Posted on 05/11/2012 5:01:45 PM PDT by Joe 6-pack
In an off line conversation with my FReeper lady friend, floralamiss, she mentioned to me that Joe Dimaggio had been her father's PT instructor during WWII. I indicated that my dad had served with Lt. George Steinbrenner at Lockbourne AFB in the 50's. When I was an ROTC Cadet, I did my advanced camp at Ft. Bragg, and then went on CTLT in Germany with Shawn Mullins.
Just curious how many other FReepers got to meet/know/serve with folks that later achieved some degree of fame (or notoriety) while in the military. Thought it might be a fun conversation topic for a Friday evening....
Capt Ollie North was also MY tactics instructor at Basic School. The head of the tactics Group was Maj Porter, who later boarded and recaptured the USS Mayaguez.
“Retaking the Mayaguez
At 06:13 on May 15, the first phase of the operation began with the transfer by three HH-53s of D/1/4 Marines to the Holt. As the Holt slowly came alongside, USAF A-7D aircraft saturated the Mayaguez with tear gas munitions. Equipped with gas masks, the Marines at 07:25 hours then conducted one of the few hostile ship-to-ship boardings by the U.S. Navy since the American Civil War, securing the vessel after an hour-long search, finding it empty.[54]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayaguez_incident
The third member if the Tactics teaching team was Capt. Storm, a dead ringer for Tim Conway, and at least as funny. Yep Tactics was everyone’s favorite class!
Ollie started his Night Tactics class with a dead serious expression on his face, saying, “Gentlemen, in order to understand Night Tactics, you must first understand your environment.”
“Nightime is characterized by.........
......
Periods of....
....
DARKNESS!”
(you had to be there. It really WAS funny!)
Thanks for mentioning that. I googled Frank Sutton, and he WAS a great WWII army sgt. He was a “buck sgt.” which I don’t know what that means.
The funniest instructor I remember at TBS was Captain B. He wasn't famous(that I know of) but he was absolutely hilarious. He was our Engineering Instructor and brought to that explosive profession the grace of a gazelle in the body of a defensive tackle.
Captain B was being 'stashed' at TBS while he waited for his own class - AWS - Another Wasted Summer - to start. I don't know how long he taught at TBS but he certainly made an impression on me.
On our 'field day' of Engineering practical we were in one of those outside bleachers overlooking a pond while Captain Barilich taught the class. Now, this isn't just any class. It is a class and demonstration on Combat Engineering i.e. Explosives. C-4. Detonators. Det Cord. Fun stuff!
After spouting the usual technical data of burn rates, explosive potential, TNT equivalents, the Captain asks where we're from, "Any grads from Texas A&M?"
"Yea!" cries simultaneous with boos, jeers and other derogatory names. This goes on for a couple of other schools and finally the Captain asks, "Any Naval Academy Grads?" Well, our company was the one they crammed the USNA grads into ech year(before USNA types went to Marine OCS like everybody else). Everybody at Quantico knew this and we had been harrassed mercilessly about this for four months. Capt B was new to TBS so most assummed he just hadn't gotten the word.
Wrong!
A bunch of hands go up. Cheers, jeers and catcalls ensue and the Captain points at five of the hand raisers and has them come down out of the bleachers.
He has these five butter bars form a file one behind another and stand at attention facing away from him. He then starts a long, rambling detailed discussion of Det Cord including telling a probably apocryphal tale about two combat engineers on Okinawa being told to march 50 Japanese prisoners back to the rear. The captain explains that the Marines accomplish this daunting task by using the newly invented det cord exactly as he is doing now.
While he is telling this story he is unrolling det cord from a spool and coiling it in his left hand. As he is finishing the story he walks down the file and starts wrapping det cord around the five Lt's necks connecting them in what engineers call a "daisy chain". Now at the head of the file he is in their full view and he pulls a blasting cap out of his pocket and puts it in his teeth (telling us to NEVER do that) and pulls a pocket knife out of his pocket and starts to trim the det cord.
One of the Lt's starts to get nervous and starts to ask the Captain a question, "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE STANDING AT ATTENTION LIEUTENANT!"
The Lieutenant's all jump back to ramrod attention. While the captain pulls a detonator out and hooks up the blasting cap and rolls the wires out to our right.
During this entire time the captain is talking about Marine Combat Engineering and holding the entire class's rapt attention. To include the Lt's standing in front of us.
He then starts to talk about the Naval Academy and how much he hates the USNA and how he lost a football game to them when he was in college and says something crazy and holds up the detonator and drops his palm on the switch and about 50 meters behind him one of his Sgt's sets off about 12 feet of det cord that has one coil wrapped around a stump and the top six inches of this pine stump flies straight up into the air and then lands with a thud about ten meters in front of the Lt's and the Lt's just about wet themselves.
