Memoirs of an Outlaw: Life in the Sandbox

Chapter 4: Call Sign

“Tanner!” called Captain Ladd Shepard.

“Yes, sir,” I replied, getting up from behind my desk to make my way to his office.

I stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds while he continued to fill out some paperwork. Captain Shepard had recently been assigned to lead Delta Company as the company commanding officer. Along with Shepard, a few other Marines had come over to flesh out the senior leadership. First Sergeant Michael Sprague, a medium-height, muscular guy had come over from the air wing to take over as the company first sergeant. First Lieutenant Earlie Walker, a short, stern-faced Marine with a thick Southern drawl, was the company executive officer. Gunny Rossignol rounded out the staff and became the company gunnery sergeant. The four of them combined made for quite an interesting work atmosphere—very laid back, something I wasn’t accustomed to.

Captain Shepard looked up from his paperwork. “Go down to the ramp and tell the Marines to get in formation on the field,” he said.

“Yes, sir.” I turned and headed out of the back entrance of the company office. The walk to the “ramp,” our slang term for the parking lot and maintenance hangars that were home to our light armored vehicles (LAVs), wasn’t very long. In just a few minutes, I was walking past several LAV-25s, huge armored vehicles with eight wheels, a troop bay in the back that held four infantry Marines, and a 25 mm Bushmaster chaingun mounted to a turret on top. They were awesome to look at—unless, of course, you were the enemy; then you’d just shit your pants and run the other way.

I went around to all the platoon sergeants and informed them that they were to get their Marines in formation. The platoon sergeants started calling out to their Marines that they needed to head over to the field. One by one, Marines began to appear from behind, on top of, and under the vehicles where they were either maintaining their equipment or scrubbing off rust from the vehicle.

About a half an hour passed before the whole company was formed up on the field. A hundred and fifty-eight Marines were standing in perfect columns at parade rest as Captain Shepard made his way out onto the field. When he reached the front of the formation, First Sergeant Sprague called us to attention and reported in to Captain Shepard.

“At ease, gents!” Captain Shepard said, slowly making his way closer to the formation.

“I’ve got a couple of things to pass down to you all before you head out for the weekend. First of all, I’m pretty sure many of you are aware we still don’t have a company name.”

It was true. We still didn’t have a company name, and it had been nearly a month or so since we had formed up. All the other companies in the battalion had names, and we stuck out like a sore thumb without one.

“First Sergeant Sprague, Lieutenant Walker, Gunny, and I have been discussing it, and we’ve got a few names we want to throw at you.”

He began to rattle off a list of names like “Renegades” and “Warriors.” They were fine but didn’t seem to suit us well. As we continued to reject the names one by one, it became obvious that Shepard was getting a bit frustrated.

“How ’bout the Outlaws?” someone yelled out.

The name seemed to roll off the tongue rather well, and I really liked it the moment I heard it. A lot of heads were nodding in approval, so I could tell the other guys liked it.

“Outlaws,” Captain Shepard said, almost as if he were asking a question. “Outlaws,” he repeated one more time. It seemed as if he was trying to gauge the masculinity of the word, ensuring it represented us as a fighting unit well.