The Last Marine

by T. S. Ransdell

  “Well, hold on there, Skippy. I’m going to fix myself a drink first.”

  “Drink…drink?!” Levine was baffled by the new nickname as well as Harris’s call for an early happy hour.

  “Ain’t like I got to drive anywhere. Don’t worry, if my narration gets too incoherent, you can cut me off.” Even though Harris was an old man, Levine wondered if he, personally, could prevent him from doing anything he really wanted to do. He felt preposterous for the thought, but there was something about Harris’s attitude that made him think it.

  “So School of Infantry?” Levine tried to get back on track.

  “Yeah, SOI.” Harris sat back down with a bourbon. “In those days it was an eight-week course. The old salts used to tell us we had it easy. You see, at the start of the war they only had four weeks. They had to learn on the job. Do or die, as they say. They lengthened the course when the mission shifted from liberation to invasion.

  “The Marine Corps’s philosophy, at the time, was that every Marine is a rifleman. So every Marine had to prove himself proficient with a rifle to graduate boot camp. If you were an infantryman, which many Marines were at that time, you were proficient with all infantry weapons. We did some work with the M5, our basic rifle. It was a 5.56 mm. It was based off the M4, but had a piston system. We even got to shoot the M458, like an M5 but fired a .458 caliber.

  “What’s wrong?” Harris asked, interrupting his own narration.

  “Oh, nothing, really,” Levine stammered a bit, “the numbers get a bit confusing for me.”

  “Yeah, well,” Harris continued, “let’s just suffice it to say we were exposed to nearly every weapon system. Light and heavy machine guns, mortars, antitank. The Army always got the new stuff. Many of the weapon systems we used were thirty or forty years old and the Corps would just dress them up with new electronics, optics, and such. Hell, we were still using the M2, that’s a big machine gun, and that’s been around since the Second World War. Damn good gun though.

  “Live fire training was minimal. Saving the rounds up for the invasion, most likely. We did a lot of electronic training. Computer simulation and that sort of thing. I imagine what changed the most with the extra time was that we just did a lot more running. They ran us everywhere, every way. Uphill. Downhill. With packs, without packs. Anyway…” Harris broke from his ramblings.

  “We learned to love those big-caliber weapons. They really did a number on that Prick body armor. If it didn’t kill ’em, it’d really fuck ’em up.”

  “Prick?” Levine’s sense of moral superiority slipped through.

  “Yeah, acronym for People’s Republic of China: PRiCk.” Levine knew what the acronym was, as well as the derogative connotation that was applied to it. Even in grade school, Joel had learned the hurtful effect it had had upon the People’s Republic.

  “Even at the time didn’t it strike you as demeaning, as a dehumanizing way to speak of these people?” Joel was attempting to get Harris to open up about racist indoctrination in his Marine Corps training. He thought a self-righteous tone might guilt Harris into a sort of confession.

  “They invaded our land, raped and killed our people, and tried to enslave us. We were preparing to invade their land and kill them, and you want to get worked up over our nomenclature?”

  “No. See…I…what…” Joel stammered, trying to figure out an excuse that wouldn’t anger Harris.

  “Nomenclature means names for things, used by particular groups or in particular fields.”

  “I-I know what nomenclature means.” Joel felt his face getting hot. “I simply—”

  “Anyway,” Harris firmly continued as Levine stewed over his lack of control of the situation, “it was a grueling eight weeks, although combat would be a hell of a lot worse. However, at that time, we couldn’t imagine that. All of us complained about how we couldn’t wait to get to the Fleet, a deployable unit.”

  “How were you trained to think of the Chinese?” Levine wanted to steer the conversation back towards indoctrination. “You said earlier you called them Pricks, why not PLA? Why not call them by their name, the People’s Liberation Army?” Levine was much more pleased with his own tone this time around. He thought it was more reasonable. More intellectual.

  “You really care about names? Seriously? We were trained to kill people and break things. To kill the people who had been killing us, in OUR land. Hell, Pricks was one of the nicer things we called them.”

