TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

John Burwell Wilkes
given me the last time I had seen him. The recon Marine reached in his
pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife and asked, “Is this it?” The
“JBW” carved in the handle sealed the deal, and the recon Marine
insisted I take it back. I still have it.
One of the most memorable days of my life, if not one of the most
stressful, came when 1stProv was selected to be inspected by the
Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Leonard Chapman. I
would like to think we were selected for our reputation, but I realize it
was probably because one of our next door neighbors on the firebase
was a 105 battery commanded by Capt. Harvey Barnum, the recipient
of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery during his first
tour in Viet Nam as a forward observer. But when the helicopter with
all the stars landed, they all came straight to me first. Gen. Chapman,
of course, had four stars; LtGen Cushman, the I Corps commander,
and the Army’s LtGen Stilwell each had three. MajGen Davis, the
Third Division commander, had two and BGen Garrottson, the task
force commander, had one for a total of thirteen.
We had plenty of warning, so we were ready for inspection beyond
anyone’s expectations. Lt Ferrari had gone to Quang Tri and done his
magic. He brought back fresh clean utilities for the troops, diesel fuel
to clean the howitzers, black shoe polish for the howitzers’ tires, new
green plastic sandbags to line the gun pits, and much more, including a
new serialized piece of gear that cost thousands of dollars and was
certainly the property of the U.S. Army and not the U.S. Marine
Corps.
I had been very upset with how the engineers had built one of our
gun pits. The howitzer that sat in this particular pit could not be used
because of the steepness of the adjacent drop off. Howitzers are aimed
by moving the sight to the commanded deflection, then swinging the
gun barrel to line up a reticule in the sight with two aiming stakes
outside the gun pit at set distances. From this particular gun pit, the
sight could not be depressed low enough to see the stakes, so we were
a three­gun battery instead of four. I was furious. Having a useless gun
is an artilleryman’s worst sin.
Ferrari somehow brought me back a brand new, never used
collimator. It looked like a fat telescope on a tripod. The gunner can
aim his sight by looking through it into the collimator perched on the
edge of the gun pit. It was such a new item, the Marine Corps did not
own a single collimator as yet. The Army has always been the
country’s bastion for artillery. Ferrari would not tell me how he
acquired such a thing, wanting to protect me if things went south.
I was very happy to have my fourth gun back in action, but now the
Commandant was coming and, wouldn’t you know it, Gen. Chapman
was an artilleryman! He would surely notice the collimator and
probably recognize what it was. I agonized about taking it down and
hiding it, but then he might ask me how in the hell I could shoot the
gun. After several changes of mind, I opted to stay operational and
hoped he would not inspect that particular gun pit. The mission always
comes first.
When the thirteen stars piled out of the stretch Huey, Gen Chapman
led them straight to me waiting at the entrance to our position. I
saluted and bid him welcome. He said, “Let’s go see your battery,” and
immediately struck out at a fast walk toward the pit that had the
collimator! My heart almost stopped, and my knees felt like water as I
struggled to keep up. He was a tall man with a long stride, and I was in
full battle gear.
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