Captain Whitmer’s defining feature was calm. He spoke slowly, choosing every word, asking about IOC, my family, my background. His office felt soundproof, and the bustle in the hallway receded. Answering his questions, I thought I sounded loud and inarticulate. But it wasn’t an interrogation. Whitmer laughed easily and soon put me at ease.
Once we got down to business, he seemed to know exactly what was on my mind. Each of an infantry battalion’s three rifle companies has a primary means of getting to and from its objectives: helicopters, amphibious assault vehicles called “amtracs,” and rubber Zodiac boats. At IOC, we’d learned that most Marines go ashore by helo. Our consensus was that if we were stationed near the relatively warm Atlantic, boats would be impractical but fun. In the cold Pacific, boats would be miserable. Now Whitmer said, “Hope you don’t mind freezing — Bravo Company is boats.”
Next he told me that I would command Bravo’s weapons platoon. Each infantry company has four platoons — three rifle and one weapons. Leading a rifle platoon, forty Marines with M-16s, is a new lieutenant’s typical first job. But weapons platoon is different. Its forty-five Marines are divided into sections for machine guns, assault rockets, and mortars, the bulk of the company’s firepower. Since employing the weapons platoon is complex, its commander is usually a senior first lieutenant who’s already led a rifle platoon. Captain Whitmer asked if I was comfortable taking weapons on my first day in the Fleet.
“Yes, sir. Absolutely.” In fact, absolutely not.
Whitmer nodded with a smile that said he understood my reservation but expected me to figure it out. “Go ahead and get settled. The company’s in the field until this afternoon.” Standing to shake my hand, Whitmer said, “I do things a bit differently, as you’ll see.”
Bravo Company’s four platoons shared an office down the hall from Captain Whitmer’s. Lockers filled with tactics manuals and gym clothes lined the walls, and Marine posters covered the empty spaces between lockers. The smell reminded me of my high school football coach’s office — rancid sweat, stale coffee, and disinfectant. Eight desks were pushed together to make an island in the center, one each for the four platoon commanders and platoon sergeants. I carried my gear from the supply warehouse and piled it in an empty locker. Then I grabbed a manual about weapons platoon from a shelf near the door and sat down to read.
IOC primarily trained rifle platoon commanders. Weapons platoons, unlike their rifle counterparts, don’t fight as units under a single commander. The machine gun and assault sections frequently beef up the rifle platoons to augment their firepower. The mortar section provides mortar fire for the whole company, usually controlled by the company commander and the rifle platoon commanders. With all his Marines working for other people, the weapons platoon commander serves as the company’s fire support coordinator. This means controlling artillery, air strikes, and bombardment from naval ships — complicated missions I had never practiced; missions that would kill many people if I screwed them up. I had a lot to learn and little time to do it.
When Bravo Company hiked onto the parade deck that afternoon, I went outside to watch. I hoped to catch a glimpse of my platoon, but the Marines were indistinguishable in two long lines of dusty green. A lieutenant smeared with camouflage paint separated from the mass of troops and walked toward me. He stooped beneath body armor and a vest festooned with smoke grenades, flares, a knife, and canteens. His rucksack stuck out on both sides of his body, and a whip antenna swayed above his head.
“You must be the new weapons guy,” he said as he lumbered right past me. Without stopping, he added, “I’m Patrick English, First Platoon commander. Come into the office. I have to drop this gear.”
Inside, Patrick’s ruck thudded onto the floor, and he shrugged out of his web gear. Sweat soaked the uniform beneath. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.” He stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Bravo Company.” Patrick cracked open a Gatorade bottle and sat on one of the desks. He was a New Yorker, sharp-featured with close-cropped hair. Patrick had played lacrosse at Holy Cross and worked in the district attorney’s office in Manhattan before starting OCS.
It seemed as if we should be talking about work, but I barely even knew the right questions. “So what’s coming up on the calendar?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
He replied that the company would spend the next four months on conventional infantry skills such as shooting and patrolling. Then in February, the battalion would be attached to the Fifteenth Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) as its ground combat element. A MEU (SOC), I knew from TBS, is a seaborne task force of two thousand Marines built around an infantry battalion and a helicopter squadron. At any given time, one is deployed from the West Coast and one from the East Coast. We would hone our MEU skills for six months, mostly raids in the boats. Then in August 2001, the Fifteenth MEU would sail from San Diego to cruise the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf for six months, training with foreign forces and acting as first responders in case of a crisis.
Every few minutes, Marines came into the office to update Patrick on the count of his platoon’s weapons, the status of missing equipment, or the progress of paperwork for people’s promotions and other training exercises. He bantered with me and gave them instructions without even pausing. I was surprised to learn he’d been at 1/1 for only two months.
He talked fast, describing the battalion and its key personalities, and starting with what I most wanted to hear: “Captain Whitmer’s fucking solid — best CO in the battalion.” He then assured me that “the LPA gets together for beer and tacos every Thursday night up near San Juan Capistrano.” I knew about this venerable tradition: every unit has an informal Lieutenants’ Protective Association. “Some guys,” Patrick confided, referring to the battalion’s other platoon commanders, “have to lean on each other since they have weak platoon sergeants. I don’t have that problem, and you won’t either.”
Every young lieutenant remembers meeting his platoon sergeant. The relationship between a fresh officer and his salty second-in-command is almost as mythic as boot camp. Patrick and I were still talking when Staff Sergeant Keith Marine walked into the office. The first thing I noticed about him were his ears, sticking out from his regulation haircut like fins on a fish. The second thing I noticed was his remarkable name. I didn’t comment on it, figuring he’d heard too much already on that score.
Marine quickly dispelled any mythic overtones our first encounter might have had: “Sir, you’re sitting in my chair.” He insisted we go out for coffee — “it’s a tradition for officers to buy” — to talk about tactics and training plans for the platoon. We traded autobiographies on the walk across the parade deck to the chow hall.
Staff Sergeant Marine had grown up in the coal country of West Virginia. Even without his name, Marine’s background seemed to destine him for the Corps. His grandfather had served as a Marine in the bloody campaigns of Bougainville, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. His grandfather’s brother had been killed at Leyte Gulf, where my grandfather had fought. Marine had already served ten years in the infantry. Before that, he had been stalking deer with a rifle while I had been playing with blocks. He had spent the last year working for the gunner, the battalion’s weapons expert, and knew every detail of every infantry weapon in most of the world’s militaries.
“So,” I asked, “how do you think the M-16 stacks up?” Most Marine grunts carry M-16s. The Corps instills in a young Marine an intense, almost obsessive attachment to his rifle.