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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 2016)
Wednesday,February24,2016The Nugget Newspaper,Sisters,Oregon9 The Bunkhouse Chronicle Craig Rullman Columnist Where are you, Newberry? Where have you gone? Next month I have the distinct privilege of travel- ingtoArizonawithSisters- basedWarfighterOutfitters, andtheoccasionhascaused me to think deeply about myservice,andsomeofthe largercharacterswhoinhab- itedthatworld. I was a Marine, with B r a v o C o m p a n y 1 / 1 , deployed twice to the Persian Gulf, and those men are among the great- estfriendsIwilleverknow. Iamintouchwithmanyof them, but it is some of the others I am thinking about now, those characters who have faded as the world turned and we rotated out, but who left an imprint foreverstampedinmymind. I think instantly of Newberry. L a n c e C o r p o r a l Newberry was a liberty risk. Everyone knew this. In a world of rigid disci- pline,whereyoungMarines were routinely made to bear-crawl up the steep hills of Camp Pendleton, or run repeatedly up even steeper hills to sit under “The Tree of Knowledge,” ortocoverandalignwood- chips in front of the bar- racks,ortostandbarefooted inthecommode,wearinga gas mask and a flak jacket while singing the Marines’ Hymn under a fusillade of darts, Newberry’s tire- lessandsmilingaccumula- tion of derelictions found himmostoftenconfinedto quarters,doingthousandsof pushupsin“incentivetrain- ing”sessions,orpullingan endless series of 24-hour g u a r d m o u n t s a r o u n d CampHorno. Inanenvironmentwhere conformity is demanded, and “instant and willing obediencetoorders”isboth expected and enforced, it was precisely Newberry’s good-natured refusal to takeanythingseriouslythat made him beloved by all, even those whose unfortu- natejobitwastodiscipline himforyetanothersmiling rebukeorinsouciantrefusal in the face of Company PunishmentortheUCMJ. Newberry was anything but stupid. He was incred- ibly intelligent. He wasn’t lazy, either. He worked as hard as anyone, and given his extra duties one might argue he worked much harder.Hewasn’tsmug,or openlydefiant,hewasn’ta malcontent sewing disor- der,andhewasn’tacriminal masquerading in uniform. Hewas,simply,Newberry. Newberrys are never made.Theyaresimplyborn. Newberry hailed from the deep South. Alabama, orMississippi,orperhapsit wasGeorgia.Ican’tremem- ber.Idorememberhisbright smile and his constantly sunnydisposition,theeternal glowonhisshoulderseven inthecourseofadisciplin- arymoment.Hewassimply fullof“Yes,Sergeants,”and “Yes,Sirs,”andwouldsalute crisplybeforemovingonto ignore or egregiously vio- lateeveryorderthrownhis way. Dateline: Singapore. On oursecondforwarddeploy- menttotheGulf,wemadea libertycallinSingapore.We were given the obligatory speechesandwarningsand orderstoavoidtheoff-limits areas. Naturally, Newberry disappeared immediately. He returned to the ship only at the last possible moment, his foot in a cast, and his head stapled from eyebrowtoearlobe.Hewas immediately hauled to the Company Office, some- whereinthesuperstructure oftheUSSPeleliu,foroffice hours. The reports are largely unreliable, but the word that filtered down to us — Newberry-lovers all — was that Newberry had responded,whenaskedwhat had happened to him, and where he had been, with a simple answer: “I was off- limits,andIwasattackedby Ninjas,”hesaid. WhetherornotNewberry was attacked by Ninjas we will never know, but that answer,whichcouldonlybe true,elevatedhiminstantly tolegendarystatus. In the Marine Corps, a Sergeant Major sits somewhere close to God Almighty.Andhehasearned that post.And I was there when the MEU Sergeant Major toured our berthing space, sometime after the Ninja attack, chatting with the young Marines, and happenedbythedisasterof Newberry’srack.Newberry hadtakentheoccasionofhis convalescence to forget he wasevenaMarine.TheSgt. Major passed Newberry’s rack as though he hadn’t seen it, then stopped, took three steps backward, and l o u d l y d e m a n d e d t h a t Newberrypresenthimself. Newberry crawled out ofhisrack,bearded,casted, stapled,andwearingaNavy Engineer’s jumpsuit. He stoodfrontandcenter,solid asGibralter. “Marine!” the Sergeant Major demanded loudly, freezingtheentireportside ofagiganticwarship.“Just whodoyouthinkyouare?” And then, in the arctic silencethathadfallenover the tight confines of our berthing space, an echo- ing, terrible, demanding silencethatcoatedallofus with hoarfrost, Newberry saidquietly,securely,witha southernaccentandwithout pause:“JohnnyCash.” And so next month I will travel toArizona with my fellow veterans. I look forward to this trip with something much beyond eagerness, because we all knew our own Newberrys, maybe some part of us, sometimes,wishedwewere him, and maybe some part of us still does. But wher- everweassemblefrom,we took an oath once, for the Newberrys of this world, and for something bigger thanjustourselves. 2015 Sisters Country Non-Profi t of the Year! Furry Friends Foundation was presented with the 2015 Sisters Country Non-Profi t of the Year award this past Friday at the Sisters Chamber annual event. There are so many worthy non-profi ts in Sisters we are truly honored by this award. FURRY FRIEND S 501 ( c )( 3 ) FOUNDATION Thank you to all our volunteers, supporters and to the Sisters Area Chamber for believing in us. — Kiki Dolson “Abby” Furry Friends Spokesdog
