Not Going Home Alone A Marine's Story

Leave-Taking The day I left for the coast I felt the strongest premonitions of loss. When I awoke, the sun was reflecting off the brick walls of the neighbors' houses behind us, but I had a hollow feeling inside that signified more than mere hunger. I dressed quickly, grabbed a double armful of uniforms, and scrambled downstairs to begin loading my car. I stopped on the way out to say good morning to Granny, my mother, and aunts. Betty and Nancy helped me load the car while Mom checked around to see if I had forgotten anything in packing. The bustling about helped subdue the hollow feeling a bit. I went upstairs once more, checked my room again, took a last, long look at it, then got washed up, packed my shaving kit and workout gear, and came back downstairs to have what would be my last breakfast at home for nearly two years. Granny was waiting for me as usual in the kitchen. Her arms were folded. In the same tone as always, she asked, "What will you have, Jimmy?" I paused a second, to reassure her I was "making up my mind," then announced my usual large order. While I ate, Granny sat watching and attending to me in her special ways. I told her again that I would be heading for California, where I would be safe, and that I would write to her as often as I could. Since my letters home always bore either a California or a Fleet Post Office, California, address, she did not learn I was in Vietnam until the day Captain Lavin came to call. After breakfast I kissed everyone good-bye and told them not to worry. I'd be home before they knew it. My pale blue Chevy II was loaded and filled with gas. I was ready to drive west, to take command of an infantry platoon, I hoped, to train them, and to take them into combat in Vietnam. I had grown up in the closely knit neighborhood of South Philadelphia where much of Rocky and Rocky II were filmed. Growing up in this area alone constituted a great and lively education, valuable to me the rest of my life. As I pulled out from in front of our Wolf Street home, I turned around to wave good-bye to everyone, and then the hollow feeling came again--stronger this time--a feeling more palpable than that induced by a blow, one that stayed with me until I left the South Philadelphia neighborhood of my youth and got onto the Schuylkill Expressway, heading northwest toward Valley Forge. The first thing one notices about Pendleton is its size. I had become accustomed to large bases, since neither Quantico nor Lejeune was small. Pendleton, however, covered an area roughly two hundred square miles, some twenty miles long by ten miles across. In addition to a mainside the size of a small town, the base had numerous training areas, and five camps, each of which housed several thousand Marines. On my first day aboard (Marine speech for "on-base"), I wound my car around the wide-swerving roads to the temporary officers' quarters a few miles into the hills. As on most days I was in southern California, the afternoon sun was bright and the sky clear, an atmosphere that induced in me a continual feeling of restless exhilaration. As I drove I observed the steeply rising hills with their autumn foliage, as if covered with sleek brown rugs. The TOQ at the time comprised a series of worn-out appearing wood barracks that looked almost as much like a ghost town as did some of those towns I drove through on my way across country. My first evening aboard I squared away my uniform, polishing shoes and brass until they glowed even in the dimly lit, dusty room where I stayed. The next day I arose as usual at first light, did PT outside the barracks, had a brisk road workout, snatched a hasty breakfast, put on my uniform, and drove to headquarters to report for duty. The 1st Marine Division headquarters at the time was a large, austere, wood-frame building. I was greeted inside by an enlisted man who escorted me across the room to the desk of a slim,Kirschke, James J. is the author of 'Not Going Home Alone A Marine's Story', published 2001 under ISBN 9780345440938 and ISBN 0345440935.