Another Crazy War Story

I was going over my diary history, and I realized I promised this community the story of my service in the Marine Corps Band as a clarinetist.  The great injustice of that period in my life is that my entire enlistment, until I moved from the band in late 2003, was predicated on a lie, and not one of the usual lies that nabs most people out of high school, but a super-duper lie.  Couple that with the fact that the 1st Marine Division Band has the most ironic of all jobs when deployed, and we have one singular tale.    

I was hot shit on the clarinet in high school.  I fucking loved the marching band, and I loved playing music.  For an example of my mad clarineting skills one need look no further than our families home movies, in which the sounds and images of me rocking the featured solo during my senior year show are documented for posterity (a clarinet solo in a marching show was unheard of during that time in the band).  I thought I was Bennie fucking Goodman.  

It was also about this time that the military recruiters started courting me.  I had taken the ASVAB (an aptitude test the military administers to high school students) simply to get out of class, and my above average brain complimented my ability to pull a trigger.  At first I was dismissive, but when I found out each branch had openings for musician I was intrigued.  I didn't feel ready for college yet, having slacked my way through all my classes, and if the military would pay me to do something I loved, why wouldn't I?  I mean, we were experiencing an unprecedented period of peace.

Oh, I forgot to mention that.  I signed up in a pre-9/11 world.  In fact the towers came down while I was in boot camp, changing the tenor of my entire enlistment.

My friends were all against me joining, but I assured them that: a) nothing would happen, and b) in the event of conflict, the band would be the last line of defense before the Boy Scouts.  Carnac I am not.

Now, when one joins the military they have two recruiters, a normal one and one specialized for the band that auditions you.  This dichotomy is understandable, but it also guarantees band a young recruit is fed twice the bullshit.  Add on top of the fact I was trying to join the Marines (if I was going to join, I was going to join right) and you have one confused kid.

So the time comes for me to audition for the recruiter, and my Achilles Heel was always auditions.  I would always get nervous and blow it.  This audition was no different; I was terrible.  Still, despite this awful performance, I got into the program.  I was thrilled.  One step closer to being a professional musician.

Flash forward one year later, and I'm struggling to get through the School of Music.  I'm practicing over twenty hours a week, and I still can't pass the final audition to pass the program.  After my second time failing the damn thing I give in.  I realize that I'm not going to pass the audition, no matter how hard I work at it.  I don't have the skills.

By chance, the guy who gave me my very first audition, the recruiter, was an instructor at the school when I was a student.  After having failed my final audition (twice now) I get a chance to talk to this guy, and I say, "Gunny, I couldn't believe you took me based on that first audition."

Gunny replies, "I couldn't either, but I needed a clarinet."  

BAM.  Talk about your wake up calls. I was never good enough to do this thing, and I only got as far as I did in the school by hard work.  

Now, the government has spent all this money training me to be a musician and they don't want to waste it, so they send me to Camp Pendleton's band in OJT (On the Job) training status.  Essentially, I'm part of the band without being part of the band.  I don't know why I didn't just ask for a new occupation, because the ensuing year of my life was easily the worst ever.  Imagine not being good at your job, and you can't quit or be fired, only yelled at.  It was horrible.

And here's where things get really weird.

Camp Pendleton is home of the 1st Marine Division, and when the Division deploys, the band deploys with them.  Now, one might ask here what function the band might possibly serve in a war zone.  Well, I'll tell you.  The band, when forward deployed, is a heavy machine gun platoon in charge of perimeter security for Headquarters Battalion, the brain of the Division.  

So here I am, in Camp Pendleton, training on an automatic grenade launcher, preparing for war.  When in country I don't see my clarinet for months.  The only thing I see is a filthy, disgusting fighting hole and the faces of the other members of my fire team.  It's exactly the opposite of the thing I signed up for, and all I can do is go with it.

Imagine that.  A bunch of geeky musician (and it doesn't matter if one puts them in uniform, band members are still geeks) running around with 50 caliber machine guns and digging fighting holes.  Really, what the fuck?

Eventually I moved away from the band (my lack of skills) to combat camera, where I worked as a videographer and was happier, at least marginally.  I do two years and one tour in that designation, and then I'm out.  

For all I know the Camp Pendleton band my be deployed right now, and there may be some naive kid struggling through what is the most surreal experience I've ever had.

At least it's a funny story.

•  There, it's told

  Weird, right?

  by filmgeek83 on Sun Oct 21, 2007 at 08:13:24 PM PDT

  •  band geeks running around with .50 cals

    yikes!

    Cool story, 83. Sorry i came in late—no recs allowed :-(

    by subtropolis on Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 08:36:04 PM PDT

    •  Heh.. that was me in '82-'86...

      VERY scary...

      by Cali Techie on Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 09:14:02 PM PDT

      •  "LET ME SEE YOUR WAR FACE!"

        ARRRRAGHHH!

        by subtropolis on Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 05:27:20 PM PDT

  •  Glad to see you're still alive.

    My brother spent 9 years in the Marines as an electronics technician. Luckily he got out well before 9/11, I'll bet there's plenty of technicians with guns in their hands wondering "What the Fuck!!!!"

    by SteveLCo on Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 09:16:00 PM PDT

•  sounds like a tragic story to me

  by dancewater on Sun Oct 21, 2007 at 08:32:45 PM PDT

•  GREAT story, fg.

  As an old band freddie, I can see where you were coming from.

  So every marine clarinetist is a rifleman, right?

  by Pacific John on Sun Oct 21, 2007 at 08:32:56 PM PDT

  •  Every Marine is a rifleman!

    by VClib on Sun Oct 21, 2007 at 08:35:41 PM PDT

•  heh

  This is a great diary.  I always wondered about what the fuck the band guys do when they're deployed, while I was in the Army.

