Marine Corps Base Quantico -- Editor's Note" Robert Koury served in the Marine Corps from 1965 to 1970. He served as an infantry office with combat experience in Vietnam. His speech below was given at a memorial dedication aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico on Aug. 29, 2015. The memorial dedicated that day was to the fallen Marines and corpsmen of 1st Battalion, 1st Marines who served in Vietnam from 1965-1971. The memorial is located at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The following is the full excerpt of his speech:
Good Morning
**Field Music: Sound First Call
That was Brad Mamalis. He was, in a former life, a Bugler with The Commandant’s Own. He now volunteers to provide field music at events like ours to keep the tradition alive. Bravo Zulu and thank you, Brad.
It is wonderful to see so many adolescent faces- and I am not just talking about the grandchildren.
It is indeed a grand and glorious day to be alive and in the Corps where every meal is a banquet, every formation is a parade, and every day is a holiday. Am I missing anything?? May the Heavens bless the United States Marine Corps and all who serve in her ranks.
My goodness, what a spectacular ceremony! Thanks to Rick Bazaco and Sgt Major Lon Martin for making this possible Can I get an Oroughah.
Ever since Rick asked me to speak at this event, I have been agonizing about what I could possibly say to a group of Marine combat veterans. Something they didn’t already know about Vietnam. Something about the profound subjects of life, death and sacrifice in combat.
I ask you to forgive me if I repeat facts that you may already know. And please forgive me for carrying around the notes on this talk in front of me. I have not been able to memorize anything since the hundreds of rock ’n roll songs that I know by heart from the 60s took up all the available space in my brain. You know- Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and the Big Bopper.
**Field Music: Sound Attention
Two score and ten years ago, Marines from the 1st Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment were deployed to the Republic of Vietnam. We were just one part of America’s commitment to bolster the democratic government in the south of that country. And to halt the expansionist aggression of the communist government in the north.
We were inserted into a very long, in fact ancient, history of conflict and war in Vietnam. It is fair to say most Americans, and certainly most of our political leaders, were woefully negligent on the depth and breadth of what had unfolded in Vietnam for well over a thousand years before our arrival. These guys had been at war forever, and learned to be real good at it. It is also fair to say that most of us, definitely not me, had very little appreciation of our place Vietnam’s history, at least not at that point in our lives.
But, let me see if I have this right...
- Communists are invading a democratic free nation...
- More domino nations in the area will fall to Communism if we do not intervene...
- Hmmmm..... for us, Nuff Said.
- Let’s kick a little Commie butt and be back home in time for Christmas!!
We are Marines. We march toward the sound of gunfire, and faithfully obey the orders from our chain of command. No matter what our county asked, we Marines were eager to do. And tuning up the Communist north’s attitude was right up our alley.
So march off to war boys. With bangles and spangles and bright golden buttons.
**Field music: Sound General Quarters
Our role in the conflict started with guarding an airfield, and expanded to seeking and destroying the enemy across most of I Corps and its borders with North Vietnam and Laos. We fought guerilla and conventional battles, and we engaged in urban combat. The conflict for us expanded from an intervention to become a real war.
America fought this war with one hand tied behind its back militarily, using only a fraction of its might and resources. This, primarily due to the concern that we could awaken the giant Communist nations of China or Russia into full scale land war in Asia. Absolutely, not a good idea.
However, this larger strategic picture was of little consequence for those of us at the pointy end of the spear. For us, the Vietnam war was serious, intense and damn deadly.
During the six year period of its deployment in Vietnam, 1st Battalion 1st Marines lost 567 Marines and corpsmen killed in action. Staggering. That is almost 3 whole companies killed out of a battalion. 567!!
To this day, it is difficult to fully comprehend and reckon with the tragedy of these losses. For every death there were at least four times, or five times or maybe six times that many of us wounded. There is no way to know exactly how many.
And these wounds included horrible losses of limbs and bodily functions- not the kind you see in the old time western movies. These were wounds that forever changed your life, and inflicted long term suffering and misery.
So, that adds up to 567 of us killed and likely well over 2,500 wounded during 1/1’s deployment. That is roughly 3,000 lives which were either terminated or forever changed. Your odds of being killed or wounded were 1 in 3, or maybe even 50/50 if you were serving with 1/1 in Vietnam. Based on your experiences, does that sound about right?? How many of you wear the Purple Heart? Thank you.
