I felt much less confident in my gunnery skills. The best thing I could say about LAV school gunnery training was that it prepared me to assemble and disassemble the main gun and the coaxial machine gun. To the untrained observer it appeared that we knew how to operate the main gun. But what happened inside the turret was far from mastery of gunnery skills.
The problem was rooted in a faulty curriculum. Despite the best intentions of the instructors there was simply not enough time in our training schedule to master gunnery skills. Of the eight weeks of LAV school we spent only two days on the firing range. The objective for the instructors was not to provide us with the basic skills we needed for combat. It was to get as many students qualified on the S P A R E P A R T S
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range as possible. The criterion set for qualification was absurdly easy to meet. We simply needed to land three rounds on selected targets identified by the instructor. Both the vehicle and the targets were stationary. All we did was aim and squeeze the trigger. Even at night the task offered less challenge than most video games. In an effort to get all of us qualified our instructors set up an assembly-line operation to force as many students through as possible. They completed all of the prep work needed to make the guns ready to fire.
They did everything for us except pull the trigger, and in some cases they even did that. It was a highly effective way to get a maximum number of Marines through the minimal requirements. But it offered little preparation for war.
I left the range without ever opening an ammunition can. I didn’t know how to unpack the rounds, inspect their alignment, feed the ammunition belt into the main gun chutes, or upload the rounds into the breach. I didn’t know—and worse yet didn’t care at the time—that these were critical steps in preventing jams. The instructors cleared our jams for us. Their expertise minimized the time the guns were down for repairs, which maximized the number of students cycling through their qualification stations. We figured the sooner we finished on the range the sooner we earned liberty. To say our priorities were not in order was an understatement.
During our final exams the inspecting officers asked us for feedback about training. I reported that I felt I needed more time to practice gunnery skills. The officer acknowledged that the school environment had its limitations. He added that LAV crewmen do not really develop combat proficiency until they train with their units under their respective master-gunner mentors. That might have been true for active-duty Marines, but it wouldn’t be true for us reservists.
It was now August of 1990, and Uncle Sam would soon have other plans for us.
Our LAV instructors helped us celebrate our last evening in California with the traditional graduation party at the enlisted club on 130
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base. It felt good to relax without the burden of passing exams.
There wasn’t a lot to do in the club except drink. So we drank. And we drank. Sgt. Moss and I shared a table and more than a few pitch-ers. I was preoccupied with thoughts of home and wondered what training would be like for us when we returned. He assured me that he would try to get me transferred into his platoon. Then the conversation turned toward his promotion. I had broached the subject with him in the past, but our conversation never progressed beyond the comic banter about his promotion ceremony. Rank was a sensitive subject for Sgt. Moss, but his defenses were no match for the alcohol and my incessant probes. I wanted to know how he had become a sergeant.
He explained that he was stationed at Quantico for most of his four years of active duty, where he performed a variety of duties on the rifle ranges at Officer Candidates School. He explained that he liked the nine-to-five nature of the job, and that he was his own boss.
But the job didn’t afford him the opportunity to develop his skills as a noncommissioned officer. In fact, he told me how he was offered the rank of corporal just as his contract was ending. Shortly after his promotion he dropped to inactive ready reserve status and returned to his civilian life.
Nearly two years later he surrendered to the urge to return to the Corps by joining the reserves. Recruiters were looking for former Marines like Sgt. Moss to fill NCO billets at the newly forming Weapons Company. And not just NCO billets—platoon sergeant billets. He explained how Capt. Cruz offered to promote him to sergeant if he signed on for at least a year.
Practically speaking, Sergeant Moss was really Lance Cpl. Moss.
He didn’t have any Marine Corps experience between his last days as a lance corporal and his first as a sergeant. We both agreed it was too much, too soon. Nonetheless, I thought he had the potential to be a great leader. His disclosure, even though it was alcohol induced, strengthened my resolve to be a part of his team. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend our last night in LAV school.
We stood proudly in our graduation formation on the sweltering afternoon of 2 August 1990. The heat made it difficult to endure the S P A R E P A R T S
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pomp and circumstance that was typical of Marine celebrations.
The band played. The national anthem sounded. A dignitary lectured. And the base commander spoke. Only, it wasn’t the kind of speech we’d been expecting. It wasn’t the kind I’d heard at boot camp graduation and promotion ceremonies, the kind to be ignored. On the contrary I have never forgotten it.
The base commander began simply enough. “Today . . . Iraqi forces invaded the country of Kuwait.”
That meant little to me. Few of us could have located either country on the globe that day, much less understood the geopolitical ramifications. But the CO spoke with passion and conviction. He told of how America would not let the Iraqi occupation stand. He shared the reports of atrocities committed by the Iraqi soldiers against the unsuspecting victims in Kuwait—men slain . . . women raped . . . children orphaned . . . communities pillaged.
