Recipient

A complete list of his decorations and medals includes: The Medal of Honor, the Bronze Star with Combat “V,” the Purple Heart with four Gold Stars indicative of five awards, two Presidential Unit Citations, the Good Conduct Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Service Medal with three battle stars, the United Nations Service Medal, and the Korean Presidential Unit Citation."

"Who in Sam Hill told you that you could shoot, kid?"

I'd seen him around the base, mostly at a distance but close enough to tell that he only wore one ribbon. Some light bluish deal, and had wondered why some old guy had but a single decoration. Hell, he should at least be wearing the National Defense Ribbon, I remember thinking, but didn't know squat about what old guys were awarded so I forgot about it until I turned to see who was speaking to me.

"Morning, Gunner," I said. "Here and there, I guess, sir."

"Call me sir again and I'll forget taking pity on you and wanting to show you what end was what."

That was the beginning of a long friendship between this old Warrant Officer and myself. He'd seen me practicing with my .45 and since few guys took the time to fiddle with handguns it had caught his eye. Up close the one ribbon finally sank in, and when a Medal of Honor recipient talks, it's cool to listen. The Gunner had held off more North Koreans than anyone had the time to count, but it'd be reasonable to say that he personally accounted for at least one hundred. To him, combat shooting was all in keeping one's cool while all hell was breaking loose, and he was one of the lucky few who got calmer when the shit hit the fan.The write-up for his citation was all wrong, he once told me. It had him incapable of shooting after the fifth or sixth bullet hit him, right after the mortar round knocked him off his feet, that is, but a lot of his guys were as bad if not worse and he propped them up and asked them to shoot as often as they could just to keep the enemy's head down so he could pick them off.

"Everyone dies, kid." He'd say. "And if your fixin' to buy the farm then why not take as many Marine hating yellow scumbags with you? Can't do that when you're all nervous in the service now can ya?"

But not everyone is endowed with a central nervous system that totally shuts down pain and replaces it with the single thought of kill the enemy. Hell, all I ever thought of was staying alive after being hit and if staying alive meant killing the ones who were trying to kill me then so be it. Not the Gunner. To him it got personal, very personal, and that's when Cool Hand Luke took over.

Anyway, he showed me how to combat shoot. I'd already been to SE Asia twice and figured I knew enough of my shit to make a good accounting of myself, but a good accounting isn't good enough.

"Fancy boys these days are saying one to the chest, one to the BHG (brain housing group), and that's plain silly, kid. If you can shoot the no good sumbitch in the head in the first place, then why you shooting him in the boiler room at-all? Know why? Cause they're scared to miss, that's why. Being scared is okay but letting it make you miss means you need another line of work, kid. Missing's for plinkers. There's a damn good reason my Marine Corps lets you wear that uniform, and it sure ain't to be too scared to kill our enemy. You see a good enough boiler room shot and there's a passle of them, then snap it off and move on to the next if need be, but if it's a .45 the one shot might not kill the sumbitch dead right away and what's all the sense to letting the sumbitch shoot you too? The sense is you can't shoot and that's as good as you can do, that's where the only sense is."

I only heard this a thousand times or so. Snipers get to take their time from a thousand yards but bad breath distance doesn't give you no time. Wasn't any sense telling the Gunner that not everyone could coldly drop 5 or 6 guys with head shots then take a breather to see if any of their kinfolk wanted some more. We were paid to kill and no one can kill when they're dead.

I had a long chat with him after returning from the sandbox back in the early 90's, and he was fit to be tied that the Corps had made the second biggest mistake ever in dropping the .45 in favor of the 9 mm. The first was doing away with the M-14 for the M-16, and to him all it meant was that training couldn't have been as hard as in his day because no one bitched about effective weapon systems that were a little on the heavy side.

The Gunner passed away in 1998. Lots of us still exchange stories about him, and a recent email from a mutual friend gave me the urge to offer a little piece about one of the greatest fighting men I'd ever met. In a way it's good that he isn't around to see what's going on in the middle east. He was nearly dishonorably discharged after breaking a Colonels jaw in a disagreement over how pussy the nation had become by not letting the Corps loose in Viet Nam, but MOH recipients are not dishonorably anything'd, so they asked him not to do it again and he promised to be good.I don't think he could make that promise again.