I had just turned 18 and was with 2nd Battalion 6th Marines, 2nd Marine Division at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. For whatever reason a few of us were picked out to run the American flag up the pole one day in front of regimental headquarters. The pole was at least 60 feet and the flag was a biggie. There were 6 of us - two flagmen, three riflemen for a proper salute and a bugler to blow the "Call To Colors".

I was one of the flagmen. My partner and I hooked the colors to the lanyards and began to hoist as the riflemen made the proper salute and the bugler sounded "Colors".

The flag was going up the pole upside down. The flag upside down is a signal of "distress" and forbidden in the Marine Corps. Up about 30 feet we hauled down the colors and corrected our miserable mistake which did not go unnoticed.

All 6 of us were called to see the regimental commander, a colonel out of WWII and Korea who began his career as a young 2nd lieutenant in 1940. I was terrified. The bugler was a 19-year-old black kid out of Chicago and the oldest amongst us who was better at a trumpet or coronet than he was with a bugle. He was afraid that his bugle presentation was bad.

All the colonel told us was that he was happy to see that young Marines could fuck something up, unfuck it in a hurry, and maintain discipline without becoming rattled. Nobody got in trouble.

It's strange some of the things that stick in your memory.