Pictured: Tim Roelofs, formerly of Lismore, now resides in North Carolina, where he and his wife are retired school teachers.

By Jill Fennema –

Tim Roelofs enlisted in the US Marine Corp. Sept 5, 1969. Tim is a son of Margaret (Moret) and Gerrit “Walt” Roelofs of Lismore. His mother grew up along the Valley Road and was a sister of Janet Pronk. So Terry and Ron Pronk are Tim’s first cousins. Tim’s aunt was Hildred (Roelofs) Olivier – former Roving Reporter for the Edgerton Enterprise.

Tim graduated from Adrian Public High School in 1968. He went to Worthington Community College for one year before deciding to enlist. He had promised his parents he would try college, which he did. But he did not enjoy college and was not interested. 

“I was very patriotic, which was a little unusual for that period of time,” Tim said. “I figured if I joined the Marines, with the one year of college behind me, I would be more likely to pick up rank and get an office job.”

His uncle, John P. Moret of Chandler, who was his mother’s stepbrother, was also a Marine. 

Tim went to basic training at San Diego, Calif., at the Marine Corp Recruit Depot (MCRD). He was in basic for nine weeks. He flew into San Diego. They all took a bus to the MCRD. 

“In the first five minutes, I realized I had made a big mistake,” Tim recalled. “When we got on the bus, the driver, who was a Marine, lit into us in a language I had never heard. We sat there rigid until we got to MRCD.”

The first night they went through the haircut routine. 

They come around with the clippers and start shaving everything off and then march you all around the base all night long. We went to a big tent with cots and were told to go to sleep. Fifteen minutes later you were back up marching. This was just the type of harassment that went on all night, along with constant yelling. 

The training had its desired affect and pretty soon they were Marines. 

After basic Tim went to Camp Pendleton, Calif., for four weeks of infantry training. Every Marine goes through that training no matter what job they will have later. They were introduced to all types of weaponry, from rifles, to the M60 machine gun, grenades, shoulder fired rockets, etc. 

They also learned various military tactics. Two examples include sitting in fox holes all night and another group would attack and harass them. They also did land mine searches, crawling on their hands and knees. The land mines had small firecrackers in them, so if the Marine screwed up, he got his fingers burned. They also had to mark them and learn how to hold the trigger to keep it from detonating. 

After that training, Tim was able to go home on leave for a week before going to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, which is on the east coast. This large military base was built at the beginning of World War II. The main base is about 125 square miles.  During WWII, there was an army base just down the road (Camp Davis), which was also a training center for army soldiers going to Europe. 

Tim was assigned to food service and went through nine weeks of classes for that. There was also a four week course, but the Marines who took that course learned field cooking and went straight to Vietnam after graduation. 

Tim was trained in mess hall cooking, field cooking, and baking. He had some clerical skills, so they kept him there at the food service school. His job was to process new students who came in. He ran the office. He occasionally worked in the mess hall when they were short-handed or on the weekend.