Retired Marines gather for Yemassee Train Depot Reunion

22 Oct 2004 | Lance Cpl. Paul W. Hirseman III Marine Corps Training and Education Command

A group of nervous recruits wait at the Yemassee train station, Yemassee, S.C., for the final leg of their journey to Parris Island. The date is 1942, and soon these new recruits will be Marines fighting in the Pacific theater against the Japanese forces in efforts to stop the Japanese advance through the Pacific Islands.

Now an Amtrak stop, the Yemassee train station was the bridge from civilian to Marine for countless individuals joining the Marine Corps from WWI to Vietnam.

"I remember getting off of the bus and getting knocked straight on my seat by some tiny little corporal who was probably 5 inches shorter than me," said Mike Dunlap, a Marine from 1963-1967, during the 2nd Annual Yemassee Train Depot Reunion Oct. 16. "That pretty much told me what my place was going to be while I was at Parris Island for boot camp."

Yemassee was the official first stop for recruits from 1915 to 1965, when the Marine Corps closed its barracks there and made Parris Island its only training and receiving location in the area.

"They would load us into these tightly-packed cattle car type things," said Ray 'Zeke' Secules, a former Marine. "Then the next stop would be Parris Island. I remember it being a striking memory because it became clear right then that that was where you would meet your fate."

Yemassee train station is now the location of a restoration effort on the part of the community and Marine retirees who are planning to turn the old barracks into a museum commemorating its role in recruit training and bringing notice to those Marines who know the station so well.

The town of Yemassee is also forming the Yemassee Historic Foundation and attempting to attain non-profit status. The historic foundation is planning to have the old barracks, now a train supply storage, returned to the town's ownership so that it may be remodeled and used as the site for the museum.

The return of such a memorable location is something that would mean much to Marines who once spent their first few nights as recruits inside its walls.

"It was the place that it all began, for me in the Marine Corps and probably for the other men who were with me," said Sam Winstead, a Marine who was in the Pacific Theater of WWII. "That station was my first taste of the Corps and I'm sure that I will never forget it."

Marine Corps Training and Education Command