Biography
Military Service
Growing up as I did during World War II,
I attended military schools. In 1948, when President Truman
re-instituted a military draft, I had the choice of enlisting
in the Marines as an officer candidate or being drafted
as a private in the Army. I took the Marine option, which
let me finish college so long as I attended two summers
of boot training for officers at Quantico, Virginia, first
with the rank of corporal, then as sergeant.
I graduated from Washington & Lee, Magna
Cum Laude, and at my graduation for the first time in the
history of the school, a graduate was formally commissioned
a second lieutenant in the armed forces of the United States.
In June of 1950, I enrolled at the University
of London for a survey course called "The Arts in Britain
Today." On occasional weekends I crossed the English Channel
to France. Sitting at a sidewalk café in Paris in mid-June
of 1950, I read of "La guerre dans Coree." Then as I read
on, I learned that the United States was calling the "fusiliers
marins" into active service. That meant me. On October 2,
1950, a couple of weeks after my return from Europe, I was
ordered to report for duty at the First Special Basic Class
for young Marine Corps officers at Quantico, Virginia.
In January of 1951, I shipped out from San
Diego to Kobe, Japan. I spent four months at a camp near
Kyoto, Japan doing rehabilitation training for Marines wounded
in Korea. We did long, grueling marches to toughen the men,
plus refresher training in firearms and bayonet combat.
In May of 1951, I was transferred to Korea
where I ended up at the headquarters command of the First
Marine Division. The Division was in combat in the hot and
dusty, then bitterly cold portion of North Korea just above
the 38th Parallel, later identified as the "Punchbowl" and
"Heartbreak Ridge." For that service in the Korean War,
the Marine Corps awarded me three battle stars for "action
against the enemy."
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