Artbear Studios

I’d been looking for something to post about for a while now. Several subjects came to mind and then, as I drifted off to sleep one night I heard Mark Robinson’s voice saying “What about me?”

” Hey, squid, your take off’s too late.” That was the first time i remember Mark saying anything directly to me. It sticks out because if you did get comments by the older guys, the Real surfers, they were negative at best and usually a bit threatening. This one had a tone of encouragement. Mark had been my older sister’s best friend since Junior High so I’d been around him and his friends a lot. His Mom worked with mine and was often at our home. He was also the first guy I knew to come back in a body bag.

I was the annoying little brother who had recently become the lowest form of life in the water… a Squid ( i.e. Grom, Merdette, a beginner surfer). Most of the older guys usually just looked for any excuse to pound you but Mark’s idea was that if you learned to surf you’d be less in his way, less annoying. In my case it worked. He explained to me how the sand bars influenced the waves and how to use them. Sand bars are important. He joked that I was too young to know about bars anyway. “But on your 21st you’re buying me drinks”. I started drawing cartoons because he did and he always asked to see my latest. He was a Bronzed Surf God for sure.

The ones like Mark that I thought of as the “older guys” wanted to impress the real older guys like the Manhattan Beach Surf Club members with how macho they were. It was 1965-66 and the best way they thought to accomplish that was to become a Marine. Bunches of them enlisted together. Mark earned the title “U.S. Marine” on August 5, 1966 at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. I was there.

The first I knew of Mark’s death was seeing his name scroll by as the evening news reported casualties for that day – January 26, 1967. Later I was only told that he had been killed by machine gun fire while on patrol. But I found a source for the larger story.

Excerpt from VietnamGear.com:

Operation Tuscaloosa – January 1967

” Arizona Territory”

Quang Nam Province, Viet Nam

A large sandbar out in the centre of the river ran across our front for perhaps a thousand metres, dividing the river into two separate streams.  The open terrain of the sandbar consisted of a number of small dunes interspersed with clumps of marsh grass.  The open area ran for nearly five hundred metres across before it petered out against the second channel of the river.  Somewhere downstream the two streams joined again.  The sandbar was a wasteland without cover or protection, and it had to be crossed.

As the rest of the platoon crossed the stream, the sniper fire began coming from our rear.  The point squad moved out continuing to edge into position until it was facing the southern bank two hundred metres straight ahead.  When we reached our positions we began to take small arms fire from dug in positions along the top of the opposite riverbank.  Single, aimed shots and short bursts from automatic weapons laced into the dunes where we lay clustered.  Amid the ricochets of screaming bullets we pushed the overburden of sand to our front as we scooped out shallow fighting holes.

Two Marines at opposite ends of the trapped platoon were hit in the head by rifle fire and died where they lay.  There was no help forthcoming.  The VC had every square inch of the sandbar targeted, and they were turning it into killing ground.  No one could move without becoming a target for any number of VC gunners.

A Marine screamed to my front not ten metres away, and my face was peppered with bloody slices of human flesh blown back on me.  A lone Marine struggled to his feet, with bright red splotches covering his buttocks and thighs.  He moved forward a step or so before another volley of VC small arms fire slammed into his midsection.  He pitched forward face down, his arms raised above him gesturing like a preacher giving a Sunday sermon.  His blood flowed out slowly, making puddles in the golden sand around him.

I think the Marine described there was Mark. As much as it hurts and sickens me to read it I feel better knowing more about how he passed. Yet I’m still looking for a reason he had to die. I found it so odd and ironic that it happened on a sand bar. Sort of like full circle I guess?

I recently stood at 43 Street in Manhattan Beach (Mark’s Break) looking for the sand bars when Mark’s smile flashed across my mind. Sand bars are important. Thanks for everything, Man.