Boots on the Ground

He was a brilliant child. So intelligent: on a level of Einstein. He understood space and time, but he knew electronics. He was too smart for school, and by the time he reached high school, partying was much more important than being bored with the repetition of the mundane education that he didn’t need. The one thing that Craig loved the most was airplanes. He read every book. He learned everything he could about them, not only flight itself, but what the engines and weapons systems were comprised of. How they worked and what was unique to each one.

In Minnesota, where he grew up, when he had graduated and worked three or four meaningless jobs, like delivering and setting up waterbeds, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He wanted to be a United States Marine, and he wanted to work on airplanes. He set his mind to accomplishing that one goal. To say he was obsessed, was not even close to the love he felt for military aircraft, the weapons they carried, and the military personnel that operated them.

The day Craig went into the Marine Corps recruiters’ station, he was tall, and lean, and extremely handsome. He had wide shoulders and he had charisma, the kind that comes from confidence. There is nothing that makes a person, male or female, more attractive than intelligence upheld by conviction. Craig had all of this and the Marine Corps recruiter recognized a future Marine was standing in front of him.

Many young men had walked into Gunnery Sergeant Joseph’s office. He was a stereotypical Gunnery Sergeant and he did not take his position lightly. He wanted initial contact with anyone who dared to walk into his office, to present to them the exact feeling of what they should expect. Not just any person can be a Marine. In 1981, the commercials on television said, “The few. The Proud. The Marines.” Craig took this personally, and he knew he WAS one of the few, one of the proud, and he wanted to be a United States Marine.

Gunny started on Craig the same as he always did by asking one question, first. “Young man, why are you here and what exactly about you, makes me want to believe that you are worthy of becoming a United States Marine Corps applicant?” The words were sharp and sliced the air like a machete through underbrush with absolutely no sugar coating applied. Gunny wasn’t yelling, but he wasn’t whispering either.

Craig knew the answer immediately. He stood taller than he had when he came in and he said, “Sergeant, I want to work on airplanes!” Well, Gunny, just snickered at Craig. “Hah, SO DO A LOT OF MEN!” Craig did not even flinch. He did not look away and he was not discouraged. In fact, he was ready for the recruiter’s reaction.

It was the same reaction that every single person, his father, his brothers, his friends. Every single one of them laughed at him the same way. But Craig was a quiet man. He only spoke when it was necessary. He always had a look that made people ask him, “What are you so mad about?” He would get so angry when they said this to him. He wasn’t mad to start with, he just didn’t talk unless he had something to say. Mostly, this was because he was listening to people talk about things without knowing anything about what they were saying and he was so much more intelligent than anybody else.

Craig looked at the Sergeant and said, “I know airplanes, but I want to know what Marine’s know about everything to do with warbirds.” Gunny stepped back. He eyeballed Craig from head to toe. This was the only person that had ever walked into his office and given this answer and Gunny liked it, and he let his bowed-up appearance relax.

He said, “You know, Marine, I send ninety percent of the young NOBODY’S that walk in here, right back out the door and two doors down. DO YOU KNOW what is two doors down from here, MARINE? DO YOU KNOW WHERE I SEND THEM?” Craig said, “YES, SIR!” Gunny said, “WELL?” Craig snickered and said, “THE ARMY, SIR!” They both laughed.

That day, Craig was recruited to become a USMC candidate. He had to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test. He scored so high that when the results were given to the Gunny, he told Craig he could take any position he wanted, but he had something specific in mind for Craig.

He told Craig, the United States Marine Corps wanted to send him to a secret two-year electronics school, in Memphis, Tennessee. Gunny said, “I have never had the opportunity to send one of my recruits there. It is so thorough and so in depth that the students are secluded and separated from their entire lives, and most Marines, know nothing of this school. The majority of those that attend don’t make it. It’s underground, in a bunker, and if you pass this school, you will be one of the top one percent of people on this planet that know this much about airplane electronics.”

Craig did not know about this school, and he was ecstatic to take the assignment. Within a few weeks, he went to basic training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, in San Diego, California. When he completed basic, he was sent to Memphis and spent the next two years in school. Craig was one the very top students and there were only a handful that were taken there. More than half were kicked out of the program. Round after round of young men, who thought they were good enough, soon found out they were not.

