set the standard! No MBA Group Exercise here, this is the real deal, this is preparation and everyone had to complete that assignment on time. It was a calling that touched one's soul, I experienced a bit of nostalgia there. How many young men whose boots beat a steady, coordinated cadence on that hard unforgiving surface, paid the ultimate price for their decision to train here? How many had I had a 'near-beer' with in "The Officer Candidates' Club" or at Camp Upshur that were served by a regular Cadre Sergeant who needed the extra money he received from working there... but hated having to wait on "Turds like us?"
The names aware a bit fuzzy now but I could see them climbing the ropes on the "O-Course," doing "Squat Thrusts" until their whole body seemed unwilling to bend just one more time! How many had I had a cold beer and a burger with at "Diamond Lou's in Quantico Town on a Saturday afternoon." after training was mercifully over for the week? Did their Ghosts still walk the streets there? I felt as though they did, I saw them there as young men... smiling, mischievous and confident. My mind "played games with me," as if I were a child again, pretending with make-believe figurines and giving them the status of living beings, just bring them back here to me now... Let it all be the same as it once was during the lighter times when we were young. Just forget for a minute that we trained here for battle and bring them back; as if, we were college kids, "Lean bad asses!" in the best physical shape of our lives. Let's swagger through the streets there again and maybe take a "DC Weekend Trip" where our shaved head gave silent but unmistakable testimony to us being... "A Marine from Quantico!" Yeah, just for a while there, I was one of them again...
A boy from Connecticut on his first visit to a Southern State, my fellow candidates were from everywhere, most of which were places in states too far away to even imagine. Scared to death of the Drill Instructor's (DI) who wore the impeccable summer service uniforms with elevated verbal abuse that reached the status of a capital offense. These guys were bad...not to be screwed with, just shut-up! Do what you are told and don't do anything to attract attention, just get through the next three months, whatever it took. "The DIs!" Yeah...tough cocky bastards that were a story to them- selves. One of mine was involved in "The Chosen Reservoir Breakout" in Korea, a black Staff Sergeant; in fact, he was the first black person I really ever met or ever really knew. I remember him to this day. None of them had the multitude of degrees that would have academically qualified them as psychologists but they knew "what made people tick" at the gut level. They knew how long and hard to push us, when to disappear and let us recover, cool down and even curse them out loud. They focused on "The faker and bullshit artists" who tried to finesse their way into The Corps'.
They rode them unmercifully until they shaped-up or dropped out. They watched for those with "Latent leadership talents." Plumbed the depth of their commitment with "Leadership Billets," "Duty Assignments" all under pressure of command and they drove "The candy asses!" out quickly and efficiently. It didn't matter how big one's biceps were or how long a man could run... In the end, it was the size of "One's Heart!" and "The depth of one's desire!" to make it through that counted. They took us from a lumbering herd of clueless college kids to a crisp team that could execute all of the commands on the drill field with precision. They gave to every single one of us..."A sense of inner-pride and purpose, they taught us personal discipline and organization, developed a sense of confidence that would march to "The sounds of the guns and kick some asses." of anybody that wanted to take us on. They made Marines of us! And when they were finished with us, they simply dismissed our platoon and were ready to meet the next, "Class of Maggots, Piss Ants, and Miserable Pukes" and a long painful transformation process would..."Begin all over again!"
We suddenly began to recognize that many of these handpicked unique committed men knew that; perhaps one day after we were commissioned and still wet behind the ears, that that particular DI might be assigned to our unit as a Staff-NCO. They had a vested interest in us! We slowly and painfully began to realize the reason for their toughness and methods and began to appreciate and understand what concepts like: "Tradition, Valor, Sacrifice, Courage and Leadership" really meant! "Bullshit," to some maybe...but it was "the heart and soul" of what this was all about to us. Some of us called upon it when everything else we had learned had been drained from our bloodied, frightened, exhausted bodies; it was all we had left but was all that we needed. I think about those times even today. I think about the instances when it would have been much easier to quit; just give up, give in, or retreat! I think back to the time a black Marine Staff Sergeant made me hold an M-14 Rifle by the "stacking swivel" with my arms fully extended in front of me threatening to beat the crap out of me if I dropped it! All this, just for doing something stupid and he saw it?
I wonder sometimes if he's still alive today and does he have any recollection of that stifling afternoon at Camp Upshur in a Quonset Hut at that God Forsaken Training Camp in Quantico, Virginia? Does he remember the impact that he had on me and the other "College Dumb-Asses" assigned to his platoon? I think of him and remember that! If we had left the base together then and tried to eat at some restaurant, some local ordinance would have probably forbidden it. Inequities then...inequities now; but I think of 'the steel' he infused in my psyche. In the end, it was about mission and men..."Mission and Men!" Mission and Men and if I met him today, what would I say? I'd say, "Thank you Sergeant Manuel Montgomery! Although we knew each other for a fleeting moment, it was I who emerged the better for it." I can imagine his deep brown piercing eyes fixing on mine while his gravelly voice ordered me to give him 50... and they had better not be "pussy pushups"! I spend more time reflecting these days; perhaps an inherent dimension of getting older, but those times in my past life still stick out like "Snow-capped mountain ranges in some far Western State!"
Anomalies perhaps, yet memorable visions that shaped my adulthood and made me more than I thought I could ever be; they have made things valuable to me. Yes, some things are negotiable; not worth fighting over or making a fuss about, others not so much...but they are intransigent reminders that life does have "Lines in the sand." We are not sea weed...subject to the flow, direction and speed of the currents around us and there are times and events that should cause us to face up to threats as a Nation and address them head-on. Are we losing that purpose, that goal...that belief, that very conviction that there are absolute causes for which we must shed blood and give our life? I still hear 'The cadence of the boots' on 'the grinder' at Quantico where young men and women begin their indoctrination into, "The World of potential great sacrifice."
Will we have enough of them?
Will they amount to more than just a cheap slogan like "Support Our Troops" on a "Yellow Magnetic Ribbon." that adheres to our car?
I pray that our past is prologue.
Pray with me, much is at stake.
Dave St. John, Capt USMC Vietnam Veteran Chu Lai, RVN '66—'67
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Quantico - They Renamed The "Ball-Busting Tra... (
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