A Minnesota PBS Initiative
Rockets Red Glare
EDITORIAL NOTE: the following submission contains profanity.
Eighty warm bodies, on and off as some were dropped and others were picked up, graduated the week after of the Marine Corps Birthday (10 Nov. 1966) from Platoon 3321 Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California, and then spent a month at ITR (Infantry Training Regiment) Camp Pendleton fifty miles up the coast
After Christmas leave, we returned to ITR for our individual MOS training. I had been selected for career field 0351 (Anti-tank Assault Man). generically known within the Corps as “Rockets", which I was unaware of, and when my Drill Instructor called my name and potential MOS using that euphemism in the last week of boot camp I broke out a big grin (ear to ear), which caused the other DI S/SGT Orville Grant, such discomfort that he came right up to me and demanded to know why.
"What the Fuck are you doing being happy without being told to?"
“Sir! The recruit was just expressing delight at being selected for the Space Program"
“You dumb fuck! The only space program you’re going to is the time between the signature back blast from your 3.5 Inch rocket launch and the incoming tracers from every fucking Communist cocksucker within a mile of the DMZ”.
“Exactly Sir! And then we'll know just where they're at”.
Military Occupational School, where I learned the 3.5 inch rocket launcher (a bigger Bazooka), The Flamethrower, the 106 mm Recoil-less Rifle, Bangalore torpedoes, and satchel charges, BITS (Basic Infantry Training School) as it was called, lasted 5 weeks and then another 4 weeks of Staging Battalion where we completed all the things required for deployment and went to Tijuana every weekend doing everything we could to catch the clap which might delay us another week or so.
It did not happen to me and March 9, 1967 I went up the gangplank of the USNS Upshur. As the ship pulled away from the wharf a desultory Army Reserve Band, probably late and fulfilling their weekend drill obligation, unloaded from green Army bus and unpacked their instruments. They played the national anthem, went through the service anthems quickly, then they played show tunes from "South Pacific"(.......Some enchanted evening....you may meet a stranger....)." as we went from earshot.
Looking backwards through time I kinda miss the profanity, brutality, clever cruelty, and savage irony, but not being shot at. “Sir! Yes, Sir!”
I served the next year in an Infantry Company weapons platoon as a machine gunner, not what I was trained for, and later as a regular infantryman. I never ever fired a 3.5, or even saw a flamethrower (thankfully), but did end up on my second tour as the Platoon Sergeant of the Battalion Recoiless rifle Platoon.
None of these assignments kept me from being shot at. Platoon 3321 had 8 KIA s in the next couple of years and 30 or more WIAs for about a 50% casualty rate (higher if you consider probably 15 or 20 did not get assigned to WESPAC {Navy/USMC Command designation for Western Pacific… Vietnam} because of reserve status, longer technical training or non-combat assignments.
March 9, 1970 (Three years to the day since I first deployed) A World Airways 707 landed at Travis AFB. It was dark, before dawn, we came down the stairs unsure of the time, the day and the new reality of the geography.
We loaded unceremoniously, onto a blue Air Force bus driven by an obviously stoned Airman 1st Class, smoking Kool’s and frantically chewing gum.
A large portable radio on top of the dashboard on the driver’s side, was turned all the way up as Gracie Slick screaming "You gotta find somebody to love”. By the time we went through customs it was day light and we slept on the bus to Camp Pendleton, I kept waking up feeling around for my pistol.
Looking backwards through time I kinda miss the profanity, brutality, clever cruelty, and savage irony, but not being shot at. “Sir! Yes, Sir!”
Dunne T.P. 0351
Biographical Details
Submitted From: St. Paul, MN
Primary Location During Vietnam: Quang Tri, Vietnam 
Story Subject: Military Service
Military Branch: U.S. Marine Corps
Dates of Service: 1967 - 1972
Veteran Organization: VVA 320
Unit: 3rd Marine Amphibious Force
Specialty: 0369 Infantry unit Leader
Story Themes: 16969, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 3rd Marine Amphibious Force, Boot Camp, Career Military, DMZ, Drill Instructor, Drill Sergeant, Drugs and Alcohol, I Corps, Marines, Multiple Tours, Music, Pop Culture, Quang Tri, Read, Saint Paul, St Paul, Thomas Dunne, Weaponry
Show Comments