  “Did the Marine Corps teach you to hate Asian people? Particularly the Chinese?” Levine sensed a slant that he could use. “How were Chinese-American recruits treated?”

  “Well”—Harris was a little taken aback by the break from his narrative—“anyone that looked too Asian or Chinese wasn’t really used in the infantry. Things were already confusing enough at times.”

  “Don’t you think they could have contributed to the war effort?” Levine was feeling good about where the conversation was going.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” It was Harris’s turn to be incredulous. “Are you trying to play some kind of racial discrimination angle on me? Are you familiar at all with the strategy behind Operation Mandate of Heaven?”

  “Of course,” Levine somewhat lied.

  Joel’s grandfather had bragged to him that it was one of the greatest covert agent operations in all of world history. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Chinese-American and Taiwan operators infiltrated China to begin a propaganda campaign to undermine the Chinese faith in their communist government and nationalism based on the ancient belief that the gods mandate who is emperor of China. When an emperor became corrupt, he lost that mandate and thus a revolution, resulting in a new emperor. Operatives would build up the Chinese fear, corruption and dissatisfaction with the communist government while emphasizing that Chinese industrialization and modernization was a better fit with a democratic style of government. Joel’s grandfather had been adamant about the heroism of these brave operatives, many of whom were imprisoned and executed by the People’s Republic.

  In high school and college, Joel’s teachers discredited Abe Levine’s memory of events as just another racist, American lie. Operation Mandate of Heaven, according to academia, was more about American self-righteousness. Intellectually speaking, it was descended from the concept of Manifest Destiny and American Revolutionary ideas of divine providence. They taught that the overwhelming majority of Chinese were happy with communism. They had all the necessities of life. Housing, healthcare, and education. How could they possibly be dissatisfied with communism? No, it was all a lie from the Clark administration to cover up the destruction, murder, and rape American servicemen imposed upon the Chinese people.

  Joel had sadly concluded that it was just another lie his grandfather had told him to try to make him proud to be an American. President Clark had had a brilliant propaganda machine, as evil as it was. Joel had learned in school that Operation Mandate of Heaven was nothing more than an American justification for the overthrow of the People’s Republic of China and the slaughter of their people.

  But did Harris truly believe it? Or was he just putting a righteous veneer over his past crimes. If the man was truly good and trying to help, to “liberate” others, why come back to America and slaughter Americans?

  Levine decided to try another angle. “Well, tell me, what else do you remember of—” Levine checked his notes “—SOI?”

  “I was assigned to Hotel Company. Units were assigned by alphabetical order. I think…” Harris stopped to remember. “I think F through K. It doesn’t really matter now anyway.

  “Boot camp was tough. SOI was tougher, at least physically anyway. But by then we were used to that type of training. I mean, there were still some of the silly boot camp mind games; it just didn’t have the same kind of impact it had had in boot camp.

  “For me the worst part about it was the last week. The last two weeks, we participated in a big war game that we needed to pass in order to graduate. Well, that last week I
came down with pneumonia. There was no way I could go to sick bay without being dropped from the course. If I was dropped from the course, I would have to start again and have to do the whole thing all over. I decided there was no way in hell I was going to do SOI again if I could help it, so I just sucked it up. Oh, but I was so miserable.”

  “How did you know you had pneumonia?” Joel was incredulous. Who could really not be bedridden from pneumonia?

  “I went to sick bay the day after I graduated from the course and was diagnosed with pneumonia. I was given a shot of penicillin and a day of bed rest. After what I’d been through, it felt like a vacation. I was supposed to go back to sick bay the next day, but I skipped it.”

  “Why do that?” Joel was even more skeptical.

  “We were getting shipped out to our units that day. I didn’t want to miss out and get separated from my buddies.”

  “Couldn’t you have just stayed in sick bay until you were better and catch up to them?”

  “Maybe. Once I got out of sick bay, who knew where or when I’d be assigned to a unit. I didn’t want to take that chance.”

