El Sapo Diablo - Steve Morris - USMC

 After earning the title, United States Marine, in October and completing the School of Infantry shortly thereafter, I "dropped" to the Fleet Marine Force of India Company 3rd Battalion 1st Marine Division. It was January 1994. Once a Marine Always a Marine is not just a fun play on words. Some 27 years later, I know it to be true. Becoming a Marine and subsequently a Marine Raider is something that I did in the most formative of years and has steered me in the right direction of life. Those 4 years I bitched and moaned as much as the next guy but now realize that my decision to walk the walk and talk the talk would have implications long into my adult life.

A mediocre introductory paragraph maybe...wordy at best - point is, I sometimes talk about it too much but damn, I'm proud to be a Marine.  

On Sunday, September 12th an otherwise perfect weekend for me took a drastic turn for the worse when my Ol' Marine buddy, Mike "Smiley" Fossey called in hysterics. It was about 6:00 pm. My son, Logan, and I were grabbing the window screens down from the garage to tend to some evening chores. I answered the phone and could only decipher that "Steve is gone!". Mike was balling. I asked as many questions as fast as I possibly could. Mike had very few answers. There had been an accident - potential suicide - no real or factual word but either way you cut it, Steve Morris had passed. 

I crossed paths with hundreds of our country's finest during my time in service. I'm grateful for these men and the shared experiences we had, both good and bad. Gutierrez and Poe, Vanderau and Ruiz, Miles and Winterborne, Riddle and Fuqua, Engdahl and Junior, Kapenas and Meathead, Scooter and Skeeter, Chickenhawk and Moe... I can name them ALL but by the time I did, you'd stop reading. You'll have to trust me - I served with some of the best.

And among the best are Mike Fossey and Steve Morris... these are my guys. Oh sure, I got buddies from Coast to Coast, and I even have some photographic evidence of our worldly exploits to support some of the cloudier memories. But if you ask me about the what’s, where’s, who’s, and how’s on my time working for Uncle Sam, 90% of what I'm going to tell you is going to involve Steve and/or Mike. We did it all together. 

Ours was a true definition of a Marine Corps Fire Team. Morris was our Automatic Rifleman. A husky fella charged with toting around the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. He was built to be a SAW Gunner. - thick, stubborn, loosely disciplined and a little bit crazy. Fossey was his A Gunner, an honorable "assistant" in every sense of the word. Mike carried the burden of extra ammo for everyone and a spare barrel as well. Mike is a helper by nature and set the table for the team to succeed. And then there was me - the guy that got too much credit as a team leader. Maybe a couple of bones thrown my way from time to time - a desirable position on a Raid or the opportunity to carry a shotgun into Mogadishu. I was tasked with holding our crazy, midwestern, country-boy, fireteam together for 3 years.

If you know anything about fireteams and squads and platoons and companies you might be thinking that a fireteam consists of four Marines. You're right. Our fireteam hosted visitors at the Rifleman position all the time. Dunn, Russell, Gralmann, VanDonsel...heck we went through Riflemen so often I think they gave up on us because we were better with just 3.

Me - Mike and Steve.

It wasn't suicide. Someone posted to Facebook that Steve was free of his demons and that lit off like a wildfire of speculation. It wasn't suicide. We will all be free of our demons someday. Steve was killed as a pedestrian crossing the road - from what I've been told, he was on his way to go fishing.

Sunday night when I took that call from Mike, I slobbered and bellowed in complete shock. I scared my son, but he smartly ran and got mom. Michele comforted me as I knelt in my driveway, numb to the fact that one of my closet friends was gone. When Smiley and I stopped crying in each other's ears and said our goodbyes, my wife suggested we go for a walk. We grabbed our dog, Raider, and off we went. I cried and walked; walked and cried. I was having trouble breathing. Every step brought up another memory... Australia, Kuwait, San Diego, Yosemite, Kalamazoo and Vegas... everything I could remember ever doing in the Marine Corps went through Morris. When you share a fighting hole, or a bunk or a weekend 96 in the woods with someone, you develop a different bond. When you can name their brothers and sister, know their most intimate stories, goals and aspirations....when you commit to one another as brothers and truly learn what the Marine Corps Motto "Semper Fidelis" means on an ethereal level...then you know.

Steve was one of my guys. 

I remember when we first met. A bunch of Boots hit the hard charging 2nd Platoon of India Company at about the same time. A pissing contest of sorts plays out as young Marines search for their place amongst the pack. Peer groups slowly develop as PFCs and Lance Colonels gravitate towards those with similar interests. Morris and I were feeling each other out as potential running mates and began to question each other's Redneck credentials. It may not have been our first encounter, but I vividly remember he and I both reaching in to our wallets at one point and pulling out Archery Hunting Licenses from our home states of Minnesota and Michigan - proof from then on out that we were speaking the same language. Our friendship was built on solid midwestern values, an appreciation for the outdoors, an eclectic taste in rock and roll music sprinkled with some Cypress Hill, and trust in God, Country and Corps. Mike Fossey completed our trifecta. 

