Taps

[Bill Murray]

My dear Friends:

As I brought you into the story of the passing of my Dad, allow me to bring to a close the story.

Dad was laid to rest this last Wednesday and a fine ceremony it was indeed.

There are some details around this ceremony which I will share with GWB, our resident silent historian, but let me say at the outset that my father's retirement was not, shall we say, entirely voluntary. He was not a political General and had voiced his opinions openly and loudly concerning the conduct and leadership of our operations in VietNam. While staying at his house helping my stepmom and getting the ceremony organized, Mom let me read the unedited material he provided the the Marine Corps Oral History section, it was a book of a few hundred typed pages, and I will relate one part of it which took up a whole page. It dealt with his responsibility for the building of the so called MacNamara Line which was supposed to seal off South VietNam from the North. In the interview, my father repeatedly described the whole effort as a folly which was only made worse by assigning elite assualt troops, Marines, to what was essentially an engineers job. Marines do not generally build fortifications etc., they assault and destroy them.

Anyway, it was obvious that he had quite a number of clashes one on one with General Westmoreland who was two stars his superior and in charge of the whole shebang. The page I am referring to dealt with General Westmoreland telling my father to build permanent, glorified foxholes. Apparently, General Westmoreland felt he had to personally inspect this effort and visited my father's area of command not less than 5 times to inspect their efforts, each time saying something to the effect that it was not being done correctly and do this and that to perfect the effort. At the bottom of the page, my father indicated his complete disdain for someone with Westmoreland's vast responsibility wasting his time trying to teach a Marine General how to dig a foxhole and that he thought he must certainly have something better to do. This is in the official Marine Corps History my friends. Did not win him friends in high places. Some time later, my father retired but without the normal retirement parade etc. normally accorded General Officers.

Fast forward to last Wednesday. Apparently, on specific orders from the Commandant of the Marine Corps, my father was given a sendoff not often seen. The Funeral Director told me that he had been doing funerals in this town for 25 years and had buried quite a number of retired General and had never seen the likes of it.

Normally, the whole involvement of the Marine Corps is a small, less than a dozen, contingent of Marines at the funeral itself, even for senior officers. In Dad's case, there was an honour guard of six Marines at all times the funeral home was open, over three days. He was escorted to the burial grounds by two Military Police cars in addition to City police.

At the burial grounds, we found two full rifle platoons of Marines, one platoon in dress blues, the other in battle dress parading around the area. Some 60 men and women in total. There were perhaps another 20 or so Marines acting as greeters, traffic police and handing out the burial programs. There was a Marching Band of some 20 more and six men to render the rifle salute. For the Taps salute, there was a primary bugler and an "echo" bugler some 200 meters away who repeated the Taps refrain. My stepmother was escorted during the ceremony by the Commandant's personal representative, a Major General who is the Commanding General of the nearby Camp Pendleton Base.

I will close this post by paraphrasing something his former Aide de Camp brought up in his part of the Eulogy speeches. Said Aide was by my father's side for over 40 years and carried out his duties to the final goodby.

"Many of you may question why General Murray is being buried in civilian clothing. When the General realized that his time might be coming, he gave explicit instructions to his wife that he be buried in civilian clothing rather than his uniform which is the normal procedure. His reason for this is simple. He served his country through many conflicts, always thinking of his men and how he could get them home. He is, at present, unable to be with his beloved Marines in Iraq and out of respect for those men and boys that he could not help he did not want to be buried in his uniform. He is of them but he is not with them."

That, my dear friends is the measure of the man I call Dad.

Please do not feel any need to respond to this post as I am just wanting to close the book. I thank all of you for your earlier messages.
Bill

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Few can bring me to tears the way you just did, Bill.

Thank you.

Bill,

I have to respond with a little something here, bottom line, I love your Dad's priorities and strength of character. Some of those qualities had to have been passed on to you. It's a real loss when someone like that leaves us, and a real gain when someone like that leaves those qualities in the world through his children and his actions.

(Sometimes, father DOES know best. I wish I'd had someone like that guiding me through growing up )

Hugs from Karmen

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

I would give my left testicle to have been a fly on the wall on the Gunny's briefing... "Listen up, assholes... this officer we're going to bury today did more for this Corps than any one of us can ever hope to do. Here's his story......."

You can imagine the rest, as I'm sure you have. I would have loved to have been there, Bill. As Karmen said, the ball is now in your court. Carry on, sir.

[Stellan Bojerud (RIP)]

Originally posted by Bill Murray


That, my dear friends is the measure of the man I call Dad.

Bill

Dear Bill!

I am deeply moved and impressed by what you wrote.

About your fathers superior General William Childs Westmoreland: "Some say he fails to see the big picture and becomes too immersed in details, and on some occasions I have observed this fault myself". (Phillip B. Davidson "Vietnam at war", Novato CA 1988, page 383).

I think your father was a Great Soldier thinking of his men and taking care for them. I should wish that all Generals were like that - but they are not.

May I express my deepest sympaties.

Your friend,

Stellan