Those brutal odds were a consequence of 1/1 being at the absolute pointy tip of the military spear in Vietnam. We were bloodied, but no way broken. And then on top of these frightful KIA and WIA odds are the additional lingering consequences of being in our war. Horrible Agent Orange illnesses, TBI (traumatic brain injury), PTSD, alcohol and drug addictions, and the everenduring deep emotional scars. We all came back from our journey to war as very, very different individuals from who we were when we left.
On a slightly brighter note, our on-going sacrifices are just beginning to be recognized by our country. Rather late in our lives, but I guess, better late than never. We at the pointy end, have paid a heavy price for serving. And we have paid that price many times over.
Let’s reflect for a moment on what happened to us on our journeys both to war and coming back from war.
**Field Music: Sound To Arms
We signed up for the Green Machine, or the Blue Machine, from our home towns throughout this great nation. Our motives for doing so varied. No matter. With the skilled guidance of our recruiters, we overcame the apprehensions and opposition of our parents and loved ones. And then, off we go on our journey to become Marines or Corpsmen.
Soon, the realization sets in... we are alone on this voyage. Friends and family are small specs in the rear view mirror, and they are continuing with their lives without us. We are introduced into a new world of discipline, martial skills and hardening. Our instructors absolutely know what is ahead for us. And we absolutely, absolutely do not have a clue. There is very little time to make friends--we are on this journey alone.
Whether a recruit at Parris Island or San Diego, or squid at Great Lakes, or a potential (make that possible) officer candidate at Quantico PLC or OCS, the basic military conversion is to you, and to you alone. You are beginning your journey to war. You get to know a few guys, but they are 30 day friends. Not like your long time high school friendships from home.
Then there is the next dislocation on your journey to war: Advanced Infantry, Advanced MOS or Corpsman training, or to officers’ Basic School. Again, you enter this leg of the journey to war without family or friends to be your support group. You are injected into a whole new group of strangers- alone again.
Then, you deploy to Vietnam. This leg of your journey to war is taken with new strangers who are on the same well worn path with you. Remember the surreal voyages or flights into country? And on arrival, the heat, the noises, and the smells (yes, I do mean the burning the crappers) are staggering to your senses. You are lost and alone in this new world- warrior not yet at war.
At last, your assignment and arrival to somewhere within 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. Again, you are with new strangers and in a very strange place. Your mind is reeling as you try to fit in. Then comes.....the ultimate separation and loneliness which is:??? Anyone please?? You are the New Guy- locally known as an FNG!!
We were all a FNG at one point, and we all, if we were fortunate enough to not get hit, later knew guys who we called FNG’s. As a FNG, you were an outcast. You were embedded in a unit, but no one wanted to get friendly or emotionally close. They all knew your chances of outlasting the FNG label were pretty darned small.
Talk about lonely... your first FNG nights on watch, in a hole or bunker in the pitch black night, with every shrub an enemy coming to cut your throat. No one but other strangers to talk to- and not much of that. Alone and pondering the fact that that your sweetheart, Nancy Rottencrotch was doing it with Jody Sweetgums back home, while you were on the opposite side of the planet.
Strangely, you were somehow able to look down, with mental x-ray vision, through the bottom of your hole, all the way through the planet, to see their feet on the other side where you left them. That is, unless Nancy and Jody were horizontal, whereupon the view was very different, but easy to visualize. So, here you are, an FNG surviving among strangers, and worse, now within the reach of those who really do want to kill you.
If you stayed healthy for a while, you made a few new 30 day friendships with some of your fellow Marines. These were somehow much deeper and different friendships than you had ever experienced. Probably because your lives depended on each other. A lot different from your football buddies back home.
But with your new Marine buddies, you always held something back. You had to be willing to let them go in a heartbeat- always one bullet or incoming round away from their leaving your life. Or if they rotated home before you, they were pretty much flat gone from your life. Strangely, the longer you survive in country, the fewer friends you are willing to make. It is just not worth the emotional loss when they go.
And your mind begins to be packed with new, vivid memories of your time at war. Memories that will be with you for the rest of your days. Some good. Most horrific. These are the very best times and the very worst times of your life.
Do I have that right???
Your journey to war has now reached its destination. You are a Marine warrior at war. And you are serving with the legendary 1st of the 1st- 1st Battalion 1st Marines. It just doesn’t seem so at the time, but you are now a living part of that storied 1/1 legacy: Guadalcanal, New Britain, Peleliu, Okinawa, Inchon and the Chosin Reservoir. You are now the last link in the unbroken chain of Marines at war stretching back over 200 years. A chain of Marines joined in mind, body and soul that has remained unbroken to this day.
Your moments of combat, with the lives of brother Marines in your hands, will likely be both the very best and the very worst times of your life. The peak and the valley. The top and the absolute bottom. All in one. Most of the rest of your life will be relatively, and thankfully, dull by comparison.
