The Warrior Culture DoubleQuote
Zenpundit + T.R. Fehrenbach + HavokJournal
“Frank is exactly the kind of knuckle dragging gunslinger that you want at your side when everything goes to shit, you’re surrounded and you need someone to help you carve an emergency exit out of lead, broken bones and charred human flesh……He always had a knack for being at the right place at the right time to apply his special recipe of aggression and violence that the scenario called for. He did it in Nasariyah back in 2003 and again during the battle of Fallujah. Good old Frank racked up over 30 kills with his M40 in Fallujah and he only carried an M40 for the second half of the battle. He didn’t even count the number of insurgents he destroyed while carrying his M249 piglet. I have no idea how many people Frank has killed. It’s a lot. I know he killed well over thirty with me in Afghanistan and he favors counting his enemy dead with his boots rather than his scope if you get my meaning.”
While most of you are probably wondering when this exceptional Marine will become Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, you may be surprised to find out that he is being forced out of uniform. Frank used alcohol as a mechanism to cope with unresolved mental stress stemming from four highly kinetic combat deployments to include the battles of Nasariyah and Fallujah…Frank was overwhelmed by circumstances…and made a mistake.
-The story of Frank, as chronicled by Baz Khan at Havok Journal.
“On the frontier there is rarely gallantry or glamour to wars…There is only Killing.
Men of a tank battalion set spikes on the forward sponsons of their tanks, and to these had affixed Chinese skulls. This battalion had come back from Kuniri, and the display matched their mood. They were ordered to remove the skulls, but the mood remained.
In Medic James Mount’s company, there was a platoon sergeant named “Gypsy” Martin. Martin carried a full canteen and bandoleer but he also wore a bandana and earring, and he had tiny bells on his boots. Gypsy Martin hated Chinese…and he didn’t care who knew it.
In anything but war, Martin was the kind of man who is useless.
In combat, as the 25th Division drove north, men could hear Gypsy yell his hatred, as they heard his M-1 bark death. When Gypsy yelled, his men went forward; he was worth a dozen rational, decent men in those bloody valleys. His men followed him, to the death.
When Gypsy Martin finally bought it, they found him lying among a dozen “gooks,” his rifle was empty, its stock broken. Other than in battle Sergeant Martin was no good. To Jim Mount’s knowledge, he got no medals, for medals depend more on who writes for them than what was done.”
-The story of Gypsy Martin, chronicled by T.R. Fehrenbach in his magnum opus, This Kind Of War.
The authors at Zenpundit often use the “DoubleQuote” as a means of exploring perspectives. While these often take the form of juxtaposition, I like how the format can reveal a shared underlying theme between two observations. The format lends itself to demonstrating pattern. It provides a visual depiction of what occurs in the mind when one makes a connection between two elements.
After publishing my last article, which posited that the U.S. Army’s attempts approaches toward professionalism are backwards, I came across a fantastic article at Havok Journal, that echoed many of the points I made. The article centers around a warrior, Frank, whose exemplary battlefield performance is overshadowed by some poor decisions he made at home. The author laments that Frank’s story demonstrates that, “We are putting down our scarred and battle weary war dogs and promoting porcelain dolls in their place.”
A man after my own heart, the author writes,
“We were willing to overlook some cosmetic defects while we were fighting a war on two fronts but now it appears that these violent and coarse warriors are unacceptable in our post-war, garrison focused military. It seems that guys like Frank do not have a place in our modern Marine Corps…Haircuts, close order drill and trouser creases now hold greater appeal to promotion boards than Purple Hearts, valor awards and combat experience…There will come a time in the future when our nation will once again find itself in a time of great darkness and evil. Young men, yet untested in battle, will look to their leaders for guidance and find instead hollow vessels without the steel or stones necessary to lead men into battle. The painted soldiers on the parade fields will shake in terror and search desperately for the rough men like Frank who shepherded them through the last conflict for guidance only to find that they have all been weeded out of service.”
I strongly suggest you read the whole article (link provided above).
In reading Frank’s story , I was immediately struck by the memory of another warrior, who lived, fought, and died sixty years earlier in the bloody valleys of Korea — Gypsy Martin. The Double Quote reveals some interesting similarities, and differences.
-LM
