At the end of January, 1983, after I completed Amphibious Landing Intelligence Analyst School, I was directed to report to the Commanding Officer, Marine Aircraft Group 39 (MAG-39), at Camp Pendleton, CA. I had been in the Marine Corps a total of five months, and was still a Private. My buddy from Intel School, Larry, was also assigned there. We traveled together, and reported in together. He was assigned to Helicopter Training Squadron 303 (HMT-303), a training squadron, and I was assigned to Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369 (HMLA-369), a UH-1N Huey and AH-1J Cobra helicopter squadron. I don’t remember how I got from MAG-39 to the squadron, but I remember carrying my 100 lb. seabag and wardrobe bag stuffed full of clothes upstairs and into the S-3 (Operations) office. There was a Lance Corporal there from Flanders, NJ, named Russ Cudney (his nickname was “Cud”). He was a helicopter crewchief by MOS, but worked in the Safety/NATOPS office with two Captains.
Cud said, “Look, a slick-sleeve! (Marine Privates have no rank insignia for the sleeves of their uniforms) Who are you?”
I told him I was Private Diehl. He said, “What’s your whole name?”
I told him it was Damon John.
Cud said, “Oh, ‘DJ.’”, shook my hand, and asked, “How ya doin’?” And just like that, I had a new name, for the next 12 years.
I was a bit of an anomaly, for a while. Most Marines are a PFC or Lance Corporal when they report to a squadron, because their MOS came with a promotion guarantee or the schools they go to are so long that they get promoted once or twice before they get to the Fleet. I still had a month to go before I became eligible for a promotion. It took a few days before word got around that I wasn’t a screw-up being reassigned to the squadron from somewhere else, I was just a newbie who hadn’t been in the Corps long enough to get promoted, yet. But for the first couple days, the Marines downstairs looked at me with some suspicion and contempt.
Cud and I lived next to each other in the barracks, along with a true screw-up named Rich Goforth, from Lancaster, CA. Rich was an Aviation Operations Clerk, and had been busted a couple times. He had a problem with alcohol. He was a good Marine, and did his job well, just every so often he would get drunk and get into trouble and go back to being a Private for a while. The other Marine I worked closely with was on leave when I arrived. He was the Classified Material Control Center (CMCC) Clerk. His office door, right next to mine, was reinforced, with a combination lock. Inside were a couple large safes, with the squadron’s classified material inside. It was his job to keep track of everything in the safes. Ivan was from Conrad, MT, and had curly red hair. He, too, was a helicopter mechanic by MOS. Apparently, the AH-1J that he was assigned to as a Plane Captain in another squadron went down, not because of anything he did, but a stigma was attached to him because of it, and he wound up in 369, working upstairs in the CMCC. I don’t remember why Russ was up in Safety/NATOPS instead of down in the Flightline shop. He had aircrew wings, and did occasionally log some flight time. But he also helped run the Operations Office, and knew as much if not more than Goforth did about how to do the job. He was also very tight with the pilots (officers). They all called him “Cud” rather than Lance Corporal Cudney.
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