Staging The Dog

(Don’t know why the Dog recollected this, except to say that lessons learned during time in the USMC carried through my life, both personally & professionally.  All the “management training” seminars attended only served to affirm that Marine Corps NCO and leadership training were those “management” lessons in so many other words, and a hell of a lot more serious.)

Staging Battalion, Camp Pendleton, California,
sometime in the fall of ….  

I don’t remember how I got to Pendleton, to the barracks or to anywhere else, but I do remember being called to a meeting for all NCO’s with the Staging Battalion Commander and Company Commanders.  

They went through introductions, gave the rah-rah pep talk, and then laid out the plan for the next few weeks of training.  Then one of them read off the names of each Company Commander, Executive Officer, Company SNCOs, and Platoon Sergeants.  Dog about dropped my bone when I was assigned to be the Platoon Sergeant of the 3d Platoon in the 3d Replacement Company, Unit 3511.  I had two Corporals and another Sergeant assigned as my squad leaders.  These guys were grunts and I was a journalist, but they didn’t know that.   

We grouped up with our officers, introduced ourselves, and got more briefing and a roster of the men assigned to each platoon and where we would be housed for training.  We were given schedules for the first week, and told to gather up our platoons, make squad assignments, and get them squared away and into their new areas, and then orient them for the training schedule and “expectations”.   After that, muster them up, do some light PT and march them to the mess hall for chow.   (Light PT, I took to mean loosen them up and don’t make them puke.).   After chow, there would be a company meeting with the CO, XO, and SNCOs.  

We rallied the troops, called names, mustered into a general formation, and marched each platoon away to a spot we could talk and they could hear.  I did my best Gunnery Sergeant Drakeford speech, introduced myself, the squad leaders, and then told them to divide up by MOS.
(Note:  Gunnery Sergeant George Drakeford was my Boot Camp Platoon Senior Drill Instructor.  He was a mentor in many ways he didn't even know.)

When that was done, Dog grouped my pack of squad leaders and told them to put the squads together with a mix of MOS’s and experience in each squad.  I didn’t want all the grunts together or all the REMFs together or all the anything else together.  I wanted those with previous Nam experience mixed in with newbies.  I wanted a “Marine Corps stew” that would balance squad strengths and talents.  If there were problems, I’d do it for them, but they had the chance to choose their squads. We could shuffle later, if need be, but mix ‘em and fix ‘em.  I told them this was their first test and there would be more.  They looked at me like I knew what I was doing.  I surprised myself that I had no plan, but kept channeling Drakeford.  

We had all sorts of grunts, we had tankers & amtraks, we had motor T’s, we had admins, and we even had a cook.  We had every size, shape and “ethnicity” of Marine.  We had squared away hard chargers, and we had “birds”. 

The evening meeting was about as expected.  Rah-rah Marine Corps rhetoric, mixed in with a couple of war stories and the goal of this thing called “staging”.   The First Sergeant drove the point home when he gave the “look at the Marine on your right and then look at the Marine on your left.  One of you is going to die over there, one of you is going to get wounded, and all of you are going to remember it forever.”  Sage words to ignorant minds.  

He used that same motivator when he met with us platoon sergeants and told us that whether our assigned Marines lived or died was on us.   How well we got them through training, how well we pushed them when they weakened, how well we drove them, and how well we motivated them to push themselves.   All the time, unconsciously re-learning personal discipline.... Honor.... Courage.... Commitment...Esprit de Corps, and Semper Fidelis.  

As I recall the first day must have been various check-ins, check-ups, gear distribution, etc.  I remember the conversations about ponchos and shelter halves, and using them as stretchers more than rain covers.  

Forty-plus years later, this Dog doesn’t remember the specific details of what happened over the next few weeks, but I do remember some of the highlights.   We had classes on tactics and culture and history and weapons and other standard issue stuff.   We had practical applications of squad tactics in the field, and we had training in hand grenades, firing grenade launchers, firing M-60s, M-16s and .45s.  We set up Claymores, and even learned to rig a few of our own booby traps.  We even mixed in a little PT and some runs, just to stay loose.  

Days and nights we marched and trooped down the trails of Pendleton. We went through a mock up Vietnamese village several times, and we found tunnels, booby traps, punji pits, and a whole lot of fun things.   We set up LPs, OPs, ambushes, and did live fire exercises.  We did Huey and CH-46 mobilizations and extractions under fire. We re-learned first aid for sucking chest wounds, gut bombs, and severed/ fractured limbs, among other things. We learned how to care for the dead, and how to use the extra dog tag.   

Several of our Marines “died” a few times, and each time that happened I got ripped, the squad leader got ripped, and the “dead” Marine got to do it all over again.  After awhile, everyone learned that these do-overs weren’t going to be possible when the big bird landed in the Nasty.  

When all the training was said and done, we marched out to the parade deck for final review by the brass and Pendleton commanding general and his entourage.  It wasn’t as exciting as boot camp graduation, but there is nothing in that world more inspiring than a regiment of Marines marching in with the band playing.  

We then got a 48-hour liberty in beautiful Oceanside, California, and reported back for final debriefs and transport to Norton AFB for our flight to FMFPac, WestPac, Grnd Frces.  The Platoon sergeants got a shared room at some dive motel in Oceanside.  Some of the guys had their families waiting to spend the last 48 with them.  Funny thing, I also remember watching as everyone headed out and making sure that no one was alone or left behind.  There weren’t any.  

At the final company formation, with seabags packed, piled, and waiting to be loaded on the busses to Norton, the CO wished us farewell and then passed the word to dismiss the troops to get their gear and line up to board.  

As I called the 3d Platoon to attention, I put in my own final words of encouragement and told them to never forget that Marines smiled in the face of pain and death.  I then used my best DI voice to yell, “Third Platoon…A-ten-hut.....  Third Platoon, Attitude Check”.   

And, as one tight Marine Corps platoon they answered, “Sir!  Fuck It, Aye Aye Sir!”  

We were ready for whatever came at us.,  

“Dismissed Marines!”