‘The White House and the Capitol silhouetted against the backdrop of a burning city’

In April 1968, I was a Marine lieutenant, training at the Basic School at Quantico, Va. We had been in the field most of the winter, training on how to fire weapons and run patrols. By April, we were about to graduate and had moved back into the classroom to learn tactics.

One morning at company formation, our commander said he needed 10 volunteers for a special mission.

Everybody in the formation knew that you do not volunteer for anything in the Marine Corps; it’s usually not a good deal. Then the commander said the volunteers had to be 6 feet tall, have a car and be willing to spend 50 bucks. It just sounded good. I stuck my hand up, then several of my friends joined in. The captain took us to the colonel, who briefed us.

We had volunteered to be official military escorts for young ladies at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. The four branches of service and the Coast Guard were each providing 10 officers for escort duty. There would be one young lady representing each state. The colonel explained that these young ladies’ parents were in Congress, were flag officers in the military or were justices of the Supreme Court.

The parents would be hanging around watching; we’d best act like the fine officers and gentlemen that we were.

Every day there was a brunch, an event at noon, an afternoon tea, an evening banquet. All the daddies and mommies were there watching, along with several hundred members of Congress and their wives or husbands. The press was everywhere. The hardest jobs were keeping the uniforms sharp and getting around town.

We went through the rigors of the April 4 schedule and by 6 p.m. were in the arena at Fort Myer, on the west bank of the Potomac. There were about 6,000 in attendance, including most of the members of Congress and most of the brass from the Pentagon. It was a solemn ceremony. The lights went down. There was an Army captain in dress blues standing in a spotlight in the center of the arena. “Forward … march!” It was the only command that would be given. There were silent precision drills including infantry, cavalry on horseback and cannon, all in spotlights in the darkened room. Halfway through the show, in the dim light on the crowd, we could see aides coming into the arena and finding the important people in the room. The generals and the congressmen, one at a time, left the room. The place was hushed, but it was impossible to miss the fact that something was going on.

Martin Luther King Jr. had been murdered in Memphis, Tenn. The riots were widespread, all across the nation.

The girls were taken back to their hotel. We never saw them again. We were ordered, along with all the other military officers in Washington, to the nearest operational headquarters. That was Eighth Street and I Southeast, the Marine Barracks and the home of the commandant of the Marines. I drove there unaccompanied, watching the fires in the northeast sector of the city get brighter. On the radio, I heard the rioters were moving toward the Capitol.

At Eighth and I were two squadrons of transport helicopters sitting idle on a tarmac. Inside an old warehouse were hundreds of Marines in full combat gear. These weren’t recruits. They were hardened combat veterans armed with machine guns, tear gas and smoke grenades. They were there to protect the White House, Capitol and Supreme Court. Those assigned to protect the Library of Congress were authorized to shoot to kill. I remember the words of the gunnery sergeant who was briefing the Marines: “These are our people. They are upset. This is not going to be easy.”

There was nothing for 10 lieutenants in dress blues to do, so they told us to go back to Quantico.

That was 1968. It’s been 50 years, and every year since then, when I hear of the Cherry Blossom Festival, I recall that image of the White House and the Capitol silhouetted against the backdrop of a burning city, and how fast so many things changed in that one year.