Dan Rather is Not an Ex-Marine

Personal knowledge/opinion | September 20, 2003 | Donald J. Taylor

[DJ Taylor]

Dan Rather is Not an Ex-Marine

Dan Rather cannot call himself an Ex-Marine, and he must stop referring to himself as such. To be a Marine, a recruit must graduate from boot camp, and Dan Rather did not; he was medically discharged before graduation. According to him, he was medically discharged from the Marine Corps due to a medical disability caused by a childhood case of rheumatic fever.

I went through Marine Corps boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) San Diego about the same time Dan Rather was there, and here’s my take on his brief tour in the Marine Corps. First of all, I find it highly unlikely that the Marine Corps would allow Dan Rather to enlist in spite of a known disability. At the time, a childhood case of rheumatic fever would have made him ineligible for enlistment in the Marines. So, if Dan Rather did not simply medically "wash out" through no fault of his own, as he says, then how did he manage to enlist and then leave the Marine Corps in such a short period of time (three months)? I cannot say with certainty that I know how he did it, but here is how I saw others do it at the time:

I remember well that my recruit-training platoon consisted of about 50 recruits. About 20 of us were high school graduates, about 20 were high school dropouts and about 10 were college boys in their third or fourth year of college. However, come graduation day, none of the college boys were there for graduation; they had all dropped out along the way, as did Dan Rather. I knew at the time how they did it, but I had to think about it for a while to figure out why.

In the Marine Corps of the 1950s, it was not easy to simply quit once you entered recruit training. A recruit quickly learned that it was much easier to go through to graduation than it was to attempt to quit. For a recruit to attempt to quit, he revealed that he lacked motivation. If a recruit required additional motivation, he was removed from his platoon and sent to the Special Training Platoon (STP). In STP, a recruit’s life was a living hell until he could show that he was properly motivated, and then he was sent back to a training platoon. All that attempting to quit would gain a recruit was an additional few weeks in STP before he could return to a training platoon, complete training, graduate and leave.

A medical discharge from recruit training due to a preexisting disability was seldom attained, simply because the enlistment physical was so thorough that very few recruits were admitted with existing physical defects. A medical staff who had seen it all could easily identify recruits who attempted to fake injuries or infirmaries, and these recruits quickly found themselves doing time in STP. So how did Dan Rather receive a medical discharge from the United States Marine Corps in May 1954? In all likelihood, he did it the same way the college boys did in my recruit-training platoon.

There was one so-called medical condition that the Marine Corps would not put up with, or even question, and that was bed-wetting. If a recruit wet the bed, you never saw him again. He was gone, out, no STP, no second chance, no counseling, he was quickly medically discharged and sent home, as was Dan Rather.

The reason for these rapid medical discharges for bed-wetting was simple. If a man truly could not control his bladder, he did not belong in the Marine Corps for obvious reasons. If a man wanted out of the Marine Corps so badly that he would wet the bed in order to leave, then no Marine wanted to breath the same air that such a man breathed. He was removed from the Marine Corps and good riddance.

I believe Dan Rather received one of these bed-wetter medical discharges just as the college boys did in my recruit-training platoon, and he probably did it for the same reasons. The college boys in my platoon had avoided the draft throughout the Korean War by claiming student deferments, as did Dan Rather. Now, they were soon to graduate from college and would no longer be eligible for a student deferment. However, if they were to obtain a medical discharge from the Marine Corps, they would no longer be eligible for draft into the U.S. Army. So, they dropped out of college for a semester, enlisted in the Marine Corps, wet the bed, received a medical discharge and no longer had to worry about the draft after graduation from college.

If you ask why these bed-wetters didn’t simply allow themselves to be drafted and then receive a medical discharge for bed-wetting, it just didn’t work that way. You must remember that, at that time, the Marine Corps was all volunteer and it was into the U.S. Army that a draftee was inducted. If a draftee wet the bed in Army basic training, he was simply issued rubber sheets and he continued on with basic training. There was always a job in a unit somewhere in the vast U.S. Army that even a bed-wetter could do, but he Marine Corps was too small and too proud to even consider trying to place such a person in any Marine unit.

In my over 30 years of military service, I found only one type of man more scurrilous than a bed-wetter, and that was a man who would feign wounds in combat in order to receive Purple Hearts. Yes, any man who will use fake awards to abandon his comrades in combat is even more shameless than a man who will wet the bed in order to avoid service to his country in time of war. Dan Rather is in his true element defending John F. Kerry’s traitorous conduct while amateurishly and feloniously forging official U.S. Government documents in an attempt to damage the reputation of the President of the United States during an election year.

I believe that Dan Rather is a bed-wetter, and I will continue to believe that until he releases his medical records and proves me wrong. If he has nothing to hide, he will fill out and sign Standard Form 180 and release his military records to the news media just as he has demanded of our Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush.

Donald J. Taylor Semper Fi

[eeriegeno]

In the army back then, the recruit who wanted out simply patted the CO's butt a few times. That plan also worked with the 'platoon sgt' but was a bit more dangerous......

