The Corps

After my Junior year of high school, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. There was one hitch though. Before they would let me get a full clearance, I had to have a hernia operation. The doc at the recruiting station was a quack. I went back to Mena and went and saw the surgeon about this supposed hernia - AGAIN. He told me that I didn't have a hernia - AGAIN. I took his notes back to the station, but the doc up there wouldn't clear me. So, I had a hernia operation for a hernia that wasn't there. What I did have was a cyst (hydrocoele). Once I had the surgery I was all set to leave after graduation. My best friend, Vernon, joined with me and I referred one other person as well so I was guaranteed a promotion upon graduation from training. On June 29th we headed off to boot camp. Not a good choice. Compared to a lot of places, San Diego is not killer hot, but the worst months are July and August. The heat during combat training was murder. I had it fairly easy during recruit training mainly because I knew exactly what I was getting into and was pretty well prepared. Oh the stories I could tell about boot camp. But I won't. I'll save that for another rant.



When I finished boot camp I came home on leave and started seeing Carolyn (more on that in another post). We were engaged on October 19th and later married on December 29th. We started out living with my sister in San Diego and I commuted to school at Camp Pendleton, CA. Once we were able to afford it, we got a little apartment in Oceanside. It was a pretty run down place but Carolyn cleaned it up well. The only things we had to our name other than our clothes was a TV and her car. We couldn't afford furnishings, but somehow things were provided to us so that we could get by. A mattress and box springs was left in the closet of the place we moved in to, so with a ton of lysol, we had a place to sleep. My sister gave us an old beanbag chair that she had and that was our main seat. Slowly but surely we found old furniture here and there and were able to get ourselves set up. Money was really, really, really, really tight. It took the Corp forever to get me registered as married so that my pay would go up. I remember having to resort to giving blood plasma to make ends meet. Carolyn signed on to be a substitute teacher, but that was a disaster. Everyone made fun of her accent. It was very difficult for her because she had never been farther than a couple of hours from her parents. This was a major change.


After graduating from court reporter transcriber school, I was stationed there at Camp Pendleton. I worked in a small office with one stenotype reporter. Our office was busy and the reporter didn't like to have to go to court all the time. I got a crash course in reporting and then became a court reporter myself. I logged over 200 cases before I got out. It was a fairly boring job, but it was a cushy job. I worked with all the brass and was protected as a result. Don't mess with Corporal Gray was the Colonel's slogan (He called us the Two Wallys. His name was Wally Campbell). I was also known as the gopher king in the office. Because the gophers/ground squirrels would rip up the lawn around our office, we had to find ways to send them packing. Whenever I wasn't busy, I would get out the hose and flood their holes . They would drag their soaking wet little bodies down the hill and would be gone for a while. I can still remember the poster they stuck over my desk while I was in court one day. It said "Learn to eat your problems for breakfast" and there was a picture of one of the little rodents on the poster.



One of the first purchases that Carolyn and I ever made was a stereo from sears. It was state of the art. It had a phonograph, am/fm stereo, an 8-track player, and a cassette player. Looking back I know that the system wasn't all that great, but I was proud of it. One of the great things about being a young married couple in Southern California was that there was always something to do. We would go to the beach one weekend, to the mountains the next and to the desert the next. There was no shortage of things to do. Only a shortage of funds, so we did a whole lot of free stuff or at least very cheap stuff. We ended up buying season passes to Sea World in San Diego. They weren't very expensive and we went there a lot. All it cost us was the gas to get there.

In '81 I got to buy a new vehicle. Money was still tight, but we really needed two cars. I had a friend that worked at the Chevy Dealer near where we moved to in Vista, CA. I bought a brand new California Edition Chevy Luv 4X4. This just added to the recreational opportunities for us. It was a good little truck, but it had no ground clearance. My friends and I would go off road 4-wheeling a lot. Their goal was to try to go places that I would get stuck. Many was the time they had to come and pull me off when I got high-centered. I learned in the desert that lowering your air pressure can help to increase traction in the sand. I loved that little truck and all was going well... until Carolyn got pregnant. All of a sudden we realized that my little truck was not going to hold the two of us and a baby in a car seat. So... we traded in both of our vehicles and bought a new Toyota Corolla station wagon. We got it a few months before Kori was born and loved having it. We put a lot of miles on that old car. One of my friends owned a Subaru Brat (the kind with the jump seats in the bed). He used to drive off-road to get to places thinking I wouldn't follow him in the station wagon. He was wrong. It went everywhere he did.

