Edited by R. R. Keene
Have a query or really feel like sounding off? Tackle your letter to: Sound Off Editor, Leatherneck Journal, P.O. Field 1775, Quantico, VA 22134, or ship an e-mail to: [email protected]. As a result of heavy quantity, we can’t reply each letter acquired. Don’t ship unique pictures, as we can’t assure their return. All letters should be signed, and e-mails should include full names and postal mailing addresses. Nameless letters is not going to be revealed.—Sound Off Ed.
Letter of the Month
(Leatherneck can pay $25 for the Sound Off Letter of the Month.)
Out of 700 plus casualties that 1st Battalion, twenty seventh Marine Regiment incurred in 1968, 46 p.c of these males had been solely 18 years previous.
I checked them in, skilled with them and went to Vietnam with them. Fairly just a few had been held on Okinawa till their 18th birthday, and inside just a few days, they’d be with us in fight.
The glory of being a Marine is with out phrases. To see these younger Marines in fight, functioning as if that they had been doing this all their lives, bestowed extra honor on me there than can ever occur. They shall by no means be forgotten.
Sgt James A. Could, USMC (Ret)
B/1/27
Springdale, Ark.
• Sergeant Could was belatedly awarded the Silver Star in 2003 for his gallantry and intrepidity whereas serving as a squad chief with 2nd Platoon, Firm B, 1/27 on April 13, 1968, in Vietnam. When his platoon chief was killed and the unit was below heavy hearth from three sides, he moved from one defensive place to a different, directing and controlling suppressive hearth. He risked his life to maneuver wounded Marines and, though wounded himself, maintained efficient management over the platoon, enabling them to repulse repeated enemy assaults.
His story “Sgt Could and His Platoon Walked Into an NVA Hq and Shot Their Approach Out” was featured within the column “Within the Highest Custom,” Leatherneck, July 2004, web page 52.—Sound Off Ed.
Sure, There Was One other Marine
To Command a Ship of Conflict
In response to Mr. Truman Powell’s assertion [“Sound Off,” March letter] about Marines commanding naval vessels at battle, there really is a really well-known battle fought within the Pacific through the Conflict of 1812.
Throughout operations, Marine Lt John Mar-
shall Gamble (commander of USS Essex Marine guards) was accountable for a captured 10-gun British whaler, Greenwich. On the morning of July 12, 1813, Lt Gamble, commanding Greenwich, efficiently attacked the strongest British ship within the Pacific, HMS Seringapatam, and gained.
GySgt D. A. “Purple” Millis II, USMC (Ret)
Curator, Marine Corps Legacy Museum
Harrison, Ark.
On Oct. 22, 1812, First Lieutenant John Marshall Gamble, USMC was the Marine officer aboard USS Essex accountable for the frigate’s detachment of 31 Marines. Essex was commanded by the well-known Captain (later Commodore) David Porter, USN.
The cruise of Essex proved to be probably the most thrilling cruises within the annals of the U.S. Navy and needs to be of nice curiosity to Marines with an curiosity in our historical past.
First Lt Gamble was put accountable for a prize of battle, renamed Greenwich and armed and fitted as a man-of-war, which he commanded with distinction.
In July 1813, whereas cruising close to the Galapagos Islands, Gamble compelled a British ship into motion with Greenwich. After irritating the entire enemy vessel’s makes an attempt to flee, Gamble delivered just a few broadsides and compelled his adversary to strike her colours. The punch line to this little incident is that Gamble’s prize turned out to be the British Seringapatam, the fear of all American whalers within the Pacific.
We should not lose sight of the very fact that there’s a fouled anchor diagonally behind the globe on our Marine emblems. We’re, and at all times have been, a sea service. U.S. Marine officers are the truth is “naval officers,” though some might not be as adept as John Marshall Gamble at commanding a vessel on the excessive seas whereas below hearth.
Your Outdated Hashmark PFC Bartender Buddy
Triangle, Va.
• First Lieutenant Mal Schwab, USMC, 1942-45, of Branford, Conn., additionally despatched us
related data. Whereas we’re with reference to the Hashmark PFC Bartender, notice that the Corps’ greatest restaurant in any clime and place: The Globe and Laurel of Triangle, Va., has moved from its short-term location after solely 40 years. It’s now ahead deployed to Stafford County, situated at 3987 Jefferson Davis Hwy. (off I-95 Exit 148 towards Marine Corps Base) on the precise going south from MCB Quantico’s again gate.
It’s greater, and when you can think about, higher, and continues to be the place with “a contact of custom” for all Marines, their visitors and associates. It’s at all times greatest to name for reservations. The cellphone quantity, (703) 221- 5763, has not modified.—Sound Off Ed.
Operation Glory Introduced Again
Our Korean Conflict Unknowns
The Korean Conflict is usually known as the “Forgotten Conflict.” However with all wars, there are these lacking or killed in motion who to at the present time stay unidentified. They’re the unknown or “American heroes identified however to God.”
I’m a retired Marine (1951-75), and whereas on lively obligation, just a few of my shut acquaintances had been both lacking or killed in motion through the Korean and Vietnam wars. Over my years within the Corps, I participated in lots of burial and escort memorial companies together with these at Arlington Nationwide Cemetery and the Nationwide Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific [Punch-bowl]. On every Memorial Day I attend a particular ceremony at a VA cemetery.
Subsequently, with the above in thoughts, I wish to pay particular tribute not solely to all of our fallen heroes, previous and current, however extra particularly to “the Korean unknown battle lifeless” buried collectively on the Punchbowl on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
I used to be a younger sergeant at Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor (1955-56) and was chosen as a particular honor guard for “ Operation Glory” and burial companies for the unknown Korean Conflict lifeless. It was on Jan. 31, 1956, that USS Manchester (CL- 83), whereas on her final voyage, participated in