By LEONARD GRAY

RESERVE – For the Marine recruiter, it was a dream come true – nine young, athletic men, eager to join the U.S. Marine Corps and see the world.

The men, friends since childhood, all came from Reserve. Most are still here.

Farrel Weber remembers it well. Now a car salesman, his career has taken him from politics to Bayou Steel. Back then, though, he was fresh out of Leon Godchaux High School. He and his pals had played Little League baseball together, played football and were as close as only friends in a small town can be.

One day, the teens were sitting under a pecan tree, thinking about their future.

“In the 1950s, there was not that much to do and not that many jobs. There wasn’t much in Reserve, I can tell you. The movie theater, the Club Cafe, the swimming pool,” Weber said.

A still-remembered strike which divided much of the town in the mid-1950s left the young men with a bad taste, and Godchaux Sugar was not hiring, anyway.

The Army was suggested, but someone thought the Marine Corps was “more glamorous.” So, the Marines it was.

The nine men, including Weber, Malcolm Joseph, Joe Montz, Farrel Jacob, Bob Vicknair, George Terrio, Dorrel Catoire, Armond Brady and Lester Vicknair, descended upon the recruiter’s office at the U.S. Custom House in New Orleans.

“It was one of the biggest groups they ever heard of, wanting to sign up,” Weber said.

The group had graduated high school on May 27, 1957. By June 2, they were flying to San Diego. Before the flight was over, nearly all of them had written letters home. When they were met by a strapping sergeant, “barking orders at us,” as Catoire recalled with a smile, “We knew we made a big mistake.”

But the Marine Corps had a mission – to make not only men of these small-town youths, but to make them Marines.

“It was strange, everything was new for us,” Weber recalled.

One of the first impacts was to lose their 50s-style locks of hair. “We took that hard, to get rid of our waves,” Catoire remembered.

The recruiter had promised the group could stay together, and they did. And they provided each other with a mutual-aid group to help one another survive their Marine experience.

That came especially in handy when Terrio once forgot to lock his rifle to his bolt, a serious offense. Terrio was ordered to dismantle the rifle, bury it in a mound, spend hours watering it, then dig it back up, clean every part and pass inspection with it.

“We all got together and helped him clean it up,” Catoire said.

Another time, Catoire and Brady participated in a 100-mile hike. After getting back, the pair took in a movie in town and later found it impossible to put their shoes back on, once they removed them.

Soon, they went back out on a 110-mile hike. To their credit, Catoire recalled, their leaders stayed ahead of the company, providing an example of what they were capable of achieving.

“Boot camp was very hard, very painful, very bloody. We had to stand there and take it,” he said.

The 13-week boot camp was followed by infantry training, then the group parted ways on different assignments for the duration of their two years in the Corps. Malcolm Jacob and Montz, for example, went into transportation. Another became a rifle instructor.

Near the end of their service, a crisis in Lebanon had the area geared up and eager to serve in active conflict. They were on standby for three days, but they stayed in California.

“I think of it often,” Weber said. “We lucked out. We were after Korea and before Vietnam.”

Eight of the nine returned to St. John the Baptist Parish. Malcolm Jacob stayed in California, married and became a tool-and-die maker. Catoire worked at Dupont, Brady worked at Reserve Telephone, Bob Vicknair went to Nalco, Montz went to work for a lighting company and Lester Vicknair and Terrio went to Kaiser. Farrel Jacob is deceased.

Sunday is the Marine Corps’ 227th birthday, and the group can still stand together and match Catoire’s unwavering sentiment: “We’re diehard Marines.”