Marine life can be an enormous challenge. Yet it is through challenges that we become stronger, more capable and more resilient. We are renowned for our ability as individuals and as an organization to overcome any obstacle in any situation. A tried and true method for Marines to overcome challenges on the job is through humor. In this community question, Essex County Leathernecks share the following stories.
Name: Bill Fitzgerald
Years of service: 1966 – 1967
MOS: 0311 Infantry Rifleman
Rank: E4
Back from Vietnam, Bill was an inpatient and recovering in the amputee ward at St Albans Naval Hospital in New York. It was like many other Saturday nights in the ward in that Marines were lying in their beds in open wards and watching a Saturday night movie. Each Marine had a small TV on the night stand next to the bed. The movie that night was one with John Wayne. Even though the hospital had a firm rule that lights out was at 10 PM sharp, the amputee ward was granted an extra hour on Saturdays to finish the movie.
On this particular Saturday night the hospital was having a dance and the ward had a tough battle axe of a nurse who filled in for the regular hospital personnel. The nurse insisted lights were out at 10 PM and that included the TVs despite knowing this ward had an exception. When Marines refused to comply and turn off the TVs, the nurse took matters into her own hands and began unplugging the TVs, moving some to the center of the room and still some others ended up outside the window.
The ward was in absolute chaos. Patients were pounding metal pans on bed frames. Security was called in to try and restore order to the Marines. The Marines responded – oh yeah, what are you going to do, send us to Vietnam? The patients continued to give the nurse the riot act. Bill laughed so hard he thought he would never stop. A Navy person was called in to try and restore order. He was not successful. However, he went upstairs to the Marine officer amputee ward and brough down a Marine to tell them to behave. To this Marine officer the ward did indeed give him the respect he deserved and quieted down.
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