39 thoughts on “Achilles in His Tent”

  3. JaC, this is one of the rare photos of me in uniform. Looking back on it I wish I had (taken) more.

    This was taken in the Northern Training Area in Okinawa, Japan. Later that year we were floating near Seoul, Korea as a show of force during the 1988 Summer Olympics. Rob Paz was still alive.

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  5. There were many signs on bars and restaurants that said: No Americans.

    Unfortunately, there is always a Marine or Sailor who commits some heinous crime and the protests would begin anew. Most of our forces were moved off Okinawa to Guam due to pressure from Japan. I recommended during one of our (US only) first high-level discussions we move our military forces to Cambodia instead of Guam. You can see that, even though my thinking and points were flawless, I lost that argument too.

    https://www.eutimes.net/2017/12/us-marine-sentenced-to-life-in-japan-for-rape-murder-of-okinawa-woman/

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      3. Well D’Nanda, I almost got laughed out of the room, and maybe neither my thinking nor points were flawless. What I do believe is that our government should have studied Cambodia as an option. Maybe the move to Guam was reasonable but I wanted to have a unit deployment program from Oki and/ or Guam of a smaller Navy/Marine forward-deployed expeditionary force somewhere in southeast Asia

        My recommendation was not well received to say the least dude.

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      6. Oops, a more general “pivot to the Pacific”; closer coordination w/the fleet; looking at reallocation of land-based capabilities. Not referring specifically to Cambodia, in this instance, sir…

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      1. Everything from teaching in Somalia now/security for advisor teams, to the recent events in Iran, to the British Royals, to teaching a class in Feb. re: responsibility to speak up about policy differences: “Will this work?” “What happens if the operational plan hits a snag?” Moral dimensions of dissent….

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  7. ” I am older and heavier now but less muscular.”

    Wiser, and more compassionate, incredibly desirable – for those reasons, and more. -smile-

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      2. As I should. By the time that pic was taken I had already graduated from college, taught English as a second language in Chile, been to USMC boot-camp at Parris Island, SC, risen to the rank of Corpora (Cpl), been selected to go to Officer Candidate School (OCS) through the Enlisted Commissioning Program (ECP), honor grad of my OCS class, ‘demoted’ from Cpl to 2dLt then promoted to 1stLt by the time this photo was snapped. I would go on to retire as a LtCol some 20+ years later.

        My mom reminded me that I was an honor grad at OCS last time I visited her. when she read the citation to my oldest daughter. You go Mom!

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  10. Plus think of the recruiting benefits/ options. I’ve already got the next USMC recruiting posters figured out. A picture of some babe looking all exotic and written underneath her photo:

    “Join the Marines and eff your way through southeast Asia.”

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  11. I recognize this picture from your tenure in the Mischief. I knew nothing about you then, and assumed it was current; I thought I was dealing with a mere ephebe!

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  13. Once you wrote that ā€œSimonā€. Was your ā€œnom de guerre ā€œ, then in Peru you picked up ā€œTemplarā€. But why would you ever have been called Simon? Do all soldiers get a pseudonym?
    (Curiosity…put me is a bag with the other kits and drown me, if Iā€™m outta line..)

    This, as is often the case with me, is probably something the other #1s already know…?

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    1. Because I was racking up the coca paste seizures into the metric tons. The narcotraffickers did not need to know my real name. There was an open contract to put a hit on any of us in Pucallpa, Peru.

      The job was dangerous enough. Why make it more dangerous by giving your enemy, with whom you share the same cities and towns, your real name?

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      2. …and then we started seizing their precursors both as contraband being transported on water or through Customs seizures. Those two ideas came after our initial successes interdicting coca base/ paste in the riverine environment.

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    2. Few ground pounders get pseudonyms. I was on a JPAT at the time. JPATs were only Spec OPs and NSW operators. I was one of the first, maybe only, and/ or few and proud Marines on a JPAT at that time. Everybody kind of lived their ‘nom’ outside the Embassy, but without fail in the field.

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