Brigadier General Ed Simmons, the retired Director Emeritus of Marine Corps History, died at home in Alexandria. Virginia, on 5 May 2007. He had been a Marine for 65 of his 85 years. For a quarter-century he was the ever-vigilant "Keeper of the Keys," the corporate memory and living repository of the official Marine Corps story.
History and traditions are the bedrock of the Corps. The director of history must maintain the line between fact and fiction while tolerating the hallowed legends and myths that shape the Marines' distinctive culture. Ed Simmons did both with authority.
"There is no such thing as absolute truth in history," he once wrote. "The best we hope to be is as accurate as possible, which is not quite the same thing as truth."
Ed Simmons was foremost a Marine officer who fought in three wars, including the 1944 liberation of Guam; the epic Inchon-Seoul-Chosin Reservoir campaign of 1950; and two tours in the late Republic of Vietnam. He knew desperate combat - defending a key roadblock on Seoul's Ma Po Boulevard against a night attack from North Korean armored forces, or manning the Hagaru-ri perimeter against swarming Chinese attacks, night after night, during "Frozen Chosin." Many of his personal decorations reflected such front-line exposure, including the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. He became a historian only after he had lived the life of a combat Marine.
Educated as a journalist at Lehigh and Ohio State. General Simmons also became a consummate writer, bringing military history to life in such books as The United States Marines: A History, the comprehensive, beautifully illustrated The Marines, and his frank, racy work of Korean War fiction, Dog Company Six.
Many say his greatest literary achievement was the 50th anniversary Korean War commemorative monograph Frozen Chosin: U.S. Marines at the Changjin Reservoir, a definitive work that combined research into newly translated Chinese and North Korean archives with his personal insights on everyday life during the campaign. Providing first-hand reality. General Simmons penned an eight-page sidebar. "Coping With the Cold," that graphically described what is was like to fight, move, and communicate in the extreme weather, including the basicchallenges of digging foxholes, heating C-rations. or trying to urinate amid a wind chill of 65 degrees below zero.
His writings reflected a sense of history, an eye for detail, and an ear for the absurd. On D-Day at Inchon, as a company commander in Chesty Puller's 1st Marines, he struggled to find Blue Beach Two in his LVT3-C amphibian tractor. "No landmarks could be seen in the grayish-green pall," he wrote, and "the assault waves crisscrossed during the run to the sea wall." Frustrated by the absence of Navy wave-guides, he asked the LVT driver if he had a compass. The Marine searched his instrument panel, then admitted. "Beats me, sir. Six weeks ago I was driving a truck in San Francisco!"
During his 25 years as senior historian, General Simmons advised eight commandants, chaired the Marine Corps Uniform Board, and helped establish the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation-the association of Marines of all stripes who collectively envisioned and built the new National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico. He also published a superb quarterly historical magazine, Fortitudine, past issues of which have become collectors' items.
Ed Simmons' delight in history never ceased. Shortly before his death, he presided over the quarterly meeting of the St. Crispin's Society, a circle of Marine infantry officers he created in the 1990s. To his last day he continued editing his 15-year labor-of-love, a book on the Marines in World War I.
Recently, some friends took General Simmons to see the new Marine Museum. From a wheelchair, he stared intently at every exhibit, studied each caption, and savored every immersion gallery. At the end. he announced, "I came here with extremely high expectations." He paused for effect, his companions awaiting the master's verdict. Then his serious expression dissolved into a broad grin: "And you have exceeded all of them!"
Ed Simmons - distinguished Marine historian - left us a gold standard of excellence.
Semper Fidelis, sir.
Colonel Alexander is the author of several books, including his award-winning history ol the World War II Battle of Tarawa, Utmost Savagery, At the time of General Simmons' death, Colonel Alexander had been collaborating with him on the history of World War I Marines, due out from the Naval Institute Press in 2008.