In Response to "Never Volunteer"

In 1963, we were fresh out of Parris Island,and transported up to NC to Camp Gieger for training at ITR.

It was much better than PI, and everything was going smoothly. Then with about three weeks left, dozens Of us were stricken with some sort of pneumonia-like illness, and transported to the Naval Hospital at Camp Lejune in cattle cars ,I was in the Cattle Car with a boatload of sick Marines with temperatures of about 103* When we arrived, they put us in a large ward and told us the treatment would consist of bed rest and gallons of fruit juice. Didn’t sound too bad to a bunch of young Marines. About three weeks later they discharged us, and we started to worry about repeating training,the SNCO was pretty good and said he would put us in companies that were as far as we were at when we left. Well, it was soon realized by the bunch of us that everything was EXACTLY the same, the sea stories, war stories, and humor, all repeated verbatim by the instructors. We came to the infamous machine gun course, and we knew what to expect, there were six of us “Veterans” the instructor started with a line about NEVER VOLUNTEER for anything, he said in our short time.

In the Corps we had learned that. Then as expected,he asked for a VOLUNTEER! Well all six of us were ready,and up our hands went !! The instructor picked me, and I knew I had made it. After he selected me, he said this Marine will be happy he volunteered for once,because he will be feeding the ammo to the Machine Gun instead of crawling through the course ! It felt so great to have pulled off a little victory over our beloved Corps , and I was happy as could be for the rest of the day. I didn’t volunteer for much for a few years, OOORAH !!