The first week of January in 1979, the Colonel (then a second lieutenant fresh out of TBS and the Infantry Officer Course) reported for duty with the Second Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. His first operational assignment was as a rifle platoon commander in Company G, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment.
The Marines of Golf Company's third platoon deserved a competent and caring leader -- instead, they got an immature, self-centered, and tactically lost officer whose greatest contribution to their welfare was an early realization of, and quick reliance on, the competence of his platoon sergeant.
The assessment above comes after forty years of self-evaluation. At the time, that young Marine second lieutenant thought he was the second coming of Chesty Puller.
He had been led to believe that when he got to "the fleet" there would be a an infantry platoon of forty or so hard-charging Marines just waiting for him to lead them to glory. All he needed to do was step to the front, wave his arm forward, and three 13-man squads of combat-hungry Marines would follow him to the outskirts of Moscow.
Reality sucks.
To say that Third Platoon, G 2/2 was "under-strength" in January of 1979 isn't so much an understatement as it is an egregious misuse of the word "strength" in any form.
On paper, the Colonel's platoon had 30 Marines.
On paper.
On pavement, the first chilly morning he stood in front of them, the Colonel counted a little over a dozen.
Three ranks of four or five Marines each.
"Sergeant Herrera," the Colonel asked his platoon sergeant, "where's the rest of the platoon?"
"Sir, three on leave, five U.A., two deserters, three in the brig, two FAP (augmenting higher headquarters) to Base," Sergeant Herrera intoned without referring to any notes.
The Colonel blinked and stole a sideways glance at the rest of the company formation. The other platoons were likewise far less on pavement than they were on paper.
The next day, Golf Company hiked to a training area a few miles from the barracks and set up bivouac for two nights. The Colonel's platoon bivouac area consisted of four tents -- two men in each.
His first field exercise was in command of half a squad.
The Colonel would like to be able to tell you that he trained those few Marines as if he were training a full-strength rifle platoon, making do with what he had.
He can't.
He was depressed beyond measure and he was the most motivated man in the company.
To make matters worse, that terrible lieutenant focused far more on corralling and correcting the platoon's miscreants than on taking care of his Marines -- learning who they were and looking out for their welfare. That was the Colonel's real job and he failed at it.
The Marine Corps, indeed all of the U.S. military, at the end of the 1970s was in bad shape. The experience in Vietnam had hardened and taught a generation of young officer and enlisted leaders who would make the Marine Corps their career; but the majority of the ranks were demoralized by the Vietnam aftermath. In fact the entire nation was demoralized.
The nation's leader, President Carter, himself bemoaned publicly the national "malaise." He was a good man, and a fair politician. But he was no leader.
His lack of leadership was felt all the way down the ranks to the last private in the last squad of the Colonel's platoon. It is heartbreaking to think of it now. What a waste.
And, the Colonel proved no better leader. He wallowed in the muddy pit of self-pity and discouragement that threatened to make the national disgrace of Vietnam the death knell of the Republic and the great institutions (the military chief among them) that kept it alive.
But..., there were some who didn't wallow. There were some who refused to let the military fall any further. The Colonel knows many of these great Americans personally. They were mostly mid-career officers and NCOs coming out of Vietnam, and they didn't give up the ship. There was also, at the top of the Marine Corps in the late seventies and eighties, a few general officers who made it their mission to drag the Corps out of its malaise -- to return it to the high standards of discipline and military excellence that had marked Marines as the world's finest.
Two of the giants of our Corps' history -- two southern gentlemen whose soft-spoken manner belied spines of steel and resolve -- Generals Louis H. Wilson of Mississippi and Robert H. Barrow of Louisiana, both highly decorated veterans of combat in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, were the rocks upon which the tides of the Marine Corps' post-Vietnam dissipation broke. As the 26th and 27th Commandants of the Marine Corps, their seamless and sterling leadership for eight years righted the ship and restored discipline and focus to the Marines. Their example and exertions set the tone for the next generation of leaders whose modernization (both equipment and warfighting doctrine) of the Marine Corps was validated in the stunning operational successes of the last three decades.
The Colonel almost left the Corps when his four-year commitment ended in 1982.
Almost.
He had even signed paperwork resigning his commission.
The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda changed his mind. She wisely saw that the Marine Corps, and not Frito-Lay, was the Colonel's future.
Luckily for him -- and for the Marines he would later lead -- the next five years exposed him to some of the finest leaders with whom he ever served. When he returned to the Second Marine Division in 1987, this time to serve as a company commander, he was no longer the worst junior leader in the history of the Corps.
He wasn't the best leader in the history of the Corps...
Probably not even in the top half...
But, he knew what his purpose and mission was.
The Colonel owes his modest success in command as a captain, major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel to great peers and seniors who taught him by example -- an example which placed the welfare of his Marines on co-equal footing with a laser focus on mission accomplishment.
The Colonel owes something else as well.
He owes the thirty Marines of 3rd Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment in January of 1979 an apology. He shamefully knows not where a single member of that platoon is today. He wishes he could gather them together in a school circle and talk to them as equals -- tell them they are remembered as his greatest failure. But, he would also tell them that the shame of that failure fired his soul to do better.
The Colonel may have failed them. But they didn't fail the Colonel.
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