"When I get to Heaven, St. Peter he will say....

How'd you earn your money Boy? How'd you earn your pay?"

Gone too soon. Taken too early. The cliches are gonna fly when people realize that Steve was only 47 years old at the time of the accident. A father to adopted daughter, Daphka. A son to a loving mother. A brother to siblings that looked up to him. Friend to many. My comfort comes in knowing that Morris had a personal relationship with God. He was a believer and for that I am confident that he is proudly standing his post at the pearly gates of Heaven - taking his turn on watch and waiting on us Until Valhalla. He had a nickname he liked to be called. Actually referred to himself as "el Sapo Diablo". The Devil Frog. 

Marines earned the moniker "Teufel Hunden" in 1918 at the Battle of Belleau Wood of WWI.  Ten fought like a hundred. A hundred Marines sounded like a thousand. Marines have been called Devil Dogs ever since - except Steve. He like Devil Frog. On ship, the Devil Frog and I attended church and bible studies together often. In the middle of the Indian Ocean very few Marines gave up their down time to study the word of God. Most played video games, watched movies or slept. Weekly, Steve and I would head over to the ship's library and sit amongst a bunch of Squids and sing our hearts out. While at sea, the Devil Frog and I would sometimes go topside to the smoking deck and look out to the endless stary nights  ....sometimes questioning our own mortality but often times talking about hunting or fishing but usually girls. Admittedly he strayed from God's word. We're all sinners. We all fall short from time to time and Steve was no different. Those that question his demons later in life can be confident that Steve had prayed prayers of forgiveness. I heard them. God did too.

I've got stories about Steve coming out of my ears. I don't want to bore you with everyone nor do I think you would have the stamina to read though it all. But I would like to tell you about the time Steve thought he killed me... India Company was conducting a live fire Raid on one of the many ranges of Camp Pendelton. At Zero Dark Thirty, we launched our zodiacs from the belly of ships parked a few miles offshore. Sugar cookie Marines hit the beaches under the cover of darkness. 2nd Platoon wove its ways up the sandy cliffs and through the gullies of San Onofre Beach. Eventually we reached the point of engaging our enemy - comprised mostly of paper targets and stacks of rubber tires. Weapons Platoon circled to higher ground to provide a wall of lead in fire support. The rest of us grunts moved tactically through the live fire obstacle course, firing at will and scaring the crap out of the rubber tire enemy. Live rounds were flying through the air as Marines moved skillfully down range. 

I'm UP.

He Sees Me!

I'm Down. 

Covering each other's movement with suppressing fire, my fireteam moved as rehearsed. Each Marine providing cover for his buddies as we individually rushed into the practice hellfire. Trees and low-level scrub brush dotted the washouts and rocky terrain. Smoke and fog filled the darkened night. The sky was lit periodically by flashbangs, tracers, and illumination rounds. When it was my turn to charge, I sprung to my feet and scampered ahead. El Sapo Diablo let his Squad Automatic Weapon bark. The fictitious enemy ducked as they didn't stand a chance. I ran; jumped and ran some more until I hit an entanglement of concertina wire at full speed. I went down in a cloud of dust just as Morris sprayed suppressive fire over my head. The scene must have been traumatic for Steve. He was sure that he just killed his best friend and Fire Team Leader.

Steve couldn't see me, just over the next rise... thrashing and rolling around in a tangled spiral of wire and ripped cammies. As far as he knew, he shot. I got too close and now I was gone.

But I wasn't. I was in caught in my own battle to stop looking like an idiot trapped in a man-sized, very sharp, Slinky. For Steve time stood still. He rose to his feet and walked through the roaring of a Platoon of on-rushing Marines. He sulked ahead - certain to see the carnage of friendly fire. I'm sure he didn't remember this whole scenario as I do....the look on his face, lit by the strobe lights of tracers and the moon will be with me forever....Steve didn't shoot me. But he thought he did. I was just a clumsy, hard charging young Marine and yelled at my Big Bellied friend to "snap out of it and help me get out of this damn wire!"

I looked out for that dude and he did the same for me. We swam in many of the Seven Seas together. We drank beers and sang songs at many pubs in foreign lands. We fished together in California and later after the Marine Corps, on my home waters of Lake of the Woods. I was in Steve's wedding...both of them. He was a great guy. He was one of My Guys..

And now he's gone.

In the days that followed, Fossey and I were in contact regularly. Marines called and messaged me from Coast to Coast. I heard from India Company Marines from California and New Jersey, Pennsylvania and North Carolina and a Marine from just down the road here in Minnesota... guys that heard the news of Steve's passing. Guys that knew Morris and I were tight and were checking in on me. You know what every one of them said to me at the end of our conversation?....every single one of them....said, 

"I'm here if you need anything, brother. I love you!"

 

Semper Fidelis, El Sapo Diablo. I love you, brother.