Memorial Day...a Marine 56 years later.
Memorial Day is tomorrow.
A day when we honor those who gave their lives while serving in the military.
I joined the Marines right after graduating from Bishop England high school in 1957.
Had no interest in any "more school" and joined the USMC to be one-up on my older brother who was wearing USAF blue.
Back then you could sign up for six months of active duty and then remain in the Reserves for 7.5 years, subject to call up.
Boot Camp at Parris Island (in July and August!) was sweaty but went ok.
Then advanced infantry training up at Camp Lejeune, NC felt comfortable.
All Marines are basically infantry.
I was lucky enough to be designated as a
Combat Photographer (MOS 4641).
This just happened to be during a very peaceful time.
It was so good to be attached to the Base Photo Lab, Support Company B, Headquarters Battalion, that I re-enlisted for three years.
This also eliminated the many years of the Reserve requirement.
But, instead of combat, I was basically doing PR.
Snapping photos of Command Changes and medals being pinned on Marines.
Sometimes a funny thing would happen and I was there with my USMC-issued Speed Graphic.
Life was comfortable but I was getting antsy to do something more than covering parades and "grip & grins."
I wanted to be out in the field for more than a few hours with eager Reservists who came to LeJeune for two weeks of annual active duty training.
I was not involved in the
1958 invasion of Lebanon and heard the stories that the amphibious landing was greeted by bikini-clad bathers and soda pop vendors. Actually, though, some Marines were killed.
I finally got my chance to get away from the parade field and starched khakis late in 1959.
I volunteered to be assigned to a Tank Battalion as its photographer for several months.
I cruised for 7-days with them down to Vieques, a Navy-owned "training" island off the coast of Puerto Rico.
We did a pre-dawn landing, climbing down cargo nets into small landing crafts that zig-zagged toward the beach.
We set up tents as our sleeping quarters and I finally was in the field, training with an armoured aggressor force.
Dust, dirt and booming tank cannons were the everyday norm.
This was far from the spick and span Base Photo Lab.
There we sometimes spent hours, experimenting with posing and lighting formal portraits.
This was eating rations in the field and taking photos as dedicated tankers performed a variety of tests and maneuvers.
Instead of a prim uniform hat or cap, I now was getting used to wearing a steel pot, a camouflaged helmet.
And, smoking a lot of cigarettes, which were very inexpensive in Vieques.
Also, being pleased to see beer was ten cents a can and five rum & Cokes were made with just one 8-oz classic Coca-Cola.
Work hard and play even harder.
I learned from my fellow tankers that when someone didn't make the grade, training in endless-track machines, they were reassigned to become Tank Killers.
Proving the Marine Corps had a sense of humor, both groups frequented the same bar on base.
Yes, the MPs had to break up many discussions on the merits and safety of tanks.
Looking back a half century, I realize that if I had stayed with the 7.5 years in the Reserves, I might have been called up to active duty in the Vietnam war.
(Click on the photos and links for details.)
My time in the Corps convinced me that college was a good idea.
Labels: 1958 invasion of Lebanon, Base Photo Lab, grip & grin photo session, Marine Corps combat photographer, Memorial Day, USMC, Vieques Island off Puerto Rico
In my photo darkroom....
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In this, the computer age, most people have a digital camera. Or even a cellphone that takes digital pictures.
The
Kodak Company has made film for a 100 years - and was stunned by
Polaroid for a while - but continued making film for cameras and X-Rays and other uses but eventually even they conceded that digital rules.
Film is basically a roll of celluloid coated with silver that changes when light hits it and, of course, color film and processing is a bit more complicated.
Machines were made to collect the leftover silver in the developing process and newspapers, photo processors and other large companies made a tidy sum from this reclaimed treasure. But, now it's all mainly digital.
But, back in the 1950s when I got into photography, I learned you could buy simple equipment to process and develop your black and white film
"at home." Just find a dark spot to set up your photo lab. I worked in mine all through high school.
After you developed your film in total darkness, you put the negative into your enlarger and, under a yellowish
"safe light," made enlargements on light sensitive photo paper. After sloshing them through several trays of chemicals you had mixed, you washed and dried them. Simple.
No more dropping off rolls of film at the neighborhood Walgreen's and waiting a week to come back by to pick up the envelope of small prints.
Now my education continues as I learn more about computers and Napster and Anti-Virus programs and blogging and iPods and Macs.
Oh, and being grateful I never bought any
Kodak stock.
Labels: Base Photo Lab, darkroom, Kodak, Napster, Polaroid, Walgreen's
The "lie" actually was a prediction...
Telling the Marine Corps I was a published photog was a gamble. I was only an 18-year old, skinny PFC but I knew I would NOT survive as an MP. I didn't think they would stop the whole process to check out my story and, of course, they didn't. This was the late 50s and nobody was shooting at anybody. The Corps was doing more PR than fighting so a photographer was always a good occupation slot to fill. The CWO who headed the Base Photo Lab got a good laugh when I told him how I was selected to join his crew and he assigned a Sgt to teach me the photography details I would need to know to be an asset to the Corps.
About 7 years later, in 1964,
I WAS published in LIFE magazine. As a staff photographer for the San Diego Union-Tribune, I took an aerial shot that I sent off to LIFE magazine and it ran full page on the Miscellany page. The funny part is, the paper had turned it down.
LIFE called to say they liked the shot but needed details for a caption. I had snapped it from a helicopter coming back from an aerial assignment on surfers and knew generally where the word was carved in the field but after driving around, knocking on many doors, nobody knew what I was talking about.
Well, duh. You couldn't see if from the ground! So I hired a fixed wing plane for about $90 an hour and we circled around the north county until I spotted it again. I jotted down landmarks, landed and drove up to the man's house and he explained why he had plowed the word "QUIET" in his back yard.
A few years later, a publication in the Netherlands sent me a check when they ran the picture in an article on noise pollution and several other magazines were taken by the message in the shot...here is an angry person who
"has had enough and won't take it anymore."Labels: Base Photo Lab, Chief Warrant Officer, LIFE magazine, MP school, USMC
How my Blog was named...
Growing up here in Charleston in the 1950s, many of my fellow students at Bishop England knew that I was interested in taking pictures.
In fact, in my senior year BEHS somehow received a brand new
Speed Graphic so my face often was hidden by that 4x5 large format camera as I covered sports and activities for the Annual.
After high school, bored and not mature enough to be interested in going to college, I joined the
Marine Corps and was sent to Parris Island in July. Summertime in SC..what was I thinking? The only things moving in that heat and humidity were sand fleas. And recruits.
After boot camp you go up to Camp Lejeune, NC for some more combat training and then are assigned an "occupation." The day I stood in line to be interviewed and told what my career would be, the Corps was filling slots for future Military Police. Each man coming out was headed to MP school. I stood 6 feet tall and weighed about 130 pounds so I would have been the MP all the drunks would choose if there was a fight. Hmm. So I lied.
Well, not a complete lie. I said I was a trained photographer and had been published in TIME and LIFE magazine. The last part WAS a lie but they were picking MPs and didn't have time to check things out so I was assigned to the Base Photo Lab at Camp Lejeune. I would have been a skinny, lousy military cop.
Four years in the Corps convinced me that having a college education was VERY important and photography helped make that happen. More later.
Labels: Base Photo Lab, Camp Lejeune, MP school, sand fleas, Speed Graphic
Back then you could sign up for six months of active duty and then remain in the Reserves for 7.5 years, subject to call up.
Work hard and play even harder.
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