Loon - Jack McLean [10]
The great majority, however, without the advantages that you have had, are doing their darndest to improve themselves in every way. These are the ones to associate with. I have been impressed with the great number of men, some without the benefit of a high school education, who have by intelligence and hard work stood very high in the most difficult technical schools.
You will find the Corps a new experience. Military service has many features which have no counterpart in civilian life. In a way, it is like your prep school experience in that you are a part of it twenty-four hours a day. Unlike school, however, it is oriented toward the accomplishment of a mission, not toward the education of its members per se.
This leads your superiors to take a different view of you from that which your masters had and I think that it is worth reflecting on the way you will look to your superiors. They don’t care who you are or where you came from. Their interest is in what sort of job you do and what sort of a Marine you are. They are engaged in a serious purpose, preparing a fighting machine, so that they are impressed by an individual only as he contributes to the functioning of that machine. They do not have the time or the interest to try to develop a man who is not interested, trying to help himself, or follow regulations. They have all the time in the world, however, to work with those who are interested in trying. A man must make or break himself.
The Marine Corps is big and proud with years of experience. It can be impersonal, but it knows what it wants. It has regulations to be followed. Many may look silly to you. Most, however, are there because they have been proven as effective ways to accomplish the mission; to fight and win wars. Things will be done the way the Marine Corps wants them done. If you do what you are told to the best of your ability, you will get along and it will be a rewarding experience. Otherwise you will get run over by the system and it won’t hurt the system a bit.
You are now part of a long line of Marines who have served their country in wars all over the world. This is a great time to come into the Corps. The Marines are doing what they exist to do here in Vietnam with pride and professionalism.
Welcome to the club.
Throughout my time in the Marine Corps, my mind would wander back to Aplington’s letter. He made a key distinction between my life before the moment of my enlistment and my life beyond. Up to that point, I had been overseen by my family, friends, and Andover faculty. That would soon change. The Marine Corps cared about me as a vehicle to their own ends—winning wars. It was important, consequently, that I be well trained, well fed, well disciplined, well behaved, and that I follow orders.
The Marine Corps cared about the Marine Corps.
It was an important early lesson for this innocent child of privilege.
In early June, I learned that my fears about graduating from Andover had been warranted. I had failed trigonometry and would not graduate with my class on June 6, 1966. I still attended the graduation ceremony with my classmates, but received an empty envelope. Barby and my parents came. Though my grandparents had come up to Brookline from Elizabeth, New Jersey, my father asked that they not attend, “given the circumstances.”
It was a most unhappy day.
I, however, was relieved that I actually had passed four out of my five courses—was quietly thrilled, in fact. And really, who needed trigonometry?
My American-history teacher was Tom Lyons, even then a legend at Andover. When he informed me that I had passed his rigorous course that spring with a 63 average (60 was passing), he said that I had earned every point of it. Several weeks later, I received the following letter from him:
Dear General McLean,
I know I echo the entire faculty’s sentiments when I state that Andover is no prouder of any member of this class than of Private McLean.