Stories Marines Told Me
I had no idea this moment would spark an interest I would chase the rest of my life.
I was only about 2 weeks into Marine Corps bootcamp at Parris Island. We spent the day training as usual, but now late in the afternoon we're sitting on a hard floor in a giant air-conditioned room. A drill instructor steps in front of the recruits and begins telling a fascinating story all about Marine Corps History. This is the first time I remember hearing a story about the Chosin Reservoir and the legendary Marines who fought there in this much detail.
About 20 years later and 14 years ago, telling stories about our nation’s veterans and military history became a big part of my job. I was a few months into my job as a journalist in Chattanooga, Tennessee when one night I got a call in the newsroom. On the phone was a colorful character telling fascinating stories. The stories were so entertaining, I thought there's no way all this really happened. We got off the phone and I started doing some research and I quickly was able to verify many of the stories I just heard.
A couple weeks after that, I went to the home of Marine Corps veteran Clarence Schutt in Hixson, Tennessee. I was met at the door by a big man, with a big smile and an old school flat top haircut. He used a cane to get around. Among his first words to me that night were, "I need to make a pot of coffee."
Cup of coffee in one hand, cane in the other Clarence Schutt led me down the hallway to a back bedroom. One step inside the room and I wasn't sure if I was in a Marine Corps Museum or a Clarence Schutt Museum. To be honest at this point this room appeared to be one in the same.
For hours, he told me a lot of stories and drank a lot of coffee. He showed me pictures and mementos. Mr. Schutt fought in two of the most iconic battles in Marine Corps History. He was at Iwo Jima in World War II and Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War. He sitting across from me telling me what he did in these historic battles I learned about at Parris Island.
He told me he visited the Marine Corps Museum once, and he saw a picture of himself on the wall in the Chosin Reservoir exhibit. He told me he didn’t eat anything for three weeks during the battle. I told him you must have eaten something. He replied, “We ate snow.”
A couple years after I met Mr. Schutt, I was invited to give a talk at a Veterans Day event in Cleveland, Tennessee. That day I told a few stories about veterans I’d met over the years including stories about Clarence Schutt. There was a big crowd of people bundled up on this cool November morning.
When the event ended, a man walked up to me eating an ice cream cone. In his non-ice cream cone hand, he was carrying a big book wrapped in a red cloth cover. He peeled away the cover to reveal a worn edition of The Old Breed, and he told me, “This is my story.” I jokingly asked him, “Are you E.B. Sledge?” If he liked my joke, it was difficult to tell. The expression on his face didn’t change. “No,” he dead panned. “I’m Jack Murphy. I was there with E.B. Sledge.” I talked to him for a few minutes and asked if I could come back and spend some time with him. We met up a couple weeks later. He told me he grew up in an orphanage and he ran away to join the Marine Corps. He told me he was assigned to a “75-millimeter pack Howitzer outfit the last one the United States had.”
He was a replacement with the First Marine Division in the war in the Pacific. He saw his first combat at Peleliu. He then fought in the Battle of Okinawa. He told me about the intensity of the combat and about the Marines who were lost there. "It don't ever leave you. I can remember just like yesterday," Jack Murphy told me.
A couple years later, on election day in November 2020 Jack Murphy went to his polling location to do his civic duty wearing his Dress Blues.
Jack Murphy and Clarence Schutt have both passed away in the years since I met them. We said good-bye to Mr. Schutt in 2019. Jack Murphy died in 2021. When I think about the Marine Corps’ 250 birthday this November, I think about the lessons learned during my Marine Corps career, but I also think about Jack Murphy, Clarence Schutt, and so many more Marines who are no longer here with us. We have lost so many veterans from WW2, Korea and Vietnam over the last decade. Future generations won’t get an opportunity to meet these heroes. That makes it even more important that we tell others what they did and make sure the stories of these Marines’ sacrifices live on.
About the author
Josh Roe served in the Marine Corps Reserves for 8 years in the 1990’s and has worked in broadcast TV journalism for the past 28 years. Josh has spent the last 14 years telling the stories of military veterans. Josh is currently an evening news and sports anchor at NewsChannel 9 & Fox Chattanooga in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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