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