Those were not things with which most of us could identify or even comprehend. It sounded horrific to me, but it was all a world away. I had read about these things in books, watched them on movie screens, and seen them on the evening news. I dismissed the concern as graduation rhetoric that was crafted to motivate the troops.
I believed officers would tell us such things to validate all the time and effort we put into training.
Then the CO dropped the bomb.
“Effective immediately, all leave is suspended for active-duty per-sonnel. You will have twenty-four hours to report to your units, where you will receive your orders.”
I was relieved that I was not an active-duty Marine. After three months away from home I just wanted to get back to my friends, to school, and to Gina. I had thought, like many other reservists on August 2, that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait wasn’t my problem.
PART III
WARRIOR
SIX
THE WORLD WOULD BE DIFFERENT for me after 2 August, as it was for the ravaged people of Kuwait. Those fateful words from graduation stayed with me and tainted my homecoming. It seemed as if the rest of the world was still turning the way it had before I left, but I was out of sync—that is, the rest of the world except Camp Upshur. During my check-in following LAV school in August, Staff Sgt. Church confirmed for me what America was just figuring out. We were preparing to go to war.
The admin office was busier than ever preparing for a MORDT—
Mobilization Operational Readiness Deployment Test. The staff sergeant explained that it assessed the unit’s administrative readiness to support a mobilization. She added that our next drill would be an admin drill in which we rotated through processing stations, just as we would if we were mobilized for war.
Then she showed me one of the admin desks. “This is the ‘legal’
station.”
One of the forms on the desk was titled “Power of Attorney,” and the other read “Last Will and Testament.”
“Last Will and Testament?” I asked.
My naïveté brought out her maternal instinct. She gently pulled the form from my ha
nds and redirected me back to the office. “It’s just an exercise, Pfc. . . . just an exercise.”
But I knew better. And she did too.
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Because so many Marines had returned from their MOS schools in August, the company reorganized again in September. Dougherty, Poole, and I were assigned to Sgt. Moss’s platoon as LAV-25 crewmen. Our new titles as “crewmen” didn’t help us get into the driver’s or gunner’s seats, though. The drill weekends during September, October, and November were all administrative, and the LAVs were kept locked and tarped on the Ramp.
We spent a lot of time in the big classroom, listening to intelligence briefs, and gearing up for the call. We knew we would be called, we just didn’t know when. It felt like we were in purgatory. I tried to get in the right state of mind. After three months I thought I was ready. I wasn’t.
The call came on 18 November 1990. It was a quiet Sunday evening, and I was sitting at the kitchen table writing lesson plans for my last week of student teaching, when the phone rang. I picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Gina’s voice. We talked every evening before going to sleep.
Instead of Gina on the other end it was Sgt. Moss. He spoke slowly, with a solemn tone to his voice. “Wee-ams . . . this is the Big Ooh Rah. . . .”
And then there was just silence.
I didn’t understand.
“Sgt. Moss?”
He answered with a sigh, “Yeah . . . I’m here.”
More silence.
“What’s up?”
“We’ve been activated,” he said. “You need to report for formation this Friday at 0700.”
At the end of the call I hung up the phone and stood paralyzed. I would only have four days to get my affairs in order. My mind fast-forwarded through the slide show of my life . . . my job . . . my students . . . my friends . . . my mother . . . Gina.
I’m not sure how long I stood in the kitchen staring at the wall.
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At some point I sat down to finish the lesson plans for the next morning. Then I realized the futility of it all. I wasn’t going to student-teach on Monday. I was going to say good-bye to my students and withdraw from Towson State University. As I worked through the implications, reality began to sink in.
My initial denial turned to anger, and then anger into rage. I cleared the dining room table with one aggressive swipe of my forearm. Then I stormed around the kitchen and paced like a caged animal.
Once the adrenaline subsided, I returned to the dining room to clean up my mess. My mother was due to return home shortly and I did not want to have to explain my rant. I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell her at all. She had just married Pat the day before and was still in newlywed bliss. I couldn’t imagine how to tell her that her only son was going to war, especially the day after her wedding. Such a severe emotional U-turn, I feared, could give her a heart attack.
While picking up the papers from my tantrum I found that I had broken, among other things, a photo frame. It held my favorite picture of Gina and me, happily reunited during my welcome home party from the past summer. As I walked back to my bedroom I recalled her toast, “To the last summer we will ever be apart!” I sat on the edge of my mattress, staring at the distorted images of us beneath the cracked glass, and engaged the phone in a silent showdown.
After an hour of thinking about the right words to tell Gina I had been activated, I realized there was no way to make it sound good.
“Hello,” Gina answered.
“Gina Marie, it’s Buzz.” All I could muster was awkward silence.
“Is everything OK?”