You are filthy, covered with oozing sores. You have been cut by elephant grass, sucked on by killer mosquitos, bitten by the ginormous centepedes, threatened by rats big enough to carry sidearms, and that doesn’t account for the damned leaches- ugh. You have been shot at by little guys who are very serious about killing you, mortared, rocketed and booby trapped You have become weary to the bone exhausted from little sleep, pissed off and pissed on, haunted, edgy, moody, and hostile, damned hostile.
You have become exactly what is needed to survive and succeed at this war thing- the perfect killing machine: An Infantry Marine at War. Welcome to the new you.
So this is what those Marine heroes from earlier wars endured?- wow. Whodda thought? And then your thirteen months are up. Or you are wounded and evacuated. You have survived your journey to war, and are ready to begin your journey from war.
** Field Music: Sound Tattoo
Here you are, too short for a long conversation. Too short to see over your jungle boot laces. Too short for a wait-a-minute vine to slow you. Infused with guilt at leaving your buddies, and those poor, poor bastard FNG’s behind, you head back to the World. You are a survivor.
However, it is a very different you who is leaving. You are absolutely not the same person who started your journey to war months earlier. You left the World with bright eyes, bangles, spangles and bright golden buttons.
You have returned from war with aching scars from your sores and wounds, haunted, edgy, angry, moody, pissed off, and still hostile- damned hostile. You are haunted with the horrible war memories, to be re-lived- many, many times over.
This is the new you.
This new you is a stranger to even you. What the heck happened? And even worse, all those folks you left back in the World are now strangers to you. And you to them. You are back in the World, but you are alone on your journey from war. It is a very strange place.
None of us signed up to get thank you’s from a grateful nation on returning from our journey to war. We signed up to be warriors. And we warriors are in it for reasons the rest of the World simply does not comprehend. Definitely not in it for getting parades and a rousing welcome home. That is something we can live without and blow off. Screw it- march on. Simply add one more item to our enormous list of things to be pissed off and hostile about
But, to top it all off, back in the World, we were welcomed and rewarded with the utter disdain of friends and strangers alike for our heroic part in our nation’s war in Vietnam. This distain and sneers for our service was, and still is, a bit tough to stomach. How many of you get a rousing welcome home and thank you from a grateful nation??
The way the Corps worked in our war: you joined alone, became a Marine or Corpsman alone, trained with strangers, traveled to war with strangers, fought with strangers and came home with strangers, only to reunite with strangers who used to be family and friends. Alone again. “Surrounded by strangers you thought were your friends, you find yourself further and further from home.” (Bob Seger). You are now back in the World, but without a real home, even in your home town. You are there, but your soul isn’t. And oh, the survivor’s guilt.
Strangely, you miss and want to be back with your Marine unit, even if it means going back to the hell hole that is the Nam. Self healing is the next, and the very longest part of your war journey. And, self healing turns out to be very a long term proposition.
So, that is our story- the story of those of us who survived our war journey.
Now, let’s take a moment to ponder the journey of those less fortunate than we. Those who served with 1/1 in Vietnam who did not survive their journey to war. Those who walked among us, and who walked with us, who were killed there. Those who we today honor.
Depending on when or how they got hit, they likely died with Marine comrades and Corpsmen around them. But they essentially died alone. Without the comfort of the mother they sometimes cried out for. And without any support system to ease this part of their journey. They were alone- and then they were gone. Absolutely gone from us.
Still at war ourselves, we had to turn our backs on their death and get immediately on with the very urgent business of surviving. No time or emotion available to think deeply about their onward journey. They were irrevocably and immediately gone. And they were achingly alone on their journey from war.
If there was a quiet moment later, and if their death was even discussed, it was said that:??? “They were scattered”. Not sure we understood or fully appreciated the greater implications of this description. But in fact, they were scattered from us- alone on their personal journey from war. First, on a hurried chopper out of the field which was, understandably, primarily interested in getting the heck out of a hot LZ. Then, through the morgue at Division. Then in a dark baggage hold on a flight to a receiving center somewhere in Guam or Hawaii.
Next, to a couple of more unknown transit locations, before finally arriving at one of the thousands of local mortuaries across the land. They were a stranger to all they passed at each stop of their final journey.
When they arrived at their final destination, those who came to mourn them were only able to know and remember who they once were- who they had been before they left to war. Their mourners simply did not have a clue who they had become during their journey to war- the new him. They were mourning a stranger.
