There are a lot of Back to the Barracks stories and anecdotes that will be posted here, besides what I have here now.

 

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In the early 1970s I had a poem published in Leatherneck Magazine entitled "The Nation's Best", under Gyrene Jingles, remember that monthly feature?

 

       **    The Nation's Best   **

 

Here they come in perfect line,

All in step, in uniforms fine

They carry their heads above the rest

With pride, for they're the Nation's Best

 

The drums beat softly as if they were one

People stand tall, every father and son

For they know that there is none to compare

With the U.S. Marines, anyplace, anywhere

 

Polished gear and shining rifles

Everything cleaned, all down to the trifles

They march with pride, with reason, you see

For they are part of the USMC

 

If ever you stand, patiently waiting

For a parade, be it sunny or raining

Your time will be well spent,

    if, after the rest

You catch a glimpse of the Nation's Best

 

 

 

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Then a couple of weeks ago, after digging out the poem above, I decided to make up a joint Air Force-Marine Corps poem re Co G days, spur of the moment:

 

 

Twelve years later, after being a boot
I found myself in a nice blue suit
Locking up airmen left and right
Who headed to Leavenworth late at night
But still the days of old came back
With memories of a cubicle and a nice rack
With Nolde blasting the Supremes really loud
With Baker causing a smoky black cloud
And LaBounty in love, a local romance
And Alvarez pounding the walls in a trance
With Exton at the club just able to crawl
Getting home to his rack without starting a brawl
With Damron sleeping with his butt in the air
And Mercado saying "I really don't care"
And Miller strutting around with his seeds
While Papp and DeCocq were out doing bad deeds
Kellerman wishing he was back home
In the hills of Kentucky and not so alone
Borde and his Bunnies out on a spree
While the others looked on with the greatest envy
And Tepper running the Triumph to death
Keeping the local police out of breath
Ah the days of old, so many years past

We will never forget; the memories last.

 

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Mercado would come into your cubicle, saying that he was looking for a cigarette. You would then offer him a pack and he would take it and calmly remove each cigarette and drop it to the floor as you looked on, puzzled. When all 20 cigarettes were in a pile on the floor, he would shake his head sorrowfully and inform you that the one he was looking for was not in your pack. Then he would leave. Your homicidal tendencies would have to be severely curbed at that point.

 

 

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Sheldon, shortly after receiving the Marine of the Month award (which he probably had to pay for) would greet weary Marines trudging to the head at six in the morning with a most unwelcome "Good MORNING, Marine!". The looks he got could kill.

 

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Lt. Steeves came in the back door of the barracks one day when it was pouring rain like an Indian monsoon. He announced that everyone was to fall out for PT (physical training) in fifteen minutes, then the door closed and I thought he had left. I started complaining loudly about what kind of person would have us go outside in this weather for any reason, much less for PT, and I ranted and raved and the barracks was strangely quiet. When I looked into each individual cubicle, its occupants were calmly dressing for the required PT. I strolled down the end of the barracks to look out the window of the back door where the LT had come from, shook my head, and went into another short tirade and right in the middle of it I looked into the TV room cubicle and there he was , the lieutenant was buttoning up his utility shirt and just looking at me in silence. I wish I could have found a hole to crawl into. Later on, when I asked my barracks mates why no one had TOLD me he was in there, they said it was because I never asked.

 

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Alvarez used to come back from the EM (enlisted club) on base and go to a utility closet, remove a push broom, unscrew the handle and use it to bash the walls of the barracks until he was too tired to do it anymore. This was at midnight, usually. He was always looking for Powledge during these crazy tirades, and Powledge was about fifteen feet away although, thankfully, Alvi could never find him. :)

 

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Baker would pull up in his new Mustang, after midnight, sit there and rev the engine incessantly, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by another Co G Marine. But it would wake me up and I would ask two things, out loud. "How much longer?", and "Why??"

 

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Ralph McCreary, one of the two admin guys, once had a circumcision. Some of the guys brought him a playboy magazine as a nice present while he was still in the hospital. Ralph was given a can of spray medication to use whenever it hurt, and he ended up using the spray can quite a bit because the kind barracks Marines did not just leave the magazine for him but held it up in front of his eyes, opened to some choice pages, while Ralph was in severe pain because of it.

