Evans remembers Mick Trainor, a friend of the CCs
GySgt. Stony Merriman, left, GySgt. Ed Evans just out of Charlie Med with a boot full of blood and GySgt. John Wold. No better friends.
Bernard “Mick” E. Trainor
By Ed Evans
If you haven’t heard, it is with a heavy heart I share the news that LtGen. [Bernard] “Mick” Trainor passed away June 2, 2018. Mick was a legendary Marine who served as a Platoon Commander in Korea and a Recon Battalion Commander in Vietnam. He was one of the best military minds in the Marine Corps. A friend and mentor to many.
Quick story. LtGen. Trainer was CO of Recon in 1970 when Leatherneck Magazine sent me to Vietnam for coverage. I was with Trainor’s Marines when after being on a several day patrol we heard movement around us while moving to the extract point. Safeties were off. It was thru tall, wet elephant grass and the radioman slipped, fell, and his rifle went off striking me in the left leg at boot top level, and the patrol leader in the right leg just below the knee.
Later at Charlie Med I told then-Col. Trainor it was a heckuva souvenir for going out with Recon. He grinned and said yeah, well, he caught hell for shooting the Leatherneck photographer, too.
The current Deputy CG of 1stMarDiv stopped by to tell me the Navy docs recommended I be boarded out since the foot healed in a “down” position since the bullet took a chunk of meat out of the back of my leg. With only 10 years in, I didn’t want that. Two friends got my gear and cameras from recon, and since no one there had my SRB or health record, I slipped out, stuffing that angry foot into a bloody boot. The two Marines and I then got ourselves on a helo headed for Khe Sanh (then in Army hands) in a bird labeled “The Wild Bunch”.
But that isn’t the best part of the story.
In 1983 I am at the Defense Information School, NCOIC of the Photojournalism Lab. I get a call from one of those two Marines, now at HQMC, as is Gen. Trainor. He hasn’t forgotten the L’Neck photog who got shot, and he wants me to head up a DoD Camera Team with a still and a motion photographer, headed to Beirut with the 32nd MAU.
To make the story shorter, just before the barracks was blown I came down with food poisoning; triginosis from eating under-cooked pork with the French Ambassador. Unbelievably sick, wishing I could just die, the 32nd MAU C.O., Col. Mead, has me and my gear fly home from Rome.
Back on my feet, Gen. Trainor let’s me know that other than the stories and photos I sent directly to him, he had expected more. I explained that before I left I had gone round and round with the Chiefs and the Guam’s Captain about the sailors on the USS Guam — only photo lab in the area — claiming our photos didn’t come out, but then seeing copies of our shots among the crew. After I left Beirut, my next senior photographer was a Gunny, and I doubted he had much traction.
Gen. Trainor said, “Let’s go.”
Next thing I know we’re standing tall in some Admiral’s office, Trainor is chewing his ass right around the edges until it falls out on the floor. The Admiral admits he has already heard about my complaint and has taken proper action. Trainor has several more things to say about it, never raising his voice, then says to me, “Let’s go.”
The Admiral asks if I can stay behind for just a moment. Trainor assents and is out the door.
The Admiral watches the door for a moment, then leans toward me across the desk, and says, “Next time you have a problem with the U.S. Navy, Master Gunnery Sergeant, you come directly to me. But Gawddamit don’t sick Mick Trainor on me!”
As someone has already said, anytime I was in his presence, I learned something.