We laughed so hard and then cheered and screamed. He was then really conciliatory to the Lt's and proceeded to follow this demo with detonating about 20 gallons of diesel about 100 meters in front of our position. The whole world is burning! It looks like the napalm strike in "Apocalypse Now"
Trees, grass, brush - It's all on fire!
Several of his Marines grab shovels and head out to put out the conflagration before it gets to us and the captain simply holds up his hand and says, "No. I got it."
He sets off a second charge that is in the bottom of the pond and the entire pond rises up 50 meters into the air and comes down in a cascade EXACTLY where the diesel has been set off. The water completely douses the flames. Everything is wet, misty and cool.
The cheers were like a football stadium! Marine Combat Engineers! Captain B. What a stud!
Best class I ever had - anywhere!
If this doesn't read as funny it's purely my fault because I thought I was going to break a rib laughing.
Semper Fi,
TS
I agree with everything you have said. He was a genuinely warm, level-headed man.
TBS may have been “two weeks of intensive study crammed into six months”, but there were a lot of fun times.
We came in from a three day field ex and were sitting in the dirt getting debriefed. The instructor was going on & on & on. We just wanted to get home, a shower and see our wives.
Unbeknown to us, an official photographer was snapping pictures. Several months later a big, glossy OCS recruiting brochure came out. There we were, sitting in the dirt, three day old camo grease paint half washed off of our faces, looking madder and meaner than any troops on the planet.
All over a instructor who would not let us go home!
I conducted a 15-minute interview with Brig. Gen. (AF, Ret) Chuck Yeager for the base newspaper in 1983. He was on an hour stopover and waiting for his next flight. A friend of mine who worked in the Protocol office gave me the heads-up Yeager was coming in.
BG Yeager gave a great interview.. he seemed like a down-to-earth guy. I felt like I was talking to a neighbor down the street.
now, THAT was a kewel story!
I got to meet former hostages and men of the mission, family members, got to attend reunions, private parties, too
Col Peter Wickwire, hill 881 Vietnam, north or south, I forgot , was my Batalion Commander at Parris Island
The guy who called in an air strike on that mental institution in Grenada was a pilot in HMM-165 with me 1980 and 81
The commanding officer of the first Marines into Afghanistan, Col Andy Frick, was a CH-53 pilot with me in HMM-165 in 1980 off Iran.
General James Mattis was a young captain who used to entertain himself watching me kick box on the hanger deck on the Okinawa in 1980. We wrote a few times about 10 years ago.
Many patriots across the board, GOE people, even Scott Swett :)
one of my friends now is a retired Drill Instructor, his voice is one of the Drill Instructors on the recording THE SOUNDS OF PARRIS ISLAND.
“we will control your lives. You will not do anything unless told to do so. Is that clear?”
Frank Sutton took part in any number of amphibious landings in the Pacific, and saw some heavy combat. Another 50s-60s TV persona who fought hard as an Army paratrooper in the Pacific was Rod Serling.
I should have mentioned my former Brigade XO, BG John M. Calhoun, who received prominent mention in Charles B. MacDonald’s book “Company Commander,” wherein MacDonald recounted their experiences as company commanders from the Battle of the Bulge to the Crossing of the Rhine.
General Calhoun was a wise counselor who forgave youthful errors and sought for each of us to be the best we could be. Unfortunately, he passed from this life a few months ago. May he RIP.
The movie “Merril’s Marauders,” starring Jeff Chandler, was being filmed in the jungles around Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1962. I missed being hired as an extra because I couldn’t get off work. The extras were paid $10 daily, a princely sum in those days. I never even got a glimpse of the star.
Congratulations to all involved. Great job!! Citizen reporting/activism actually works!!
I've also been pretty fortunate to meet many, many Freepers and participate in the ACU Ronald Reagan award to Jim Robinson and getting to introduce Jeff Head for his Freeper of the Year award. I really believe that FR, through its members, has made a difference since it's inception.
That's not to say I haven't banged heads from time to time with all of those pinged and mentioned. The ability to bang heads and then go back to work is one of the elements that FR has benefitted from and hopefully, this new Blogger Forum will help re-create.
Kudo's to all.
TS
we had to ask each other this once before, but I forget
were you 31st MAU in 1980 or 81??
I heard Ollie used to sleep nights outside with just a poncho liner while you guys were in sleeping bags :)
I drove General Patton’s TOC when he was the Commander of the 2nd AD. Special duty thing. While he was not his father he was a good soldier.
wow, 31st MAU was WESPAC when I was in, 80-81! :)
It was when I was in too. We transited the Suez Canel after the first two Marines were killed by rocket/mortar fire in early September, 1983. President Reagan sent us in as Reinforcements.
Semper Fi,
TS
Your post #100 is a keeper! Thanks!
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