 

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                                                                    "OLD MARINE DIVULGES SECRETS FROM THE SIXTIES" 

February 23, 2007

 

Levittown, Puerto Rico     

 

 (Associated Press) (Reuters) (UPI):

 

 

Retired Marine Master Sergeant Richard A. Lyfer yesterday turned over a box of dusty manuscripts to Leatherneck Magazine representatives per their request. The old Marine grinned and jerked a thumb back from his bungalow in Levittown toward the old Company G barracks a couple of miles away as the crow flies, in nearby Sabana Seca, and said “I hear those guys were really something, back in the day”. He took another puff from his cigarette and blew the smoke toward the ceiling as he leaned back and said “If you fellas have some time to spare, I can sure fill you in on what I heard over the years. I wasn’t there, mind you, but I get all my info from mighty reliable sources. Shoeshine boy name of Pinky,” he drawled in his soft Southern voice, “told me some true enough stories. Mostly ‘bout Borde, but we’ll let that part go for now, gents".

The three Marine Corps Association Staff Sergeants listened as the old guy told of a box full of would-be non-fiction works that never made it past the printed manuscript stage, and he held out a dusty example to one of the NCOs. “Take this one, for instance.  A top CIA experiment that was hush hush for years and years. Even the barracks rats at old Company G thought it was just some ole’ inebriated driver of a Mustang.” The manuscript was entitled “Engines in the Night” and was the true story of a Marine who was unwittingly used in a CIA test to determine the psychological effect of loud noise on sleeping GIs back in the Viet Nam era. “They cussed that Iowa farm boy plenty”, he chuckled. “But never even got to first base as to what it really was all about, til decades later.”. And here he paused and blew another cloud of smoke skyward, remembering all that Pinky had told him.

The rest of the manuscripts would have been bestsellers in their day but they never made it and never had a chance. Here are some of the titles the MCA reps carried away with them back to Quantico for further analysis and for placing in the Marine Corps Museum.

I Played the Role on Search Posits----the true account of a Marine crypto-type who never had a target of his own, so lorded it over squids and fellow Marines alike as he bluffed them into thinking only he had their target on the air.

Where’s Powledge?—explores the psychopathic side of barracks life as a New York City Marine searches for an elusive fellow Marine. This has all the power of a broom handle being slammed against the wall in the middle of the night.

Pinky and I and our Memoirs---about a New Rochelle, New York Marine and his very close pal. And I mean close.

They Called Me SAL—the heart-wrenching true story of a little boot in love with a girl who lived off the base, and the incessant torment he endured from his barracks mates. A poignant love story.

Good Morning, Marine!—a harrowing account of how a Marine of the Month uttered those words just outside the Co G head as weary Marines trudged toward another new day.

Through the Eyes of a Teenager----a FNG arrives at the barracks from Useless, Texas  but due to his age he sees everything as larger than life.

 

The old Master Sergeant put his cigarette out and turned a wistful eye toward the cane fields that separated them from the old barracks at Sabana Seca. “Was gonna write one myself someday. Woulda called it "Hang it in your ass.” That’s the  way they always talked back then. Like I said, you fellas are welcome to these manuscripts : I have no need for ‘em. Pinky brings me more every now and again anyway. Well, Semper Fi, you little lifers.”. And he turned back to his bottle of Don Q, took a long swig, and rolled over and slept.

 

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DeCocq, when he came in the very early hours of the morning, would like to talk, but you would be asleep and not in the mood, so you had to pretend you were asleep no matter how unlikely it was, after he sat down next to you and shook you, etc. One time I thought I overdid it, because he not only shook me awake but propped me up against my wall in a near sitting position, wanting to talk, but I persisted with my deceit and even though I could not possibly still have been asleep by the time he got done dragging and pulling me etc he still believed I was asleep, and left after awhile, muttering something about how damned hard I was to wake up. But it worked.

 

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Damron always slept on his stomach, with his butt in the air, don't ask me why. Only his doctor would know for sure. But one time I think someone sprayed shaving cream or some stinging substance there, just for the fun of it, while he was asleep.

 

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Powledge. Someone put some fish and other items into his rack when he was not around, and made the rack like it had not been touched. What was scary is that when he got back to the barracks and prepared for bed, he slept all night without even noticing it.

