Camp Pendleton, California
March, 1943
Dear girls,
I wish I could tell you all about it – there is so very much to tell – about what I saw and what I felt – perhaps what I felt is more important, for you will both see the sights for yourselves someday.
Really, for the first time I have realized what it means to be an American – I don’t think that I ever knew patriotism as an emotion, outside the stir in your heart at a passing flag, or the whir of drums. But if you want to make a man a patriot, send him across the country, and send him across as a Marine Officer, and in command of his troops, and you will have a zealot. There is no way of telling you the breadth, of the beauty, of the warmth the people showed – little pickaninnies in the Atlanta freight yard dancing their hearts out – then throwing back the nickels – “Free for the sojers, please, mister” – girls in New Orleans flocking to the station, and exchanging addresses so that they could write to a Marine – nice girls. And the engineer slowing down as we went through the orange groves so that the little Mexicanos could throw us fat, sweet oranges.
And the beauty of the land, the rolling red hills of Georgia, the dark, thick, black swamps of Louisiana, the endless china blue sky and calicoed hills of Texas. Desert and sage and cactus and space and solitude of Arizona – sunset behind purple hills that rise suddenly from flat plains, as though someone below had punched up into the soft tissue of the land – and the fertility of California – past all believing – after the New Mexico emptiness to find these wide valleys between snow-girthed peaks, filled with peaches, plums, and apple trees, all in ordered bloom. All the land is planned for – you are unconsciously glad that none of the rich loam is wasted, but every plant produces so luxuriantly – the cows instead of being lean and athletic, as a hundred miles back, are fat and creamy – and the orange groves – the very symbol of richness and productivity – each tree catching the essence of Kismet, Eden, and the garden of Proserpine – the largest vineyard in the world, olives, avocados, and nectarines – the whole state is unbelievably rich and satisfying in its productivity.
And I will never get used to seeing palms and cacti – from Alabama on the land is full of them, and they, too, are lovely.
Gretch, never fear about Louisiana – for if nothing else, you will be near New Orleans. And never have I been so entranced with a city in such a short time. It really is lovely – open streets with parks in the middle, planted with palms and geraniums – the houses old but clean and well kept up, everybody proud of his house because it is different from his neighbor’s, and all of the balconies in cast iron filigree, like high lace collars. Signs and names in French, and warm and sunny. You will love it.
Oh, I could go on endlessly. I will later, but I want to get this off to you all tonight.
The quarters here are those of a model camp – more than that – of a model dude ranch. And the country and climate are unparalleled – this is the perfect place to train, and the word is that we will be here for three or four months.
More tomorrow, but write me soon.
Love,
Phil
"Phil really nailed it, describing the trip west. What he didn't say was that we rode Pullman and had a big, no huge, baked ham on rye and glass of milk every night. And I know he would fail to mention that he marched us out of the station in New Orleans, in platoon formation, and each one of us got a case of beer so that when we returned every man received a bottle, with the exception of the guns and tubes and we had two. I think Buck may have had something to do with that."
- George Smith
Company A of the First Separate Battalion (Reinforced) found themselves on the West Coast. Most of them, having come straight from boot camp on Parris Island, had never been west of the Mississippi in their lives, and their reactions were likely similar to those expressed by Phil Wood. Also, any remaining question as to what theater of the War they would find themselves in was settled - they were heading in the direction of the Rising Sun. Despite Captain Schechter's worry that this significant movement would give some of his Marines cold feet, not a man deserted.
They would stay at Pendleton - which was, in fact, built on the site of Rancho Santa Margarita, hence Phil's description of the "model dude ranch" - for the next several months. The men would undergo additional training while the organization of the units involved - the 23rd Marines, which split in half to form the nucleus of the 25th Marines, and the three separate battalions that would become the 24th Marines - shifted and changed, adding and transferring individuals and units until finally coalescing into the Fourth Marine Division.