Once a Marine, always a Marine: Honoring those who served in my family

I am not a United States Marine, but I am married to one. When I met Doug, he had already served his four years and gone on to become a police officer. Clearly, his heart was still to protect and serve.

I did make the mistake once, and only once, of saying Doug was a Marine. I was quickly corrected: “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

The Marines run deep in my family. Doug and one of our nephews are USMC veterans, our other nephew is in the reserves, and my grandfather, Dr. Franklin Seibert, fought at Iwo Jima during World War II.

My grandpa is the story I want to tell.

My grandfather enlisted in the Navy, served his time, and became a renowned podiatrist in Newport, Kentucky. However, when World War II began, he was called back to active duty and assigned to the Marines, since the Marine Corps didn’t have its own medical branch and relied on Navy doctors and corpsmen to serve alongside them in battle. That’s how he, a Navy doctor, became part of the Marine Corps at Iwo Jima, living, working, and fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Marines he cared for. In the eyes of Marines he served with, he wasn’t just “the Doc,” he was one of them, “a Marine by blood, if not by branch”.  

When he was called back to serve alongside the Marines, he was in his 30s, running a thriving medical practice, with a two-year-old daughter (my mom) waiting for him at home.  A little fun fact: my grandpa would send coded letters to my grandma and mom, with the first letter of every sentence corresponding to the country he was in. My grandma used to circle the letters, and at the bottom of my grandpa's letter, put where he was located in the world. I believe we still have some of those letters, well, I’m hoping we do.

In 1990, when I was in sixth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Gracey, assigned us to write a paper about a family member. My mom suggested I ask Grandpa about his experience at Iwo Jima. He agreed, and I wrote my paper based on his story. Not long after that, he took his own life. Looking back, I think writing that paper brought the war flooding back. Back then, we didn’t talk about PTSD the way we do now. My mom has said he was never the same after the war, a shell of the man he’d been before. 

So why share his story? Because every soldier has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters. My hope is to remind us of the sacrifices made for our freedom, and the importance of caring for our veterans long after the battles end. My grandfather was 78 years old when he died, 45 years after Iwo Jima, but the war never truly left him.

“Recollections of the Battle of Iwo Jima” 

by Dr. Franklin E. Seibert, written in 1990

Iwo Jima, a small volcanic island, is less than ten square miles long and is located 750 miles from Tokyo. 

It was necessary for the Americans to take the island because the B29 bombers had to make a 3,000-mile round trip from Guam and Saipan on bombing runs to Japan, and those planes that were damaged had to ditch at sea. 

The island had two completed air strips and a third was being built. Before the first air strip was secured a crippled B29 landed safely. 

The invasion started on the 19th of February, 1945 by the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions.  The 5th Division took Mount Serabacci and that end of the island.  The 4th took the first air strip. 

The fighting was so intense, two regiments of the 3rd Marine Division had to be committed on D plus 5 days, and they were able to take the second air strip.

In preparing for the invasion, more medical gear was stowed than for any other invasion. We were told it was going to be a furious fight but the island would be secured in 72 hours, but it did not end until the middle of March 1945. 

The Japanese were well entrenched in a huge network of caves.  They had rockets on rail cars hidden behind steel doors in the cave, which came out, fired three rounds, and then went back into the caves.  However, they could not control the rockets, which was a great help for us. 

They had snipers hidden in metal drums sunk down into the ground. The tops had webbing over them, which made them very camouflaged.  These places were called spider webs.  It took a while for us to find them because they would jump out of these holes, fire shots, and disappear back into them.  Once they were located, however, grenades were thrown into the holes, and that ended the spider web snipers.  

The island is made of volcanic rock and sand, and the ground was so warm that at night, even when we bedded down, we had to put blankets over the ground before we could lie down. 

At our house, the USMC flag flies proudly, a daily reminder of Doug’s service, my nephews’, my grandfather’s, and all the Marines who came before and after them, including those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. My grandfather’s story reminds me that freedom has a face, and sacrifice has a name. I hope that by sharing his memories and the cost behind them, we never forget to honor those who served and to care deeply for those still carrying unseen battles.

Happy 250th Birthday, United States Marine Corps 

Semper Fi