 

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Nolde gave Borde his Sunday newspaper. They had adjoining cubicles, with Borde on the top bunk of one cubicle adjacent to Nolde's. After awhile, Nolde wanted his paper back, to continue reading it, but Borde was taking his time about returning it. Nolde was irritatingly persistent, evidently, because at one point Borde lost his patience and calmly retrieved a cigarette lighter from his wall locker, lay back down, applied the flame to the bottom of the newspaper, waited until the whole thing was engulfed in flames, and calmly asked, "You want your paper, eh?" And Nolde snapped, "YEAH!. Now give it to me." Borde calmly flipped the burning Sunday paper over the cubicle wall, right into the lap of a shocked Nolde.

 

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 BARRACKS EXPRESSIONS:

 

 

WTF, over? 

Hey, cut me a little SLACK, will ya? 

Sounds like a PERSONAL problem to me.

I'll buy if you fly.

If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it in the dictionary between sh.. and syphillis.

Say a few words into the mic, Thhhwwwummmmp!

Howwwww about a header?

Are you going downtown for a header? Yes. Bring me back one?

A header by proxy.

You better START caring, Private!

You better START giving a  ..-.   Private

I heard you have a new girlfriend. Yes. Short, black hair, speaks Spanish? Yeah, how did YOU know??

Hang it in your a ... ...

Hang it in your wall locker.

I MIGHT do that, but I    ..-.     DOUBT it!

Someone looking for an iron, or a sheet or whatever: Look on the shelf under "I".

Tell it to the Chaplain.

Go to the Chaplain and get a tough sh.. chit.

Here's a dime. Call someone who cares.

GAF

40 guys at night, someone says "Sing him a hymn". 40 voices chant, Him Him   ..-.   Him.

Get with the program, Private.

You are looking at things through the eyes of a teenager.

Hands across the sea.

Glad to help a serviceman just home from overseas.

El sabor lo dice todo.

Where is my towel? If it was up your a   ... ...   you'd know.

Where is my    ..-.    relief????

We're just going downtown for ONE beer and ONE pizza (to talk someone into going)

You don't know sh.. from shinola.

sal MON (salmon)

What a FISH (you fell for something. Someone would mime casting a line and reeling you in like a fish, whhhhheeeeeeezzzzzz!

Playing the role (being someone you are not)

Quit playin' the role.

When someone was saying or doing something that no one else would do, you would say "I'm SORRY to see you doing that."

I'm not EVEN believing you're doing that.

You're not TOO obnoxious, etc

You'll get over it.......in time.

Figure it out, Private!

skated---means that you got out of doing something.

"ace"---the best

Borde used to say the first word in a very high pitched voice and the second in a very low pitched voice and it was funny. "fuuuuuuu........   yyyyyooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!"

 

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You would ask Baker to help you do something, and he would be sitting on his rack with an imaginary apple between his thumb and forefingers, and say "As soon as I get done eating this apple, I'll do it", in other words, never.

 

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There are some who might find this degrading, but I assure you that it is still one of the funniest things that happened.

We, like all servicemen, ran out of money way before payday. To get drinking money, we sold our blood. Literally.

There was a limit of once per six weeks but we found a SECOND blood bank that let us do it once every six weeks, also. Now this was in the mid-1960s when drinks and beer was very very inexpensive.

The blood banks gave us $15.00 a pint, and had us sit there after "donating" and eat some cookies and drink some juice to make sure our strength was back, but we left anyway, weak as kittens in some cases, but on our way to another night of imbibing at various "downtown" (i.e. Old San Juan) choice locations. Sometimes we would stay there for two or three days straight. Fifteen bucks, in 1965 or 1966 or 67 was a lot of money.

 

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Speaking of "downtown", one of the most disgusting things to come of a forty year time lapse between now and when we were there, Luna Street has been turned into a street of high-end boutiques. Give me a break. That is one of the saddest developments that could possibly have occurred. This is "progress"?

 

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The clubs I remember are the following: Downtown there was The Riviera (Riv), The Cucaracha, on Luna St, the Old City Club, which was between the ferry and Luna St.  That is all I can remember right now.

Outside the Sabana Seca gate, a little to the right, was a little tavern, and farther down about a mile or so was an off-limits place with thatched huts called The Bohio.

There was a place outside and across the street from, and to the right of, the Main Navy Base, San Juan, but I can't remember the name of the place.

 

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