  “It was that important to you?” Joel had not lost any of his skepticism.

  “Yeah. It was.” Harris left no room for doubt.

  “Tell me”—Levine thought his timing was perfect to get Harris to reveal genuine thought and not a rehearsed memory—“what lesson do you remember the most from SOI? What knowledge or wisdom did you acquire that you think served you best in life?” Levine was rather pleased with his question. He expected a long and thoughtful response, perhaps even provoking an epiphany of the pain and destruction Harris’s education had caused him and others.

  “When in doubt, shoot,” Harris immediately responded without batting an eye.

  Levine found Harris’s confidence and certainty unsettling. Levine doubted he would ever be able to truly understand what motivated people like Harris, and what made them think the way they did. Fortunately for him, as a journalist and historian, he didn’t have to. He just had to convince people what the government did and said was right.

  Chapter Twelve

  Harris fought the idea that he might throw up. Mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter. He wished he had a dollar for every time he’d been told that since he’d entered the Marine Corps. It was not the time or place. He had to compose himself. He didn’t know if the nausea was from the air turbulence or his nerves. This was not the first time he’d ridden in an MV-22 Osprey. It was the second, but this ride was nothing like the first. This time he was amongst a fleet of MV-22s flying into combat, and his nerves were in high gear. The fact that the aircraft felt more like a roller coaster to him only added to his stress. Everyone was strapped in or had to hold on to something tight in order not to be thrown around the aircraft. Harris couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought he could hear explosions. The ship’s guns weren’t firing. Were they being shot at, or was it all part of the distraction? Perhaps it was his imagination. Harris had come to terms with the fact that he might well die fighting for his country. Key to that was he would die fighting. To him the notion of being shot out of the air without having even yet seen a Prick terrified him more than death itself.

  He wanted to ask Edwards about the noise, but doubted Edwards would hear him. If he did, he could imagine Edwards telling him he had other things to worry about. That was Edwards’s style.

  The crew chief motioned they should get ready to land. Harris turned on his night-vision goggles. He turned the ignition of the LSV, light strike vehicle, outfitted with a TOW (antitank) package. Edwards was already positioned behind the gun. That was Edwards’s style.

  The crew chief motioned that it was time to disembark. Harris drove the LSV straight off the MV-22, and they cut a hard left. Just as he had practiced at Camp Daily in the Philippines. The Ospreys took off. No one was shooting at them yet, but there were definitely explosions. From this distance it sounded like thunder. Jets roared over their position. They were headed west. Most likely they were American. If they were Prick, at least they hadn’t shot them. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad.

  Harris had envisioned his first moments of combat to be more violent than this. He was partially relieved and disappointed at the same time.

  “Move up another thirty meters,” Edwards commanded right after he kicked the driver’s seat. Harris did as ordered and then could see Blue Four Alpha about fifty meters to his right.

  “Blue Four Alpha, Blue Four Bravo in position. Over,” Edwards communicated over his microphone.

  “Blue Four Bravo, Blue Four Alpha, roger. Over and out,” Harris heard through his earpiece. Harris wanted to ask what was next, mostly out of nervousness, but he knew what was next. Stay in position, shoot anything that was moving east. After two hours, move east and shoot anything that did not look American. Harris was nervous. At this moment he wanted nothing more than a cigarette. It dawned on him just how hooked he’d gotten on those things in the Philippines. Oh, and how safe, secure, and homelike the Philippines seemed right now.

  Harris scanned the horizon through his night vision, positioned behind the SAW, squad automatic weapon, mounted on a swivel on the side of the LSV. The weapon was a belt-fed light machine gun that fired a caseless 5.56 mm cartridge. It could be mounted on either side of the LSV, as well as on top of the vehicle. In the Philippines they had been issued improved ceramic-lined barrels with built-in suppressors. The SAW gunner could now fire longer without changing barrels and was less likely to be spotted by the enemy.

