Basura: In Memoriam — Lance Corporal M.L. Price

“. . . And you.  Are you feeling well?”  Eli Sisters, to his mother.

 “Yes and no and in between.”  Thinking, she added, “Mostly in between.” 

 — The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt

Price died on Sept. 12, 1967, of wounds incurred in combat. I got mine shortly thereafter. He and I were the same age.  I survived my wounds; Marlin did not.

I saw the aftermath. I don’t think Marlin suffered.  Marlin was in Golf Company, 2^nd Battalion, 9^thMarines, 3^rd Marine Division (G Co., 2/9 3^rd MarDiv). My platoon was moving through a field.  Somebody had died there. We heard that he was hit trying to rescue a fallen Marine when he got hit. Then his name was said, and it was my friend Marlin.

It was shocking that a 20-year-old was dead, but not surprising. The 2/9 division was very much in the shit. We were up near the DMZ.  There was a lot of action around the Z. Most of our adversaries were North Vietnamese Army troops; most of the Viet Cong were farther south.

Marlin and I got to know each other in Hawaii. “Marlin is my name,” he said. Our names were stenciled on our green utility shirts. They would show the first two initials, followed by the surname. His shirt said ML Price.  “Marlin, “he said, “like the fish.

Our first duty station was in an infantry battalion of a regiment, stationed on the Island of Oahu in the State of Hawaii. For a time, at what is now called Marine Base Hawaii, Marlin and I were in Flames, where a small contingent of us trained on the use of the M-2/M-2A1 flamethrower. We’d both been classified as MOS 0311/0351, meaning that our military occupational specialties were as riflemen and anti-tank assault men. As 0351s, we were trained with 3.5” rocket launchers (kind of like the old bazookas) and the flamethrower.

In Hawaii we trained with the M-2s, weighed 78 pounds, loaded. They consisted of two tanks, each about the size of a scuba tank, and a third smaller tank nestled between the two. The big tanks were for fuel, and little one for compressed air. This was all connected by a hose to the gun, which was to be aimed at the target. The right hand was on the trigger mechanism, controlling the spray.  The left hand would squeeze the grip on the forestock, and light one of the matches.  That would ignite the fuel.

There were six matches, which could be deployed before, after, or during the spraying of the fuel. These matches were large and heavy duty, and bore little resemblance to a household match.  Fuel could be either fuel oil, or napalm, which is jellied gasoline.  Napalm burns hotter, and is sticky.

In Vietnam, Price and I carried M-16s. Flamethrowers were nasty business, and I certainly didn’t relish the thought of operating one. I don’t think Price did, either. Not that the Marine Corps asked us our preferences. I ended up at Great Lakes Naval Hospital, in Waukegan, Ill., my home for many months. Price was not that lucky.

In Hawaii, we traipsed around the countryside (went on field maneuvers) and camped (bivouacked), totin’ our guns (armed). If we were hauling flamethrowers, they’d be unloaded, or filled with water, so that we had the experience of being burdened by the substantial weight. I loved employing civilian language when I could get away with it. It was aspirational; I had every intention of returning to non-military life as soon as my hitch was up.

On one exercise to the nearby Hawaiian island of Molokai, we went out with two men per flamethrower, water loaded. One guy carried the M/2, and the other guy carried his own gear and that of the other Marine.  It turned out that two loads of gear was slightly heavier than the loaded gun. Guys would switch off.  It was often rather challenging, but – and there’s always a big but somewhere – nobody was shooting at us in the jungles of Hawaii.

Marlin and I were from different places. I was from suburban Detroit. Marlin was from a small mining town in Alabama. His speech sounded different to me, as I’m sure mine did to him.

One thing I recall fondly was Marlin teaching me to sing old Southern folk songs when we were on field maneuvers.  There were lots of old songs that he knew, and I don’t remember them all, with 50 years having gone by. Marlin had a nice singing voice, and mine must have been OK, I’m guessing; we didn’t get many complaints.  Songs like:

Some folks say that tramps don’t steal,

But I caught three,

In my field.

One had a bushel,

One had a peck,

An’ one had a roastin’ ear,

Tied round his neck.

There were songs about dogs.  There were songs about whiskey rivers.  There were more songs than I remember.

Marlin talked of his family, and it was clear he had a love for all of them.  His mother was a gem. His father was, too, but flawed, as gems sometimes can be. Daddy Price was a huge man, very tall and solidly built. Daddy Price liked to have a few drinks on payday, when the miners got paid. He was kind and gentle man, which was fortunate, given his size. He’d spent a long work week underground, extracting coal, and his throat was dry from all that dust. Mama Price would send Marlin to call him home for dinner.  Daddy Price was always agreeable, and he and Marlin would walk home together.

Marlin went to Miner High School. The principal approached Marlin once, and said that it looked to him like Marlin would be working the mines sooner or later, and suggested that Marlin just get on with it; he wasn’t doing anything distinguished in school, so why not just call it good, and get into the mine. It was a mining town. There were rows of company houses, with a commissary – a company store – in the middle.

Marlin dropped out of school. He may have worked some, but he had the idea of finding a way out. He joined the United States Marine Corps. Price would get his GED, see some of the world, and decide, when his time was up, to re-enlist, or try something else. But not coal mining.

On Boot Leave he married his sweetheart, Mary. She was 17.  Marlin was sent to Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay (now Marine Base Hawaii) as his first duty station. He wanted Mary to join him there. It was too frightening a change for a young girl that had never been anywhere, and she stayed in Alabama.

We did lots of field maneuvers in Hawaii.  Our weekends were usually our own, and there were many attractions in Honolulu and elsewhere on Oahu. But 1/27 was deactivated, and we were all sent to Vietnam as replacement troops. Marlin and I ended up near the DMZ, in different platoons in the same company.

One of the weird things that punishes one’s mind, as a survivor, is the comparative voids caused by an early death. I had a couple girlfriends, but if I had gone I wouldn’t have left behind a widow. Why was it he died and I didn’t? I was a good enough guy, maybe even a little above average, but Marlin seemed to me to be a great guy.

It didn’t seem fair. But, of course, life is not fair. Neither is war.