The Rosary and the Corps

I got this from the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler at Nicedoggie.net. Great blog as the posters love to ridicule this administration. They post great military stories like this one there. Some people think that when I do this I am just being lazy, not the case, these stories need to be out there. They need to be read, talk to your friends show them what kind of people our military is made of and has always been made of.


The Rosary and the Corps
Posted by: LC 0311 crunchie I.M.H. in Our Military, The Long War
5:00 am

In July of 1942 a young man was undergoing the rite of passage into the United States Marine Corps at Parris Island, South Carolina. He was raised a poor farm boy, the second eldest son in a family of 18 children, in the rolling flat-lands of western Ohio. Working the fields as soon as he was old enough to hold a shovel, the harsh existence of Depression era life had made him a strong, muscular, and tough man. He had already proven himself a brave one also, personally running moonshine from the family still to Al Capone. But nothing in his hard scrabble life had adequately prepared him for boot camp. He was wondering just what the hell he had gotten himself in for.

When he had graduated high school just a few short weeks before he had watched as his friends received their draft notices. His older brother had already been drafted into the Army the year before and had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7th. He remembered the anxiety as his family waited for word, helpless to do anything, and had decided that he would not have someone else decide his fate for him. So while his friends were drafted, mostly into the Army, he decided he would volunteer. Since no one else from his small class had thought of the Corps, he figured he would be the individual and become a Marine.

Now the ruthless Drill Instructors at Parris Island were tearing away that individualism, rebuilding him into a Marine. And he had reached his breaking point. As he sat in the wooden barracks of the depot’s rifle range he was at a low point. Physically he could handle it; the back breaking labor and PT, the physical abuse, the intense pain of throbbing muscles being ripped and torn into even larger, more powerful ones, if that was possible. No he was used to that. But boot camp is more psychological than physical, designed to push men beyond what they thought was their breaking points, preparing them for the ultimate psychological trauma of other men trying their best to kill them, and the equally traumatic experience of trying to kill them back. Wallowing in his despair and self doubt, one night at mail call he received a spiritual boost from an unexpected source.

The package came from his aunt, also his Godmother. He had never been overly close to her, she living some distance from the family farm and not a regular fixture of his life. But she had never forgotten her sacred commitment to see to his spiritual upbringing and had sent him the only thing she could think of to help him in his upcoming travails, an inexpensive rosary. Knowing him as she did, she had figured he had neglected to bring one with him, which of course he had. He was not one that you could easily accuse of being a faithful Catholic, yet the Church had been a regular feature of his adolescence, even if all of it’s teachings had not quite ingrained themselves with him. So he was somewhat taken aback by the sudden care package. He was even more surprised by the affect it had on him. The simple show of compassion from an almost stranger steadied his failing resolve and allowed him to reach just that little bit deeper, just that little extra push to break the wall and tap into the last remaining mental reserves and make it one more day.

A few weeks later he marched across the parade deck of Parris Island a United States Marine. He completed infantry training and was transferred to the 1st Marine Division just in time to be stranded with them as a green replacement on Guadalcanal. In his pocket throughout the hell on earth of that battle was the simple white rosary. And it was there with him when he finally received his first mail on that God forsaken island, his draft notice ordering him to report for induction into the U.S. Army.

It was with him again when he stormed the murderous beaches of Peleliu. It went with him when he transferred to the 3rd Marine Division, and when he landed at Iwo Jima with them. He kept it when he was on occupation duty at Sasebo and Iwakuni, and when he toured the devastation of Nagasaki. And he carried it when he served post war in nationalist China, where he met his Russian emigre wife.

After the war he decided that farm life was no longer for him and that he had found a home in the Corps. Now back with the 1st MarDiv he enjoyed peace time service in California with his new wife. The rosary which had accompanied him through the hell of the Pacific War was packed away in his footlocker, no longer needed. But when North Korea invaded the South in 1951 and American forces were routed and pushed into the Pusan Perimeter, the Corps went back to war. And so did the rosary.

It was with him as the 1st Marine Division made history at Inchon and pursued the retreating North Koreans to the Yalu. When the Red Chinese poured across the Yalu and routed the Eighth Army, the rosary made the Long March to the Sea from the frozen hell of the Chosin Reservoir.

After the Korean War he stayed in the Corps, serving a total of 26 years until 1968. The rosary, again no longer needed, was packed away and forgotten. In 1981 he moved back to Ohio, his marriage over, everything he owned packed into a 1960 Dodge pickup and a run down travel trailer. When he came home he met his eleven year old nephew for the first time, one of 70 or so he had never met. This one though wanted to join the Corps, and in his youthful naivete he pestered the old salt for tales about his life as a Marine. And he was accommodating, regaling the young boy with stories of bar fights, WestPac cruises, liberty spots, and of course the sanitized version of war. His brother, the young boys father, and his wife took the old Marine in and allowed him to live with them. He even moved to Florida with them. When the boy had grown and himself enlisted in the Corps, the veteran decided it was time to get him ready for boot camp. He rode him hard, giving him a taste of the tender mercies he would soon receive at Parris Island. Of course his nephew didn’t understand any of this and resented the old bastard, not grasping the true motives of his uncles abuse until he himself was at boot camp.

Like his uncle before him, only 45 years later, the young man reached the inevitable breaking point. And also like his uncle, his came while he was at the rifle range. Then one night at mail call, he received his own package. In it was the very same rosary. His uncle had not written the accompanying letter, that was left to his mother to do. But she did tell the story behind it. Holding the cheap string of beads, staring at the crucifix, reading the history which it had born witness to, and knowing of the strength it had given his uncle, he too was able to reach just a little deeper, dig out just enough fortitude to be able to make it one more day. And he too marched across the parade deck wearing the Eagle, Globe and Anchor.

The rosary stayed with him also. And 20 years later it was his own son’s turn to face his personal limit. For the third time the rosary made it’s way to a young recruits hands in a Parris Island rifle range barracks. Accompanying it was a letter documenting the talismans history. And once again a young recruit dug deeper and made it one more day, until he too walked across the parade deck a United States Marine.

That rosary is now in a young Marines pocket in the deserts of Iraq. Waiting at home is an apprehensive young wife and a much younger baby girl whose days with her daddy are already outnumbered by her days away from him. Two young sisters whose entire world view is condensed to the fact that their Bubba is a Marine and he has to fight bad guys. A stepmother who covers her fear for his safety in the pride of being a Marine mom. And there is also a father, praying that the rosary that has already faithfully served two generations of Marines will provide the same solace and comfort to a third, and that the Blessed Mother will once again bring a Marine safely home to those who love him.

The Corps is built on traditions, both institutional and individual. May it remain so until there is no enemy, but only peace.

Gods Speed son.