Tax Day? No! It’s the date we lost ‘ e Gunny’
For most, April 15 is “Tax Day,” but for the Antelope Valley veteran family, April 15, 2018, was the day we lost “America’s Gunny,” R. Lee Ermey, the fearsome Marine D.I. of “Full Metal Jacket.”
Through the kindness of his daughter Betty, I was able to visit Gunny Lee at the hospital as he was leaving to go guard the gates of heaven. He left us too soon.
On Monday night at Bravery Brewery, the microbrewery he founded with his golf buddy, Bart Avery, toasts were lifted in memory of the man who probably lured more youths into the Marine Corps than the entire recruiting command by scaring them half to death with his performance in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film about Marines in boot camp on their way to the Vietnam War.
Ermey rests at Arlington National Cemetery. He was interred on a snowy morning in January 2019 with former Commandant of Marines
Gen. Al Gray present along with family, friends and multiple sergeants major of his beloved Corps.
“You will die, but the Corps will live forever,” his “Full Metal Jacket” character intoned to his boot Marines headed to relieve the Siege of Hue City in Vietnam.
At the turn of the 21st century, Gunny and I bonded as veterans during an interview he gave the Antelope Valley Press. He didn’t mind filling a notebook of quotes for an Army vet editor, but he was more interested in my teenage son, Garrett, who pleaded to tag along on my visit to the Gunny’s “War Room” in Quartz Hill. I told my son he could come if kept mum the whole time.
Walking out past Gunny’s flagpole with the red-gold USMC flag flying, Ermey put his hands on his hips, Drill Instructor mode, looked at Garrett
and demanded, “What makes the grass grow?”
My son, “Full Metal Jacket” catechism memorized, snapped to attention and barked back, “Blood! Blood! Blood, Sir!”
The Army lost its chance to lure my son into the paratroopers. Another Marine was made by the actor who was a real deal Marine D.I. in earlier life. See, or revisit “Full Metal Jacket” to get an idea of the impact the man made.
On Sept. 11, 2001, an hour after jetliners hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, Ermey and I spoke. We agreed we were going to war.
As the dogs of war let slip to cry havoc, Ermey wondered if we were too old to deploy. My sense was that with his clout, and my front row seat to history as a reporter, that we could book passage. I deployed as embedded editor of the Valley Press. Ermey, with fresh fame as host of History Channel’s “Mail Call” TV show, brought his crew with him.
Before departure, we drove a sporty Mustang out to Camp Roberts, “Camp Bob,” on the California coast and spent the day visiting Guard units from Antelope Valley, Riverside and Sacramento, the 1498th Transportation Co.’s road warriors. The troops still post pictures of that day’s visit.
When I flew to Kuwait with the unit and rolled into Iraq, Gunny was on the next flight and kept calling cadence all the way to Baghdad. Troops at Camp Victory were wild with joy that “Gunny was coming.”
If you want to remember Gunny Ermey, lift a glass at Bravery, or drive to R. Lee Ermey Avenue (Avenue N) at 10th Street West and drive east toward Sierra Highway. Your tires will hum “The Marine Corps Hymn” like a harmonica.
Dennis Anderson is a licensed clinical social worker at High Desert Medical Group. An Army paratrooper veteran who covered the
Iraq War for the Antelope Valley
Press, he serves as Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s appointee on the Los Angeles County Veterans Advisory Commission.