Semper Fidelis, Numquam Oblivione Delebitur
Do you know a veteran? Ask anyone this question, and there is a chance that they will be able to name at least one veteran that they have a connection to. But, if you asked them if they could recall any stories that that veteran has shared with them, they most likely will not be able to come up with any tales. This is how the stories of veterans are lost to time; they are simply forgotten.
Although many of us may know a veteran, we probably don’t know much about their time served in the military; this notion is reflected in the title of this essay. ‘Semper Fidelis’, meaning ‘always faithful’, is well-recognized as being the motto of the Marine Corps. However, the addition of ‘Numquam Oblivione Delebitur’, meaning ‘never forgotten’, is unknown to most. Much like how Latin has slowly died out, the stories of these noble veterans are dying along with them. Those who are fortunate enough to know a veteran must take the time to learn their stories and pass them onto future generations before they are gone.
My grandfather (on my mother’s side) served in the Navy during the late 1950s or early 1960s; that is all I know about him regarding his service. When we learned that he was given three months to live, my eleven-year-old self had a goal to visit him with my yellow notepad and write down every story he could tell. Unfortunately, I never achieved my goal; he passed away three days later. All of his stories and memories from his time in the military were lost the day we lost him and before anyone in my family was able to sit down with him and record what he had to say. Those who were fortunate enough to be able to hear his recollection are growing older, their own memories are fading. My grandfather’s tales were the first to disappear from their minds.
Now, almost ten years later, I was reminded of that goal and became determined to accomplish it. Although my grandfather was no longer around for me to interview, my other grandfather and my father were still here with plenty of stories to share from their time in the Marine Corps. However, as I get older, so do they. I did not want to allow their stories to become forgotten with age or muddled by multiple people retelling them, nor did I want to make the same mistake I did with my grandfather by waiting until it was too late. As soon as I was able to find enough time for a phone call, I sat alone in my dorm, dialed their numbers, and typed along on my laptop as they recalled memories from their time in the military.
For a bit of background, my grandfather (on my father’s side) and father were both born in Blue Island, Illinois, a town with a population close to Winona’s and a location adjacent to the south side of Chicago. When questioned about their childhoods, both stated that their adolescence was average. My grandfather, the middle child out of nine, enjoyed playing sports such as basketball and baseball with his many brothers and sisters. My father, who preferred spending time with his friends rather than his older sister, explored the world of computers that was developing alongside them. As they grew into their teenage years, my grandfather and father had the unconventional opportunity to perform odd jobs for the Chicago Mob; my grandfather drove and washed their cars at the age of ten, while, at fourteen, my father was secretly paid to work at a restaurant owned by a man who ‘had connections’. My father summed it up by saying “Chicago was an unusual place to work.” However, as curious as the city was, both of them were ready to leave once they neared the age of eighteen, and like millions of young men before them, they joined the military.
There were many reasons to enlist in the military, according to my father and grandfather. Having just graduated high school, going to college was on the minds of both men. Unfortunately, money was also on their minds, and there just was not enough. Luckily, the GI Bill was created for the millions of men going through the same financial situation, so going into the military meant going to college; that opportunity was enticing enough. To add onto that, both were desperate to leave the city they had been trapped in for the past eighteen years and to see what wonders the world had to offer. “I was always interested in the Oriental places — Japan, China, Korea,” my father recalled. However, his specificity did not make it any easier to choose a branch of the Armed Forces to go into: every branch had bases in Asia, not to mention Europe as well. In the end, his desire to be the best led him to enlist in the Marine Corps, just like his father had almost thirty years earlier. “To me, if you’re going to go in and invest that much time, you do the best, and the Marine Corps is the best branch in the service.” As far as time, both men had a lot to give; my grandfather signed up to serve for four years, and my father chose to serve for six years. However, they first had to survive three months of rigorous boot camp before they could even hope to make it that far.
“It felt like it would never end,” my father recalled. “What made me finish it? If [my father] did it, there was no way in hell I could not do it. I was finishing it.” Although they were both stationed in California, boot camp was anything but paradise. The Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, where they both went through basic training, reported 688 cases of stress fractures from 2004 to 2010, more than any other basic training base. Fortunately, neither my grandfather nor my father was part of that statistic. However, they certainly received their fair share of thrashing, the act of punishing a recruit by forcing him to perform an excessive amount of physical activity. “They thrashed the living hell out of me,” my father stated. “You know what it feels like when you overdid your muscles, the shaking? Mine were like that all the time.” Despite the physical and mental strain that boot camp put them through, they persevered and graduated as Marines trained to serve.
“One thing that most people don’t realize about the military, in general, is that it’s a lot like a job. You have one job that you are trained to do, and then you do it,” according to my grandfather. Unlike the luxury that we have of selecting our own job and where we work, new recruits have their task and location assigned to them by military personnel based their qualifications and vacancies in the position. For example, my grandfather was given the task of transporting motor vehicles between bases in Japan because it was a position that needed to be filled. Though, if a recruit scores high enough on a test called the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, he may be able to select not only his job but also his location. My father managed to score in the highest percentile so he chose to work on the electronics of helicopters in Hawaii. After enduring three months of basic training, my grandfather remained in California while my father transferred to Tennessee and then back to California for about nine months of on-the-job training. “It was, unfortunately, a lot like high school. I absolutely hated high school,” my father described. “You sat in a classroom and took tests every other day; it was school.” Luckily for him, once they finished their training, both men were shipped off to their assigned locations, ready and willing to work.
Just like when he was in California for boot camp, Japan was not as idyllic as it seemed. My grandfather was stationed in Okinawa eighteen years after the famed World War II battle, which was the sixth-deadliest battle in American history. “Bodies were being found almost every day, even after so long,” he recollected. Along with the constant reminder of the amount of loss that surrounded him, my grandfather had the possibility of being sent over to Vietnam looming over him. The war had only just begun less than 1500 miles away from him, and he could be one of the three million soldiers deployed. Somehow, my grandfather was spared, only visiting Vietnam once to deliver supplies to the troops. Nevertheless, having the constant threat of going to the battlefield did nothing to improve his mentality.
While my grandfather’s fear was never realized, my father had to face a fear he never realized he had. The Persian Gulf War began when my father was less than two years from being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. In a war that was to be primarily fought from the sky, my father’s experience in avionics was essential. With less than a week’s notice, he was shipped out to Saudi Arabia. There, he spent the entirety of the war working not only on thirty-year-old helicopters but also as a security adjunct. Between working these two jobs in the setting of war, my father left after six months with memories that still impact him to this day, such as when he was taken to view the aftermath of the infamous Highway of Death incident or when he witnessed a scud missile colliding with a real missile over the Al Jubail Desalination Plant. “Overall, I learned to appreciate the amount of effort that goes into a war,” my father recalled. “That, and how to be a part of something.” He, just like my grandfather, became a part of the eighteen million veterans that we share our country with.
Our country, the same one these veterans gave so much to protect, loses millions of veterans every year. Out of the sixteen million veterans that served during World War II, only about five-hundred thousand are still alive today. For the people who are a part of my generation, these veterans could be great-grandfathers or even great-great-grandfathers, and only very few of us are fortunate to have them still with us today. However, for the veterans we do have in our lives, whether it be our fathers or grandfathers, we must recognize that the stories that their novel experiences have produced do not deserve to be forgotten. I am grateful that I had the ability to interview the veterans who have influenced my life, something many are not so lucky to have. At least now that I have shared their stories, they will never be forgotten.
