Remembering Gunny, a Marine's Marine

Gunny was our Platoon Commander. Tall, about 6-foot-2, his military bearing and steel blue eyes could bore right through you when he made a point. With his drill instructor's hat set squarely on the top of his crew cut head, Gunny looked, acted, and was the epitome of a "Marine's Marine."

When Gunny spoke we listened, we absorbed, we followed his every command.

Gunny was a born leader. When he told us we were his final boot camp platoon and that he had gotten his orders to Vietnam, we all wanted to go with him in a grandiose, hero worship kind of way. With Gunny we knew he would keep us safe from the enemy - like a father protecting his young sons from danger. With gunny leading us we knew we would come home alive.

Gunny never came home safe, or alive. I had lost track of him after boot camp. I was shipped off to Beaufort, South Carolina and in December 1967 he was shipped off to Vietnam. In the summer of 1968 I heard that Gunny had been killed in combat. It was a shock at first. I thought Gunny too strong, too tough, and too smart for the enemy to kill.

I left the Marine Corps in 1971 when my enlistment was up. I was one of the lucky ones who never had to aim an M16 and fire at an enemy. Or be fired at. I was one of the lucky ones who had stateside duty. I was one of the lucky ones who came through unscathed. And with that, there has always been some guilt.

In April of 2003 I was assigned the duty of photographing the Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall while it made a week long visit to San Jacinto. I photographed gray haired men weeping uncontrollably when they located a buddy on the Wall. I photographed sad and ashen-faced moms and dads who came to visit their sons on the Wall. I photographed sons and daughters paying a visit to fathers they never knew. It was profoundly moving experience.

I put off looking for Gunny's name until late in the night of the first day after the crowd of visitors had thinned. I didn't know how I would react when I located and touched Gunny's name and I didn't want anyone seeing me.

"I'm looking for Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Robert Sproul," I said to one of the volunteers searching through computer files to help people locate names on the Wall.

"He's on panel 57W, line 014," the volunteer told me as she printed out the "Etched in Stone" form that had all of Gunny's information. "Do you need some help?"

"No, I can find him," I said.

I found Gunny amongst the 58,479 men and women on the Moving Wall who paid the supreme price that all wars demand. I tried to keep my hand steady as I gripped a piece of black crayon and rubbed his name on to a sheet bearing his name. I'm not ashamed to say that my eyes filled with tears when I found Gunny again after all those years.

The information was brief. Age 34, married, home of record, Ontario, Oregon; branch Marine Corps, length of service 14 years, casualty date June 13, 1968, body recovered, casualty type non-hostile, ground casualty in the Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam.

On this Memorial Day I salute you Gunny. I thank you for the lasting impression you made on this once 18-year-old some 42 years ago. And I thank you for the supreme sacrifice you made in 1968 so that Americans like myself live in freedom today.

Gunny, you truly are a "Marine's Marine."