[Revelation 911]

ping to the graphics in #8 LOL

[coconutt2000]

That would be like saying a girl is your ex girlfriend, without ever actually dating her. You asked her out, she turned you down.... that don't make her your ex-girlfriend.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"You're traveling through another dimension,
a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind;
a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are
that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead-
- your next stop . . .
The Twilight Zone!"

[Stashiu]

I was in Army Basic Training at Ft. Benning in 1968. Some folks just can't handle the stress and 'wash out' or get sent to those 'motivational companies'. Rather's story is very suspect. You got screened pretty well if you were enlisting.

Rather and Kerry are "wannabe's". They should be outed. I just have never have met real vets and real combat vets who wore it on their sleeves for public display like that.

Cripes, it took me 35 years to finally wear a baseball cap with "Vietnam Veteran" on it. I wear it so people won't forget the sacrifices that were made.

[gobucks]

Potential TROLL ALERT:

HEY DJ: very creative writing. Very imaginative. Bed wetters. Most marines I know, especially noncollege types (... you claim to be non-college by implication), can't write very well.


Oh, yes, indeed .... Sept 19, 2004 .... mmmmmm....


No offense .... but are you a troll?

I mean, i can't stand Dan BLather. But, what if FR were tagged with spreading false rumors about Dan? That doesn't help us, yes?

All the college guys ahem washed out via bed wetting? You know what? This doesn't pass the smell test.

If I am wrong, I'm sure a few marines will chime in.


But for a first post from a day one newbie .... this is fishy.

[rocksblues]

It can't get better than this

Dan Rather, suspected liar, coward and bed wetter!

Until the day that some bright young reporter can state with sincerity "Based on a preponderate amount of Evidence" Dan Rather is a lying, cowardly bed wetter!

[Hold DiMayo]

First let me say that I'm not sticking up for Danny boy.
I entered the Marines in 1968 and we had a bed wetter in our boot camp platoon. The way the DI's countered this ploy was to have the fire watch wake the bed wetter every hour to go take a piss. I don't recall what happened to the bed wetter but I do remember the way it was delt with.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Never got past the larval stage in his military career ("maggot"). Never even graduated to "lady!!!".

[MCRD]

Great post! When I was in the Corps in 72 we had a bed wetter, the DI's cured him in 2 days, once an hour all nite long the fire watches had to wake him up and take him to the head where he had to stand at a urinal until he accomplished his mission. He decided he'd rather sleep than be a bed wetter. Semper Fi

[Aquinasfan]

In the army back then, the recruit who wanted out simply patted the CO's butt a few times. That plan also worked with the 'platoon sgt' but was a bit more dangerous......

LOL!

[maddawg99]

I went through bootcamp at MCRD San Diego August through November 1954 and you're correct, a bed wetter would not have been tolerated. We didn't have any in my platoon but we were told that a bed wetter would have to sleep outside until they could kick him out.

[Mamzelle]

I'm not sure (and I'm looking for the info)--but didn't Dan join another service after the danger of VN was behind the servicemen? Why wouldn't the other service have noticed the "rheumatic fever"--?

[AppyPappy]

According to something I saw, Rather was discharged 4 months after he entered service. What took 4 months?

[Aquinasfan]

I entered the Marines in 1968 and we had a bed wetter in our boot camp platoon. The way the DI's countered this ploy was to have the fire watch wake the bed wetter every hour to go take a piss. I don't recall what happened to the bed wetter but I do remember the way it was delt with.

Makes sense to me.

Any idea what the reason would be? Does his excuse make sense to you?

[quadrant]

I won't dispute the argument that during the 1950's a recruit was discharged for bed-wetting because during that period the Corps was very selective.
However, when I began boot camp in the late 1960's, we were warned about attempting to get out by wetting the bed. Out DI told us the Corps had a treatment for bed-wetters.

A recruit who wet the bed was awakened by the fire watch four hours after lights out and escorted to the head.
If the recruit still wet the bed, he was awakened two hours after lights out and then every two hours after that.
If he still wet the bed, he was awakened every hour after lights out for a trip to the head.
If he still wet the bed, he was discharged.

I don't know if this treatment was actually used because no one in my platoon wet the bed. Perhaps, they, as did I, needed the sleep and were willing to hold their water.

[Graybeard58]

I have an uncle who was a marine in the 50s and he pretty much says the same thing you do about bed wetters.

He too had rheumatic fever as a child but says he simply didn't tell them about it. It wasn't the only thing he lied about either. He was not quite 17 years old when he joined so he got away with lying about his age too.

My uncle truly wanted in and stayed in. Dan Rather wanted out.

[two23]

"Did you see Ollie North Last night on War Stories?"

I saw it--turned to the mister and said, "ooh---SLAP"!

(LOL)

Oliver North on H&C last week:

"I turned down my 3rd Purple Heart so I could STAY with my guys."

[Corin Stormhands]

I have no idea why you pinged me to that. ;-D

[Drawsing]

I thought Marine boot camp was 13 weeks. That would be less than 3 months. Somebody set me straight on this please.