  If it's anything like the Marines, now I know.

  by bjones on Sun Oct 21, 2007 at 09:30:58 PM PDT

  •  Army is NOTHING like the Marines!

    Heh.

    OK, for the band, it might be pretty much the same.

    by subtropolis on Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 08:37:43 PM PDT

•  I'm glad your story

  got rescued, or I'd have never seen it. And it's an interesting tale-something I've often wondered about. My daughter is a junior in high school with many musician friends. I'll use this as a cautionary tale in case any of them get ideas similar to yours'. Thanks. Glad you're OK.

  by coolsub on Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 08:31:06 PM PDT

•  Congrats on the rescue

  Very much enjoyed your diary. Sorry to be too late to tip or recommend.

  I hope you'll write more in the future.

  by truong son traveler on Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 08:47:01 PM PDT

•  Glad you shared this.

  And glad you're ok.  What a story!

  by LAMaestra on Mon Oct 22, 2007 at 09:43:16 PM PDT

•  Excellent

  You should compile a book about your experience. I'm sure it would sell. Stuff like that always does.

  by Fischer on Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 03:41:50 AM PDT

•  Thanks for an excellent tale.

  Glad it made diary rescue.

  < Rescue Rangers, you guys are great at finding the diary gems! >

  by Naniboujou on Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 06:43:03 AM PDT

•  My story isn't terribly different from yours

  I was trying to add this comment when the site was so rudely taken down for maintenance...

  And my story isn't much different than yours. I aced (top 2%) the ASVAB in HS (substitute Jr. Year for standardized test) and recruiters were swarming me. The Navy wanted me for nukes really badly but I didn't want to glow in the dark, the Army just wanted me, but Dad was in the Army and warned against it, that left the Air Force and Marines.

  The audition for the Air Force was basically send them a tape and they'd get back to you. If they liked you, they'd eventually send a recruiter. The Marine recruiter actually came by the school and tracked me down because of my ASVAB scores. He asked me what I wanted to do and I told him Band (I was the hot shit Sax and Tuba - yes tuba player in my HS at the time). So they sent the big cheese Major down from HQMC to audition me (and about 5 other people). I figured I'd do it to get a good critique of my solos prior to the big three state contest. I auditioned on sax an tuba.. two days later the recruiter said the wanted me on sax so if I'd sign on the dotted line...

  I was 18, so my parents didn't have to sign for me and I wanted out of the little town where I grew up and away from the 'rents. I went delayed entry and one month after graduation I found myself at MCRD San Diego where I should have washed out because I so totally sucked at PT. I was a skinny little thing with no upper body strength and the first person ever put in Physical Conditioning Platoon for being too thin (I weighed less than 120 lbs). I have this fear of heights so they had to peel me off of the A-frame on the confidence course and I had tendinitis in both ankles throughout most of basic. Still I kept acing all of the tests they had me take and the company commander kept calling me the egghead.

  Towards the end of basic, they pulled about 10 of us aside, told us we were special and that if we wanted we could change our contracts to "open" and be placed into other fields. I was offered Presidential Duty (Camp David only because I was too short for the White House - I'm under 5'10"), Marine Enlisted Commissioning Program (where they send you to college), Foreign Language School (they specifically mentioned learning Russian), or Military Intelligence. No explanation as to the perks or implications of doing it, they just said I had 5 minutes to make a decision. I opted to stay right where I was, in the band, kicking back, growing my hair, and playing my sax.

  The USMC had other plans for me. The School of Music at the time was located at the same base the MI (military intelligence) school was (and may still be). I guess they figured I wouldn't notice the change in MOS to MI (my recruiter told me what it would be and I had it memorized), but I did and made them correct it.

  My experiences at the SOM were not that different from yours and I think they were trying to get me to fail out so they could put me in MI. I had a jerk of a private teacher who would leave the room during my lesson and who totally screwed with my technique (my Senior solo at the end of year concert was Flight of the Bumblebee so I knew how to play the horn - I was crazy enough to play it on Baritone Sax). I barely made it through the first audition test, and I told my instructor if I didn't make the second one I was going to have his ass on a platter for being such a sucky teacher (dereliction of duty for leaving the room during my lessons). I paid for private lessons from a Chief Petty Officer (another teacher at the school) during the weekends and he got me back on track. They made me play crazy stuff they usually made the Advanced Course students play but I made it through.

  I spent time in the Parris Island and Hawaii bands but didn't re-enlist because I had come out about six months before the end of my contract and well, being gay wasn't exactly in line with a military career even though pretty much everyone in the band was cool with it. The real reason I got out was because I made a horrible Marine. I questioned everything and had a hard time dealing with the whole blind obedience to orders thing. I was constantly in trouble for that and more than once I stood up to the asshole drum major when he was on a rampage.

  I was lucky though, while I "saw" combat from a distance in the Korean DMZ - I was surprised they were still shooting at each other some 30 years after the "end" of the Korean War, I wasn't directly in the line of fire as our combat mission at the time was to be security for the General and he tended to stay a safe distance away from anything pointed at us. It was really boring walking the perimeter of the camp. We weren't a heavy machine gun unit though, although that's what I did (we did not go to combat school at the time). I didn't mind so much because I rarely had to carry the damn thing. I got to ride in the jeep and pack a .45 when we trained or carried a shotgun while on patrol, which I almost had to use once in Hawaii.

  Oh, and the Air Force? They finally got around to listening to my audition tape almost a year after I had already enlisted in the Marines. When the recruiter stopped by to tell me they wanted me I was already in the Armed Forces School of Music (a.k.a. the School of Matrimony).

  Congrats on the rescue. It brought back memories, some fun, some not so fun.

  by Cali Techie on Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 11:19:45 PM PDT