"At that point, I started doing what lieutenants do, and that's giving direction."īarnum got up and immediately started calling in artillery, but he said he eventually called off the fire because some of the shrapnel was hitting his men. "When I … looked around, I could see all these young Marines' eyes looking at me, and they're saying, 'OK, lieutenant, what the hell are we going to do?'" Barnum remembered. He quickly surveyed the scene and realized that the company's radio operator and its commander, Capt. Injuries mounted quickly for the company, but Barnum was OK. Four years later, he graduated with a degree in economics and was commissioned into the Marine Corps Reserve. Anselm College in New Hampshire, where he joined the Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class, a summer program similar to ROTC. " epitomized what I thought the military was all about - he stood up and took charge and made a big impression on this young 18-year-old," Barnum said in a Library of Congress Veterans History Project interview.Īfter graduating high school in 1958, Barnum went to St. Like many other students that day, Barnum immediately wanted to prove the man wrong. The recruiter told the crowd that none of them was worthy of the Marine Corps. Barnum said the recruiter had listened to the students' reactions to the other military recruiters and was appalled by their conduct. While Barnum's father was a Marine during World War II, he said he chose the service because of a Marine Corps recruiter who visited his school on a career day. He was president of both his freshman and senior classes. Barnum was a Boy Scout and played football and baseball at Cheshire High School.
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