Pendleton Marine Wives Tired of Having to Battle for Information on Husbands

Marianne Hoerner and about 4,600 other Camp Pendleton Marine wives have been left swinging on the grapevine, the last to know where their husbands are or when they are coming home. Now she’s leading a mutiny of sorts against the military establishment.

“For eight weeks they were jerking us around,” she said. “Each week they told us, ‘Next week,’ and ‘next week’ they will be on their way back.”

But what mobilized Hoerner into action was newspaper and television reports this weekend that the 5th Marine Expeditionary Force had been detoured to Bangladesh on a mercy mission.

“This last change in plans was not communicated to Marine wives until after it was announced to the news media,” Hoerner said. “We went from euphoria to devastation in a matter of five days.”

Hoerner is a “key wife,” a link in the distaff chain of command that is supposed to pass down information to other Marine wives and dependents about the movement of the troops. From the commanding officer’s wife to the wives of lower-ranking officers to the wives of enlisted men the word is spread through the Marine community. Or, at least it is supposed to be. This time, and many other times, the word did not come down.

“One of the wives in my support group didn’t know a thing about this latest delay until she picked up the Sunday paper and read about it,” Hoerner said. “She was so shaken up. It was unbelievable.”

Hoerner’s support group has planned and canceled three sessions to create their “Welcome Home” banners and frills for their husbands’ return. Another attempt is scheduled for next weekend, Hoerner said, “and what the hell, we are going ahead with it.”

Her anger peaked Saturday when rumors were rife around the Marine base and Oceanside that some Marines were going to be diverted to rescue duties in Bangladesh. But no official word came down, so Hoerner, the wife of a staff sergeant, had nothing concrete to tell her support group.

“Of course, we are not happy that our husbands are going to be delayed, but what I am fighting for is a system that will let us know what’s going on before we read it in the newspapers.”

Hoerner, who works in an Oceanside computer store, suggested that the Marines, if they want the continued support of the folks back home, had better join the electronic age of instantaneous communication. At present, she pointed out, “it’s a Pony Express system that the Marine Corps is using to notify us.”

Other Marine wives echoed Hoerner’s complaint about the lack of timely and accurate news from the Marine Corps, but they have not joined her in her letter-writing campaign to major newspapers, influential congressmen and the sergeant-major of the Marine Corps.

“I watched CNN almost constantly until the kids went mad,” another Marine wife said. “They usually had more about the Marines and what was going on than we ever got from official sources.”

This last bit of bad news was crushing to her because “my son is graduating on June 20 and it has been a case of ‘he’ll be home,’ ‘he won’t make it,’ ‘he’ll make it,’ and now he won’t.”

The last of the Camp Pendleton Marines embarked last week by ship for the United States and a homecoming sometime between June 14 and 20. Now, it looks as if that date will be pushed back by approximately three weeks by the Bangladesh rescue mission.

“It’s been this way all through the deployment to the Persian Gulf,” the Marine wife said, asking that her name not be used. “First it was to be that all the troops would be sent home by the end of March, and then they told us the middle of May, and then the middle of June.

“You try to make plans, homecoming plans, and it isn’t easy with five kids.”

Louisa Martin, whose 5-year-old, Shannon, attends kindergarten at Vista’s Grapevine Elementary School, thinks it is harder on the children than on their parents.

“Most of the other children’s dads are home by now and she can’t understand. It’s really hard on her,” Martin said. “How do you explain that to a child?”

About the key wife system of notifying families, Martin said, “it just isn’t working. Sometimes the message gets partway down the chain and then goes no further. Someone just drops the ball.”

“I called the chairperson of my (key wife) group and told her that there was a problem here, and she told me that I should be thankful to receive the news any way it came. And I thought the Marines were supposed to take care of their own.”

Several Marine wives said they got more accurate information from the Navy than from the Marine Corps. But, on the deployment to Bangladesh, even the Navy dropped the ball.

A “care line” message from the tank landing ship transport Barbour County, reporting the detour of the Camp Pendleton contingent, was not sent out to Pendleton wives until 9:30 p.m. Monday--2 1/2 days after the Pentagon had made a public statement about the decision.

Chief Warrant Officer Randy Gaddo, media officer at Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, said Tuesday that “there is no official notification procedure for dependents. It’s an informal process, a behind-the-scenes system where one wife notifies other wives.”

As for the Bangladesh diversion of 4,600 troops, Gaddo said, “What happened was that they were at sea when they received orders and, bang, they made a left turn and they were on their way to Bangladesh.”

Gaddo said there are security considerations that may have short-circuited the informal grapevine.

“When a task force that large is on the move, normally any of their movements would not be made public, especially in that part of the world,” he explained.

“It would just be too cumbersome to orchestrate to have a company commander responsible for notifying the families of all his men,” Gaddo said.

“So we need a new system,” persists Hoerner. “We need a system that notifies everyone of what is going on before they read it in the papers.”

It’s not just the families that are being kept in the dark, she said. “The other day I was talking to a staff sergeant on the base and he gave me his home phone number and asked me to call him if I heard anything more.”