The term "culture shock" doesn't begin to describe my transition from Marine Infantry Unit Leader, (0369) to novice Air Support Control Officer, (6708), and if people thought Fab's piece was a "tome", this may rank as the Encyclopedia Americana!!
I was selected for attendance at the 4th Warrant Officer's Screening Course, (along with Fab), in October 1962 while deployed with 3rd Battlion, !st Marines during the Cuban Missle Crisis serving as a Flame Section Leader. After the Russian Missile ships turned around, and we "stood down" from our combat alert, I was notified by the Battalion CO that I had been selected to attend the WOSC and even indicated I would have a 6708 MOS. My first question was, what the hell is a 6708?! No one in the battalion could answer that, but the battalion ALO "thought" it had something to do with air control. Since I had been the Assistant S3 Chief of my previous battalion, I had observed our TACP in action many times, and thought to myself maybe I will be a FAC or something like that. In fact some of the WO's selected before me did in fact go to FAC school, but never worked as FAC's and none of my group even went to school. We all ended up in MASS-1 or MASS-3 where we learned our trade through OJT and some more formalized training developed by some of our predecessors, (at least that was the case in MASS-1). So, long story short, after completion of T&T and The Basic School I was assigned to the 2nd MAW, and subsequently down to MASS-1.
Early on I decided I liked the ASRT controlling more than working in the DASC, and when the ASRT Training Officer departed the Squadron shortly after I arrived and became qualified, I became the ASRT Training Officer.
I spent the next 2.5 years training what seemed like an endless stream of 2nd. Lieutenants and only escaped that duty when I received orders to WestPac in May 1966. Upon arrival in RVN I was assigned to the MASS-2 Detachment at Chu Lai and served as SAD in the DASC for one month before moving to the ASRT. I stayed in the ASRT at Chu Lai for 2 months then moved to the ASRT at Danang for 2 months before moving on up to Dong Ha where I became OIC of that ASRT. During all of that tour I normally had only two controllers, which meant we got a LOT of "stick time"! During this RVN tour I controlled 1875 missions, delivering in excess of 10 million pounds of ordnance, and encomppassing an estimated 6 to 8 thousand individual ASRT strikes. These figures may not be a record, but I expect they are a pretty darn good average!
On completion of that tour, I returned to the 2nd. MAW and was assigned duty as an officer assignment officer within the G-1. I was promoted to Capt. during that assignment and through the efforts of Lt. Col. Fran Nelson, CO 3rd. LAAM Bn., I was assigned to his Bn., with further orders to attend HAWK School at Ft. Bliss, TX. Upon completion of school I returned to the Bn. to discover that I had been appointed CO of H&S Battery 2 days earlier! After a year of internecine fights with the various staff sections and HAWK maintenance, I was re-assigned, (reprieved!!), as the CO of Delta Battery. The Battery had a very successful shoot at Vieques Isaland, (three for three), during my tenure and then I received orders to report to Ft. Bliss for duty! Initially I was assigned as the Operations Officer for the HAWK Missile Div., then moved up to assume duties as the Operations Officer of the Low Altitude Air Defense Department.
In June of 71 I headed off once more to 1st MAW, but to my chagrin, I learned the Wing was back in Japan for all practical purposes.
As any of you who happened to be in the Wing at that time will remember it was a case of not being able to plug the pipe line, so the Wing had more officers than they knew what to do with. In fact I ended up in a hooch sleeping on double deck bunks with 2nd. Lieutenants! Needless to say I was not a happy camper. So, "working my bolt" as quickly as possible I was able to manage a move to the ASRT at Cubi Point , P.I. and remained there as the nominal OIC for the remainder of my tour. One interesting aspect of my tour at Cubi was the "opportunity"?? to act as the 1st. MAW Liaison for the re-entry of VMFA-232 into RVN. During that period I was using a secure comm channel provided by the USN to talk to the staff sections of the Wing as well as on one occasion with the CG himself! During one conversation with the G-3, he told me to inform the CO of 232 to launch. Assuming the CO knew where he was supposed to launch to, I gave him the message, but he said, "launch to where"? When I relayed this to the G-3 a discussion ensued with me telling the G-3 the CO didn't know where he was supposed to take the squadron and the G-3 insisting he did. Finally the CG got on the line and literally screamed, "DANANG", which I relayed to the CO, and off they went!
Upon completion of this tour it was back to Cherry Point and MASS-1 again and right back into the ASRT Training Officer slot. Since I now had my 20 years in, and I had trained about all the "nuggets" a man could be expected to face, I put in for retirement. However during a briefing for the CG about the capability of using the TPQ-10 for measuring dive angles for attack aircraft on the Cherry Point bombing ranges, (which our radar officer, 1stLt. Tilden Click, with very little assistance from me, actually devised!), the CO informed the CG that I was about to retire. The CG, (MG Tom Miller), then put the full court press on me to stay in and asked what would I want if I did stay in. I told him since I was already a 7208/7204, I would like to go to the MACS controllers school and be assigned to MACS-6. He said consider it done and a few months later, myself, Captain Nick Shuck, and Captain John Schessler headed off to 29 Palms! We shared a rented mobile home while attending the school and I will let it suffice to say that I could write a novel about that period of time! Upon completion of the controllers course Nick and I reported in to MACS-6 and John went, (I think), back to a MACG-28 billet. During my period of service with MACS-6 I was an SAD most of the time with an additional duty as the Simulator officer. In addition I was assigned as the MTDS Maintenance officer for several months until Vance White reported in and saved me!! Needless to say, the MTDS techs were probably laughing up their sleeves everytime they had to tell the Gunner what was wrong with the system. In any case I had two great CO's during that tour, LtCol Don Cormack and LtCol Charlie Goddard, and a Super C& E Officer in Major Al Crosier, (one of my 4th WOSC compatriots) and considered the tour a great experience and I had a lot of fun to boot!
In 1977 I was surprised to receive orders to MAD Point Mugu, CA to assist in the testing of the AN/TPQ-27. The MAD had been selected as the test director for the system with able assistance from MCTSSA.
The only comment I will make about that tour is that while enjoyable and challenging, I was disappointed in the fact that I am convinced that we, (the Marine Corps), tested the TPQ-27 to death!! I was convinced from early on in the testing evolution that the system was sound and capable of meeting Marine Corps needs, but after millions of dollars spent in reaserch and development as well as test and evaluation, it was rejected.
Finally at this time in my career, (26+ years), I decided it was time to hang up the Blues and requested retirement. I retired on 1 May 1980 and looking back over the years I find I can say, "I didn't do all that bad in the technical world of Air Control/Air defense for a "dumb Grunt"!!
With heart felt best wishes to all of my old 7200 comrades, as well as the 0300's,
Semper Fi
Edwin J. Brown, CWO-4 Marine Gunner and Captain of Marines!