“Do you think your parents would mind if I came over tonight?”
“Tonight?” She asked. “It’s almost ten o’clock.”
“I know, but it’s real important,” I said.
“OK,” she agreed hesitantly. “I’m sure Mom and Dad won’t mind.”
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It was clear she wanted me to tell her over the phone. I thought she must have realized that the news was about me being called to active duty. We had talked about my likely call-up frequently.
As I was walking out of the house to visit Gina, Mom and Pat were pulling into the driveway. Figuring that I’d have to tell her sooner or later, I headed back inside the house. Saying good-bye to my mother would not be as difficult as it should have been. My dislike of Pat had strained our relationship, and at the time we were barely speaking with each other.
“Mom. I won’t be here when you get back from Florida.”
“What do you mean, you won’t be here?” She wasn’t up to date on my pending activation, and she hadn’t been expecting what I was about to say. “Where will you be?”
“Camp Lejeune, probably. Maybe Saudi Arabia.” I wanted her to get emotional, and maybe even cry. Using my call-up to war was a hell of a way to get affection from my mother, but it had been months since I had felt any.
“We’ll have to cancel the trip,” Mom said, beginning to cry.
“No. No. No.” I said. “I’m leaving Friday whether you go or not.
What’s the difference between saying good-bye tomorrow, or saying good-bye on Friday?”
She dwelled on that decision, which helped her to refocus and keep her composure. With some prompting from Pat, Mom decided to leave for her honeymoon on Monday as planned. It worked out for the best, because the farewell to Gina on Friday would be all I could handle.
After talking with my mother, I decided to call Gina instead of driving into the city to see her. It would have been after midnight when I arrived, and although her parents were understanding, a visit that late was pushing it. My fingers trembled as I dialed her number.
“Where are you?” she asked. “I thought you would be here by now.”
“I was talking with Mom.”
“Buzz—what’s going on?” She asked impatiently.
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“Sgt. Moss called me, Gina Marie—my company’s been activated.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted to hear,” she said quietly. “When do you leave?”
“Check-in is Friday morning, but—”
“Let me guess.” She cut me off with a halfhearted joke. “You want to be there Thursday so you can stay up all night playing with your gear.”
She knew me well.
Both Gina and my mother were stronger than I’d imagined. I was sure they feared the worst, as I did, but some things were better left unsaid. Dying in combat was one of them. There was plenty of dialogue going on inside me, though. My moral compass was now in overdrive, swinging violently between the polarities of bravery and cowardice.
I considered revisiting the hospital in Bethesda, thinking that my knee condition could keep me home, or at least stateside. I also considered evoking the protection afforded me as the sole surviving son. That meant I would still need to leave home, but as I understood it the provision would keep me from participating in combat.
I even thought about declaring a conscientious objection to killing people. It was all too overwhelming to handle alone.
The next afternoon I would visit the memorial garden where my father and brother were buried, stare at the ground, and ask for help from beyond.
At the time I was not a religious person, but I felt I needed to be close to Lenny and Dad then. I had visited their graves from time to time and sometimes talked to them. For a while I yelled at my brother for having sent me the letters that got me interested in the Marines in the first place. It felt good to vent.
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knew in my heart that anything less than deploying with my platoon would be dishonorable. In the end I decided that living with guilt would be more costly than d
ying in combat. But that realization wouldn’t make saying good-bye any easier.
Gina and I spent as much time together as possible during my last four days at home. It was a painful time, but I look back on it as a defining moment for us. We had already made it through two summers apart—enduring separation had become a hallmark of our relationship. We convinced ourselves that the war was just another opportunity to prove our resolve to remain faithful to each other. It was the ultimate opportunity.
The night before I left I gave Gina a diamond ring. I had wanted it to be an engagement ring, but the possibility of dying overseas kept me from making it such. To her parents, and the rest of the world, it was a simple band with a single diamond stone. To Gina it was a precursor to engagement. To me it was a plea for her to wait and a promise for me to return.
The drive to Camp Upshur on Thursday, November 22 was awkward, to say the least. Gina’s father was at the wheel and said barely a word. Her mother made polite conversation to mask her emotion. Gina sat next to me in the backseat and squeezed my hand tightly.
Gina didn’t stay long once we arrived at the base. We had promised each other we would make our good-bye brief to minimize the misery, and we followed through. Gina’s mother and father pulled my bags from the trunk, which gave us just enough time to hug. I was glad the windows in the car were tinted. I preferred my last memory of Gina to be the embrace instead of a tearful wave.
After the car drove off, thumping across the Upshur bridge, it dawned on me just how deserted the base was. Left alone in the barracks, it would have been easy to get melancholy. But my mind never idled long enough for sadness to creep in. Once the contents of my footlocker and wall locker were laid out on the deck, I began my usual predrill routine of inventorying and arranging my gear.
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