In February of 1982 our first daughter, Kori, was born and within a few days after her birth I was given orders for an unaccompanied tour to Okinawa, Japan. I was overjoyed at the birth of Kori, but was completely down about having to leave Carolyn and the baby stateside. I moved all of our belongings to Dallas and got on a plane for Okinawa. Kori was just 6 weeks old at the time. It was a very depressing time in my life. Every week I would get letters from Carolyn telling me about what Kori was doing and lots of pictures. I felt like an outsider looking at my own family.

After I had been in Okinawa for about 6 months, I was given leave and got to fly home for two weeks. Carolyn had moved up to Mena by this time and was working there. I can remember the long flight home (sitting in a C130 re-fueler). Nothing like a 20+ hour flight in a jump seat (they aren't comfortable and they don't recline) facing a huge fuel storage tank. We landed for a short stop in Anchorage, Alaska and then flew on to Oakland California. There I caught a plane to Los Angeles and then on to Dallas and Fort Smith. Carolyn picked me up at the airport and took me to where she was living at the time. I don't think I have ever been so tired in my life. I was excited to see her and the baby, but I couldn't hold my head up or keep my eyes open. Poor Carolyn thought I had lost interest in her. She found out once I got a little sleep that this was not at all the case. One of the hardest things about coming home was seeing all of the things that I had missed by being away. Kori was 9 months old and was definitely full of vinegar. She only liked 4 people - and I wasn't one of them. She didn't like the fact that I was taking her mom's attention away even for a second. It took a lot of effort for me to hold her without her screaming bloody murder. I was glad to be home seeing my family, but when it came time to return to Okinawa it was even more difficult to return. This time I caught a flight in Dallas, flew to LA, then to Oakland, then to Hawaii, then across the pond to Tokyo, then on to Okinawa. I felt as though I was in the air for an eternity. Time did pass, but it sure wasn't quick. In April of '83 I got orders for Camp Pendleton again. I returned home, packed up the belongings and the family moved again.

This time we settled down in Fallbrook, CA. I was no longer a court reporter. I had been promoted to Sergeant and was assigned to a brand new legal unit (1st Legal Support Team - Delta). We got our operation running on the main part of the base and then 9 months later we moved our offices to the northern part of the base. I was able to apply for base housing, which we got on a hillside with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean. Just north of our little home you could see San Clemente, CA with the multi-million dollar homes with the same view we had. It was probably the nicest place we had ever lived in up to that point in our lives. Prior to the move, Carolyn became pregnant with our second child, Jamie. More about my children's births in another post later. Jamie was a welcome addition to our little family and Kori loved her dearly (of course we all did).

After almost a year there, I was given orders for recruiting duty. I attended school in San Diego. I can honestly say that it was the most difficult course I have ever been through in my life. The cool part was that we were at the recruit depot there in SD. It was amazing to see all the changes that had been made in the short 5+ years that I had been in the Corps. I did well in recruiting school and was given my choice of duty stations. I applied for Fort Smith, AR, Dallas, TX and Little Rock, AR. I was given my first choice. I thought I would be in heaven being so close to home. I knew a lot of people there. That isn't a good thing. I have this little fault.... I couldn't lie (or stretch the truth). The Marine Corps and Air Force had the highest requirements to get in at that time. When I found a kid who was trying to decide between college and the Corps, I always encouraged them to go to college. That's not what a good recruiter is supposed to do. A good recruiter isn't supposed to lie, but they did encourage not telling the whole truth. I had a big problem with this. Little to say, my numbers were not good at all. I didn't make it on recruiting duty and got out of the Corps in July of '85. It was an honorable discharge under medical conditions. More about that in another post. When I got out, they moved our belongings to Dallas, TX. I'll begin there in the next chapter.