Not Craig, however. He thrived and was in his element. After finishing school, he was sent to Hawaii, and he was assigned to radar systems on F-4 Phantoms. VMFA-235 was his unit. He loved working in the Quonset hut on the flightline at The Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe Bay. He was a fine Marine, and he excelled in his work. He was later stationed in Japan and the Philippines, as well. When his four-year enlistment was up, they offered him a huge amount of money to reenlist, but Craig had other ideas.

Craig got a job working for the largest military contractor, that, in 1985, was doing the testing phases for the Apache Helicopter. Specifically, they built the night vision and guidance systems section of the helicopter. They and the other companies involved were attempting to sell this amazing aircraft to the US Government. He took the job, in Arizona, for $8.50 per hour. He was a temporary and a grunt and had to prove he was worth being hired, and ninety days later, that is exactly what happened.

In 1987, he married and he and is wife had two beautiful children, later, while he continued his work, with extreme pride, and his family adored his commitment to the United States, the Marines, and to them. He built a lot of model airplanes, and he taught the entire family everything he could about planes.

Craig excelled at his work and he became instrumental, when the helicopter was purchased by the US Army, and it became the world’s most powerful and most used weapon of war. Craig worked on the flightlines, all around the world, through his career, and later became a logistical and technical representative writing the manuals, which instructed young army men and women, how to keep the systems maintained. This is what he had done on the flight lines, as well.

After September 11, 2001, when the desert wars began, he was sent to Kuwait for one year. He maintained the Apache for the men who flew them into battle. In 1996, he took his family to the middle east and lived in Abu Dhabi, with them, while he worked on a foreign military sale contract.

When he returned, the family made a trip to Washington, DC. They visited the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian Center. He proudly told his wife and daughter about every airplane that was displayed there. It was like walking with a tour guide. He knew more than the guides themselves. As the family went around and traversed to another aisle, Craig stopped. Stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t say a word. He just stared at one of the airplanes. There in front of him, was his plane. It was one of the F4s he had worked on, in Hawaii, in that Quonset hut. It was VMFA-235 and he told them, “This is my airplane”.

Years later, when the war was now in Afghanistan, he was moved to another program, where the same night vision and guidance was placed on another larger aircraft and he was chosen by the Pentagon and his company, to live with the Marines, at Skunk Works, in California, while the program was established and later he was asked to go to Afghanistan, with them.

It was a tremendous honor to Craig, and to his wife and children, for him to be asked. He purchased a new pair of work boots when he went to Skunk Works for the assignment. When the three years of testing and readiness was completed, he traveled with the Marine Corps unit, as a civilian, and lived and worked three tours, three years, in Afghanistan with the same men. He wore those boots, every day.

The term, “boots on the ground” meant more to him than just boots on the ground, and men fighting, it meant he was where he belonged. He kept his fellow Marines, who admired his expert knowledge, on a 100% mission readiness rate. He was awarded hundreds of patches and coins and when he returned home, his wife purchased a Marine Corps K-Bar knife engraved with his name and it was mounted on a display for all those coins, to be shown honorably.

There Craig was, in his element and had accomplished his goal, one thousand times over. He ran with the Marines, in the 9/11 Heros Run, alongside the young Marines, when he was in his fifties. He adored those boots, and sand that had accumulated on them, was never allowed to be brushed away. Craig brought those boots home, and they were never worn again, but they sat beside his desk, until the day he died.

After his death, his wife took most of his model airplanes he had built, his military clothing, and photographs, and books and gave most everything to the two children, but not those boots. They sit, in a place of honor, in memory and respect for the man that served thirty-seven years plus four years as a Marine, supporting the United States of America. He was an honorable man, an outstanding Marine, and he loved the military, but as much as he loved all that, and loved his family, he loved airplanes, and you could ask him any question, about any plane, from the past to the current, and he always knew the answer.

That Gunnery Sergeant made the best decision that was possible, for Craig, because no man on earth has ever loved his work more than Craig did. The Sergeant never knew, but Craig always remembered the man, who believed in him, and gave him the opportunity to do and be one of the few, the proud, the Marines, and he never took that lightly.