Decades later, a former Marine recalls his Vietnam-era infantry training

I recently discovered a small collection of forgotten photos, news clippings and letters in a shoe box in my office file cabinet. Among this mini time capsule was a letter dated Feb. 13, 1967, I had written in pencil and on scratch paper to my parents, when I was a 21-year-old Marine going through Vietnam-era infantry training at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Until now, I had forgotten how rigorous that training had been.

Dear folks,

It’s 1:50 a.m. as I write this miserable excuse for a letter. I’m on the 1 to 3 a.m. shift standing duty in the platoon commander’s office. All it involves is sitting at a desk taking messages on the phone, and at 1 a.m. there aren’t too many phone calls, even in the Marine Corps.  This is the only paper I could find over here. I should have brought some with me.

Since I called on Tuesday, we’ve had a tight schedule. Wednesday we ran an obstacle course, fired the flamethrower and crawled through a booby-trapped mine field that night. That was the night we slept in our shelters in the field.

Thursday it rained all day, but we stayed out in the field. We had classes on demolitions and mines, and the high point of the day was when each man was given a half-pound charge of TNT, a fuse and a blasting cap, and had to assemble and detonate. Of course it was done carefully and systematically, but, as always, there was one individual who flubbed it. He was inserting his fuse in the blasting cap — a sensitive little device — when he dropped it. We had just seen a demonstration of how much damage a blasting cap could do by itself.  Fortunately, his cap did not explode, but the whole experience was quite traumatic for me, as I witnessed it from approximately 6 feet away.

We returned from the field Thursday night soaked and freezing. It was still raining Friday morning, but we had an easy day of indoor classes on map reading. Saturday and Sunday aren’t training days so nothing much happens. This morning we march out to the field for morning chow at 6:30. In order for us to get there in time we must leave at 4:30. Reveille is at 2:30 and I’ve been up since 1 a.m. so I expect to be hurting for sleep until tonight. Today will involve field tactics and grenade throwing.

Being so busy is making the time pass quickly. We have only five training days left. Please wish Johnny a happy birthday for me, since I won’t have an opportunity to write during the week.

Love, Steve

P.S.: I have to wake up the platoon commander now it’s 2:30, and I expect him to be less than overjoyed with the news that another day is beginning. I am.

Steve O’Keefe is a Novato resident. IJ readers are invited to share their stories of life experiences for our How It Is column, which runs Tuesdays in the Lifestyles section. All stories must not have been published in part or in its entirety previously. Send your stories of no more than 600 words to lifestyles@marinij.com. Please write “How It Is” in the subject line. The IJ reserves the right to edit them for publication. Please include your full name, hometown and a daytime phone number.