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Pearl Harbor, there were a number of company
During the Korean War, when for more than a year there were more mobilized reservists in the 1st Marine Division and 1st Marine Air Wing than there were regulars, one of the great escape valves was the constant bickering between the two breeds of Leathernecks. In the extremes of heat and cold, mud and dust, heavy action or deep boredom, it was a way of forgetting how miserable a place Korea was in 1951.
Somehow we called-up reservists saw fit to blame the regulars because we had been summarily yanked from civilian life to save their bacon. We used to sneer that a “reggie” was somebody who couldn’t make it on the outside. The regulars, in turn, considered themselves saltier than the ocean sea and held that reservists were effete amateurs and a menace to the allied cause.
There was, at that time, only a grain of truth in charge and countercharge. In fact, the thousands of reservists who were called to the colors in July 1950 not only fleshed out first the Marine brigade and then the division-wing team, they were for a time about a 60% majority. It is true that many reservists, if not most, were veterans of World War II and able to tell war stories with the best of the regular establishment. On the other hand, a great many of the reservists had not touched a rifle or worn a uniform since 1945 and some were already a bit long in the tooth for the pack-mule work of the Marine infantry.
The wrangling never really was vicious or physical, and it often was expressed with a biting sort of wit or the bitching that is normal among most American troops whether they be 20-year men or citizen-soldiers. I remember one bit of doggerel that we chanted repeatedly along the Hongchon River and on the line at the Punchbowl to the tune of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
“The regulars are pretty in their uniforms of blue,
And I’d like to look around and see more of them tha° do, _
But this war is fought by poor reservists just like and you,
While the regulars stay home.”
The squabbles were pretty much limited to times 'v|'e^ the front was quiet. The reality was that it required & than a week for reservists to become indistinguisha^ from regulars. This was especially the case at Inchon, , Chosin Reservoir, and Massacre Valley. By late 1952 a 1953, the reservists who were in the early mobilize11 had done their time in Korea, ten months to a year, and war became the property of those who had signed up four years and had no “R” at the end of their US* Old-timers will remember the evolution of the Mu'1 Corps Reserve with some degree of accuracy. Pf'01^
squadron-size reserve units scattered around the court C but no such finely honed organizations as the 4th Mat Division and 4th Marine Air Wing are today. The Marlt Corps entered World War II with about 26,000 regular^ figure that eventually grew to more than 475,000 m rush to the recruiting stations and as the draft eventu' ^ became a new manpower source late in 1942. Before tn all Marines were volunteers as they are today. .
World War II ended so abruptly in August 1945 that of the nation’s first acts was to discharge men and word t who had signed up for “the duration and six months^ One’s choice, in the big war, was to enlist as a regular four years or gamble that the war would end sooner 1 that and enroll for the duration. It was a whimsical cn° i for many, but throughout the conflict, the regulars adop^ a superior attitude toward all others and the volunte lorded it over the draftees.
Proceedings / October
The medical corpsmen who treated these forlorn Chosin Reservoir Marines for frostbite couldn’t tell—nor can we— who were Regulars and who were Reservists.
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time a 'l. 1 U d'st'nction without a difference as was proven p°Ses , a8a'n °n many a bloody Pacific beach. One sup- they (,Ut tbe “lifers” of that era resented the truism that class j3 Wa'ted as long as four years to make private first pany f Peacetime and then found themselves in the com- °f serv' Sergeants ancl corporal types with less than a year rose ev1Ce‘ tbe otl’er hand> the cadre of prewar Marines 'iream ^ Iri0re swfftly to pay grades beyond their wildest UsuSjln the great expansion.
sentni£.a °n^ one battle was enough to erase such re- a°d re S ^ new distinction then arose between veterans I tyej] ^ aceiT|ents from Guadalcanal to the end of the war. the 7tKe^Cmber returning to Pavuvu with the survivors of andth /*ar'nes from the high-casualty battle for Peleliu tound aU.ghty way we treated the green replacements we home kVa*^ng 'n our tents at the 1st Marine Division’s fivease' ^hen a shipment of 3.2 beer arrived, I had 3,000 ^eS an<^ was regimental beer NCO. I drew beer for We T’ ^Ut *ssued ‘t only to the Peleliu veterans, as, “j.a so greeted the newcomers with such hoary lines “I’ve drawn rnore sea-bags than you have socks” and It js pr ®0(1 *n more pay lines than you have*chow lines.” must n°bab,y a basic premise of mankind that strangers hut thVC 'hcmselves before they are accepted.