Only we, their almost-brothers, knew who and what they had become. And sadly, we, the only ones who now truly knew them, could not be at their final destination to be with them, comfort them, and mourn their passing. There simply has been no way for us to come together with our fallen Marine brothers for these many years. They have been scattered and alone, without a home. As have we.
But today, damn it, we are going to begin a new chapter in the war journey for both us and our fallen. And this new chapter is named ”Welcome Home, Brother”.
**Field Music: Sound Assembly
The Marine Corps Heritage Museum is located at Quantico, the crossroads of the Marine Corps. Sooner or later almost everyone who serves in the green machine passes through Quantico. The designers of the Heritage Museum grounds wisely provided for a beautiful and fitting, naturally wooded memorial area to honor Marines from many generations. This is really a wonderful thing, and our enduring thanks should be rendered to them.
Quantico is also at the crossroads of our American Civil War. After over 45 years of living in this area, I finally (duhh) came to understand why there were so many battles fought here: this area is basically midway between the Confederate capital in Richmond and the Union capital in Washington. Civil War soldiers on both sides crossed this ground many times in that horrible war, and too many perished right here. This is indeed hallowed ground.
From now on when I use the word “here” in this discussion, I will be referring to where our new 1/1 Vietnam Memorial is situated. At the Museum, maybe a couple of miles from this Chapel.
How many of you have already seen our Memorial?? The rest of you have a day coming that will be remembered for the rest of your lives. It is just that cool.
Here (there), in this hallowed ground, we have built a fitting Memorial to the fallen 567 who walked with us, with 1/1 in Vietnam, and perished at their posts. Our Memorial contains 193 beautifully engraved bricks displaying each of their 567 names. Our fallen have now, at long last, come together at this Memorial place. Reunited. No longer alone. No longer scattered. They are at home.
In designing our memorial, we decided that it was fitting to display the names of our fallen in a way that those who came to visit with them could:
- Easily locate and read their name
- Speak it out loud in this wooded area
- And sit for quiet moments to contemplate this reunion
Most important, when we speak their names out loud, we are keeping that person alive within us. By saying their names, we remember and rekindle their lives within us. It is like a flash bulb going off in the brains of we the living. You can see them, visit with them and remember. When I say:
- Smiley Vasquez
- Nick Buffin
- Mike Casey
- David Langley
- Or any of our 567, their personal flash will go off in the brains of we who knew them. Did that just happen for some of you with these names I just said?- it did for me.
Next in this ceremony, we will share that re-kindling of their lives, by reading out loud the names of each and every one of our fallen brothers. And by so doing, they will become a mental flash, remembered, and alive again within us.
I had the occasion to tour the Museum with a group of my basic school class- 47 years later (I know, we don’t look it). Sgt. Major Lon Martin was our host. During his orientation, he shared a story that has had a profound impact on me, and I hope it will on you as well. He told us that quite frequently, families will bring older Marines to the Museum. And that many times, these Marines are in wheelchairs and don’t have the ability to say much. The Sgt. Major has often responded to their family’s questions which ask why this old Marine has such a huge grin on his face while wheeling through the Museum. The Sgt. Major advises the family that this is because this old Marine now feels that he is home. Home with a part of his life that was of huge importance to him. Comfortable in these Marine surroundings and happy with the people about him. And you know, when I walk through the Museum, I feel at home. And I have that same grin on my face. And I’ll bet you will too.
So, our new Memorial has created a home for our fallen in this hallowed ground. Home from the 567 locations where they were scattered, their spirits have come here to this hallowed ground, to these crossroads, where we remember them and honor them. The creation of this memorial is a homecoming for our 567. They are no longer scattered. They are home.
And we, the surviving, are today also welcomed home. This is a new home for us as well. At home with our fallen brothers. At the crossroads of the Civil War. At the crossroads of our Marine Corps. And at the crossroads of our personal journeys to and from war. This is a place to remember our war journey, and a place to give thanks and homage to those who walked with us. It gives me great pleasure to say to you assembled here today: Welcome Home Marines. This is the welcome home you never got and have long deserved.
Thank you for your your many, many sacrifices. I am so damned proud to be standing here among genuine American heroes. Can I get an oooraugh.
To paraphrase President Lincoln: We are met here, on a great battlefield of our American Civil War. We have come here today to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who walked with us and perished in what was, ironically, a civil war in Vietnam. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it should never forget what our honored did. It is rather for us to be now dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of their devotion: the success of our Marine Corps and the preservation of our great nation.
We hereby highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That their memory and their sacrifice shall not perish from the earth. Can I get an oooraugh.
Semper Fi, Brothers.
**Field Music: Sound Recall
Dismissed!