How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.”

Today, I got to meet Major Dad.

Don’t know who that is? Well, in real life, it’s Gerald McRaney who also happened to play in Simon & Simon along with a whole lot of other roles.

It seems he’s a good friend of our unit’s Chaplain who invited him to the Depot to talk to some of the Marines. As you can imagine, the guy is a big fan of Marines in general.

Yesterday, I was in wandered into the admin office upstairs and one of the Marines informed me “that Major Dad guy” was downstairs in the Chaplain’s office.

So I went straight down, walked into the office, and found myself right smack dab in the middle of a small group of people. The Chaplain, Major Dad, and a couple of his friends. I just kind of busted in and was lucky enough to happen upon a lull in the conversation.

The Chaplain smiled, pointed toward me, and said “This is our operations officer.”

Major Dad reached out his hand and as I shook it, here is what I said:

“Good afternoon, Sir, my name is Major Grose and in 1990, CPL GROSE was very proud to meet you for the first time when you came out to King Abdul Aziz Air Base in Saudi Arabia. You and your lovely wife made the trip out there during the Gulf War and I am proud to now have the opportunity to thank you for coming out back then. It meant a lot to all of us since we were out there living in tents for 7 1/2 months.”

As I made my little speech, recognition of the trip spread across his face. It was obvious that he was touched by this memory and that I would thank him after all these years.

He relayed his memories of that trip as we swapped stories.

I tried not to pull a Chris Farley (“Remember when you were Major Dad…that was neat…”) but I couldn’t help but tell him how my wife and I would watch his show each week and never missed an episode.

There was also another story I wanted to tell him…

“When I picked up Major last August, I called my father who knows next to nothing about the military, much less what it really means to pin on the rank of Major. The only thing he has to go on is all the TV he watches so when I said ‘Hey Dad, I picked up Major,’ his reaction was ‘Oh, you mean like Major Burns?’”

“Now I really didn’t want to be compared to the bumbling idiot on M*A*S*H so here was my response to him. ‘Dad, don’t think of me as Major Burns. Think of me more like Major Dad.’”

When I told Gerald McRaney this, the pride and humility in his face were quite evident. I went on to explain to him that back when I watched that show, I never imagined I would ever become an Officer, much less a Major. I had always respected the personality he portrayed on that show and I told him unashamedly that part of my approach to “being” a Major is based on the example he put forth while playing that character.

I could tell he really didn’t know how to take this. Here was a Marine Corps Major telling him how he, an actor who never spent a day in the real military, represented the essence of being a field grade officer.

Today, he addressed a theater full of Marines who had gathered to see him. Granted, most were too young to know who he was but that didn’t stop him from expressing the deep respect he had for what we do. He started out by explaining how he has been in a room with 5 living Presidents but he considered the company he was in today a more proud and humbling group of Americans.

After he spoke, many of the Marines came up to shake his hand and he signed a picture for each and every one of them. I had my camera with me so I turned into the photographer by default. Since they are digital, I uploaded them on my Flickr account and sent the link to each of them so they could download their picture with Major Dad.

I had one more extended conversation with him before I had to go. We swapped a few more stories and just when the opportunity presented itself for him to end the conversation comfortably, he had one more story which meant to me that I was not cornering him against his will. I just couldn’t believe I was having a give-and-talk conversation with Major Dad.

When I finally shook his hand for the last time and thanked him, he gave me a big smile and thanked me. He actually THANKED me for what I do.

And then he headed off to Balboa. To do what?

Visit the Wounded Warriors before going home to LA.

I salute you Gerald McRaney. One damn fine Marine.

Free Advice for Today: “Never tell an off-color joke in the presence of women or children.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.