  So far, despite his nervousness, he was finding the war boring. Harris thought it wise not to share this with Edwards. That said, he was on edge. It was a quiet night. The LSV’s engine was off. Edwards was running the TOW system in silent mode. A lithium-ion battery would give them about nine hours’ energy before they’d have to recharge it with the LSV’s engine. Despite the quiet, Harris couldn’t understand how the Chinese could not know where they were with all the Ospreys landing and the humming of the LSVs as they drove into position. He strained his ears to filter out the crickets, cicadas, and listen for unnatural noises that could be Pricks. He scanned the sky and listened for any possible drones. So far nothing, or was he just missing it? He fought back the fear that was telling him it was too overwhelming. He had to; this was not a good time to knock off and try another day.

  “Harris, you best be on my nine and keep your shit together,” Edwards quietly ordered. Harris heard the pop, but no “fire in the hole” this time. Harris jumped when the missile went off. He was surprised at being surprised by the noise. He’d heard the TOW missile fired before, but this seemed so much louder. He realized that he didn’t have earplugs in this time. His ears rang. Instinctively he’d closed his eyes to not lose his night vision from the back blast. A short eternity had passed before the missile hit its target.

  “Blue Four Alpha, Prick tanks at our eleven—” Another TOW fired before Edwards could finish. Two more quickly followed. The other squads had joined in the killing. Edwards discarded the empty missile casing. Harris was already handing up a new missile to reload.

  “Echo Three Echo, nice confirmation.” Sergeant Bohanan’s voice came across the speaker.

  “Roger that, Echo Five Bravo,” Edwards replied.

  Bohanan had told them to confirm with him before they fired. Edwards took his own initiative to fire the first shot from Task Force Grant in the campaign for Shanghai. That was Edwards’s style.

  After the School of Infantry Privates Sean Harris and William Hastings had both been assigned to Weapons Company, First Battalion, First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division. Many from their SOI class went to 1/1, as First Battalion, First Marines was known. Harris and Hastings, along with Samuel Grey and Steven Jones, had been made TOW gunners and assigned to Weapons Company. They were shipped out of Camp Pendleton to Camp Daily, Philippines, where 1/1 was stationed.

  His first impression of the Philippine Islands was that it looked like some of the
movies he’d seen about the Vietnam War. He’d watched several when he was growing up and watched those several times at that. His grandfather had served in the Ninth Infantry Division during that war, so he was fascinated by it. He’d been fascinated with the Islamic wars as well, but his father told him Hollywood couldn’t bother to make a movie worth watching about that. It was always said with an edge of bitterness that Sean didn’t fully understand. His father loved the United States and American culture. Not showing proper respect for the Stars and Stripes, the Constitution, or any of the Founding Fathers earned you the belt or a quick smack upside the head. His father fought in America’s wars overseas. He fought crime in the country and returned to war when needed. Yet he was always angry at the country’s leaders.

  “Never trust those goddamn bastards, ever!” he’d often say after a drink or two. “For anything you take from the government they’ll want your soul in return.”

  Still, he was excited to be in the Philippines. He’d been told that his great-grandfather had fought in the Pacific and served in the US Navy in World War II. He’d served on the USS Yorktown when it went down at the Battle of Midway. The story was that his great-grandfather had won big stakes in a poker game a few days before the battle. When the order came to abandon ship, he ran down to his berthing area to retrieve his winnings. Ships sink fast; his great-grandfather claimed to have barely made it out alive and that going back for the money was the dumbest thing he’d ever done.

  As well, he had an ancestor that fought in the Spanish-American and Filipino War. That ancestor had been a career soldier. Twenty years in the US Army. Story was that he’d lied about his age; he was seventeen when you had to be twenty-one to enlist in the Army. He’d fought in the Philippines. Supposedly he had once retreated with his unit into Subic Bay, neck deep into water, to wait for reinforcements. The Moro Indians were too short to go out that far. Family legend had it that the former Harris had brought back a .455-caliber Webley pistol he’d taken from a Moro Indian he’d found hiding up a tree.