Did I know what I was doing? Yes!

Did I know what I was doing? Yes! I had seen movies and combat footage about the Marines fighting in the Pacific. I admired their courage and dedication -- I wanted to be a Marine!

I joined the Marines just a couple of weeks after my 17th birthday == November 14, 1954 -- 63 years ago. I was assigned to Able Company , 1st Battalion, 8th Marines Regiment following recruit infantry training. Because I was the smallest target in my platoon, I was assigned to be a BAR man (Browning automatic Rifleman). I also learned to shoot the M1 Garand rifle and carbine, how to operate the 81 and 60 mm mortars, and how to shoot the light and heavy machine guns. I learned hand-to-hand combat so I could kill with my hands and other parts of my body ... and how to fight with a bayonet both on my rifle and in my hand.

With that training, I added the skills of a intelligence scout and observer and worked with Force Reconnaissance Company on gathering data on beaches by hydo surveys from rubber boats. I was well prepared when I shipped out to the Mediterranean for eight months during the Suez crisis of 1955-56. We conducted live firing exercises from the "fantail" of the troopship USS 228 Rockbridge. I was assigned to be in the forefront of any amphibious landing should we have to storm the beaches of North Africa. I was also informed that my actuarial data after opening up with my BAR could be counted in minutes and seconds.

Yes -- I knew what I signed up for, but willing to take my chances in service of my country.

That training and those skills served me well. In 1968 I was assigned to be a media escort assigned to escort international television crews into and out of combat. My Bronze Star medal and two Air Medals document at least 200 of those ground combat missions and over 40 air missions on medical evacuation and reconnaissance inserts and flip flops.

The above photo was taken early one gray sky morning during Operation Dewey Canyon after enduring an all night 122mm artillery barrage from the nearby Laos border and intensive close combat skirmishes with North Vietnamese Army infantry, Viet Cong sappers, mortars, and grenades. I was escorting an American television crew -- a reporter, his sound man and his cameraman.

The TV crew were my responsibility. I had to protect them, feed them and water them. I had to facilitate transportation into and out of combat without imposing undue distractions on the "grunt" Marines who were moving south to neutralize an artillery battery dug in to the mountains near what would later be known as "Hamburger Hill."

This involved sometimes tracking through triple canopy jungle or wading through elephant grass that was higher than we were that was capable of slashing any uncovered flesh that its razor-like leaves could touch. And it meant that I was all that the TV crew had to protect them and safely guide them to where they needed to go to get their stories. It meant that we had to travel in and out of combat on helicopters with wounded and dead Marines. Sometimes we had to assist in putting their bodies in "body bags" -- sometimes we had to reverently stack them aside to make room for the living.

As both and enlisted and commissioned officer and career Marine, I was honored to assist with the recovery of the dead and to prepare their last effects to be forwarded to their loved ones. I have served on firing squads and as a pall bearer at my fellow Marines' funerals. And I have presented folded flag to more mothers, fathers, wives and children than I care to count. Those duties were always emotional and stressful.

In 1983 I served as the DoD and Marine Corps spokesman for the 24th Marine Corps Amphibious Unit. Ironically, the infantry unit was the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, which I served with 28 years earlier. It proved to be one of my most important and most difficult assignments. We began taking hostile fire almost daily shortly after I arrived. The Marines dug into trenches similar to those of World War 1. Artillery, rockets, mortars, and heavy .50 caliber machine gun fire raked our positions. In some regards it became more intense than anything I had experienced in Vietnam. I became very stoic. I faced death many times in Vietnam -- but I always felt that somehow i would survive. in Beirut I became stoic, convinced that there was a very big chance that this would be my last mission. And yet, the politicians declined to admit that we were in combat. Finally, they conceded that we deserved "endangered pay." That decision continues to haunt Beirut veterans -- now in the 50s and 50s.

In Beirut, I helped retrieve the shattered remains of my comrades who were slaughtered by a terrorist truck driver in Beirut while they slept -- "peace keepers" -- in a land where... there is still no peace. I met the wife of a Navy corpsman who was crushed in the basement of the building. When she asked me how he died, my mind flashed back to how his purified skin melted in my hands as I tried to pull him from the concrete slabs and how it took days of washing to remove the smell. All I could do was to give her an embrace and tell her, "Quickly."

Notifying loved ones of war casualties has evolved. It has never been easy ... and the reaction of the bereaved may never be anticipated. I have been thanked and I have been cursed. But it is all part of the job. WWII widows received a Yellow Western Union telegram. Casualty notification during Vietnam wasn't much better until The services launched the Casualty Assistance Program, which required a military escort and a chaplain to notify the Gold Star wife or mother ... and then follow through with assistance in retrieving the body and facilitating the funeral, and then to assist with filing for benefits. Protocol required a personal letter from the president. But having a president to call is a recent gesture -- only because war casualties have been significantly reduced.

One thing that's for sure -- politicizing the grief of our fallen warriors should be refuted and rejected.

Note: Major Jordan is the co-author of "Is America Safe?," which details the history of terrorism in America and the growth of terrorist around the globe. But its main thrust is a common sense approach to minimizing danger to you and your loved ones from man made and natural disasters.

#CondolenceCalls #FallenWarriors #MilitaryCasualties #Politics