Was not h- ^°rea Phenomenon of regular versus reserve tenCe faseci °n experience of war but on the mere exis- co]0rs° the letter “R.” There were men called to the Were • 0r service in Korea who were not even sure they clearer0 a*16 reserves- Today, the distinction is much Vvhich ^ reservist is either Class II Ready Reserve, eiUergemeans be can be mobilized by the President in an Ser>tiallnCy’ °r tbe Class HI Inactive Reserve, which es- the ls a computer list of names. The mobilization of Maner category requires an act of Congress. been de tbe Marines mobilized in 1950 and 1951 had Uever ,em°bilized five years before in a great hurry and large nreamed they would be involved in another war. A had moUm':)er Were not attached to any reserve units, and
ilies- . rt,gages’ good jobs, and were well into raising fam-
CrUsh t^blcb had not been the case when they joined up to The e, ^aPanese and the Nazis years earlier.
Peop]eWflole chmate was different. In World War II, the since tbe United States were united as never before or the sul le mobilization of manpower and industry, and Atperj Se9uent rationing for total war, affected every Thg an °n the homefront during the big war.
Korcae Was no such across-the-board mobilization for ll, 5 0r Vietnam. There were never more than seven ' ,visions in Korea. It was a war you really did not
have to attend unless you wanted to or unless you were for one reason or another in the reserve forces. The people at home were affected only to the extent that many had friends or relatives in Korea. It was a limited war guided by the political decision that the United States would settle for a tie.
Reservists were not called up for Vietnam, a factor that made it easy for the reserve units to maintain full rosters. I chose to remain in the Ready Reserve after Korea, and I am well aware that many men joined the reserve to avoid the draft. In the years of Vietnam and beyond, the Marine Corps made considerable changes in the training of reservists to dull the edges of distinction. One of the wisest methods was the now current practice of sending organized reserve units to train alongside regulars not only in North Carolina and California but in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Turkey, Greece, and the Caribbean, more attractive places to the young Marine than the pines of Camp Lejeune or 29 Palms in the Mojave Desert.
The Marine Corps will always have salty souls who speak of how it was in “the Old Corps” and look down their noses at the downy-cheeked youths who haye never heard a shot fired in anger. And I find myself wondering when “the Old Corps” began. In 1942, I stood in awe of men who bore the label of “China Marines” or who had the palest of khaki and the whitest of herringbone utilities.
I think, for me, the “Old Corps” died when the Marines gave up the cordovan leather high-top dress shoes for the low-quarter black shoe used by all the other forces.
There is no precision to when a “boot” Marine ceases being a figure of scorn. And one cannot say that regulars feel superior to reservists or vice versa today, because there is no more draft, and no person is a reservist except by choice.
But, in 1951, there was something about the interruption of normal life that came as much as a shock to reservists as the North Korean attack was to this nation. The rancor most certainly did not damage the fighting power of the Marine Corps. I think we expected at least to be thanked when we showed up in Korea, and it was hard to explain to us that some of the regulars had to remain behind in order to train new Marines coming along.
In the end, we came home grateful to have survived a war we did not expect, and, either overtly or secretly, proud to have been there. Unfortunately, all of us did not come home, and there are more than enough widows and fatherless children who will never forget that.
But it all comes down to one premise. Reserves and regulars are two different strains of the Corps’ symbolic bulldog which, “If he isn’t fighting or frolicking, he’s sitting on his tail and growling.” They can both do the same heroic things and both bleed the same way. They both look pretty in their uniforms of blue, and in the face of the enemy, the lifetime plank-holder and the men with the USMCR are brothers under their skins.
53
ln®s' October 1984