MCRD/ERR PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. -- Imagine enduring the life-changing ordeal of recruit training, living life as a Marine through war and peace and finally settling down to enjoy retirement years as a civilian. Not an uncommon scenario among Marines, right? Now imagine doing all that and then running across your former drill instructor team and a few former fellow recruits 44 years later.
That is exactly what happened to five former recruits from Platoon 359, "Q" Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, who went through training in 1962.
The former recruits of Platoon 359, Walter Lamb, Dan Hidreth, Rodger Smith, Richard Peterson and Thad Thirion, met up with their entire team of drill instructors at the annual drill instructor reunion held by the Parris Island Chapter of the Drill Instructor Association, April 21 through April 24 aboard the Depot.
The eventual meeting started as a series of coincidences, said Lamb.
Lamb, who later became a drill instructor himself, encountered his senior drill instructor, Edward Banaszek, a few years after recruit training while serving on the drill field. Lamb said he recognized Banaszek's cadence calls.
"He was on his second tour [as a drill instructor] when I was on my first tour on the drill field," said Lamb.
The next drill instructor Lamb came across was Lawrence Ward. Lamb spoke with an acquaintance in Quantico, Va., who knew Ward and gave him Ward's contact information.
Lamb's last random encounter with his former drill instructors occurred at the Parris Island drill instructor reunion last year. It was at this reunion that Lamb unexpectedly met up with Bob Roberts, the final missing link of the drill instructor trio, Lamb recalled.
"[Roberts] had almost dropped off the face of the Earth," said Lamb. "None of us had heard from him since 1962."
Lamb was boarding a tour bus at Elliot's Beach, when someone tapped him on the shoulder and held out an old recruit platoon photo, dated 1962, and asked Lamb if he was in the photo. Lamb recognized himself as a recruit and searched the other gentleman's face.
It was then that he realized who he was looking at, said Lamb. Standing in front of him was the elusive Roberts.
"He laid the picture on the seat and he hugged me and we cried together for five minutes," said Lamb, remembering the emotional reunion. "When you haven't seen somebody who was as hard [of] a trainer as he was and then you meet this guy by chance...it is pretty hard to describe."
However difficult locating the former drill instructors had been, finding Lamb in the crowd was easy, Roberts said.
"[I found him because] the reservation list had been made and we pretty much knew who was going to be there," said Roberts.
Last year was the first year a full team of drill instructors and one of their recruits was present for Parris Island's drill instructor reunion, said Lamb.
The three former DIs and Lamb made plans to expand this year's reunion to include as many recruits from Platoon 359 as possible, said Lamb.
Peterson, the first recruit to be contacted, was the recruit high-shooter for all of 1962 and broke the shooting score record for both Parris Island and MCRD San Diego and lives in the same town as Banaszek. The pair had kept up with one another for years.
To contact the other former recruits, Roberts used E-mail contacts to track down names and addresses.
"Roberts put the whole thing together," recalled Smith at the reunion this past weekend.
During a dinner at Traditions April 21, the now-reunited eight former Marines joked and exchanged details about their lives after the summer of 1962. The atmosphere has lost any signs of fear towards the former drill instructors, but the pride and respect is still there, said Lamb.
"Those guys trained us hard," said Lamb. "They were proud, and so were we. They were the greatest. None of us thought so at the time, but forty-four years makes a big difference."
According to Lamb, he and the drill instructor trio plan to make their meeting an annual event.