A Marine as Citizen
Angus Alberson of Hartford, Alabama served in the Marine Corps from 1966 until 1970. He graduated from boot camp at Parris Island after which he was trained as an aircraft mechanic. Alberson was given a choice of duty station owing to excellent performance in training, and chose MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina where he was attached to VMFA-451.[i] Interestingly, he worked on the flight line rather than the engine shop because the squadron needed Marines with his training there. Alberson like the work, saying of it: “It was a good job, probably the best I’ve ever had.”
Angus Alberson married in 1969, and left the Marine Corps in 1970, but remained in the Beaufort area because his wife, Johnette, wanted to stay near home. The day Alberson separated from the Corps, he went to a nearby tool and die shop and asked for a job. The man with whom he spoke, Turner Tootin, told him to be back at the shop Tuesday morning to start work at a job Alberson would hold for eight years. Over the years, Angus Alberson and Turner Tootin became friends, and Tootin eventually helped Alberson start his own business, American Machining and Manufacturing Company in Varnville, South Carolina.[ii] Alberson said of his experience to that time that “The Lord put me in the right place at the right time and put me with the right people.” Yet Alberson understood that having these advantages was not quite enough. “However, I realized over the years that when people ask you to do a job, they don’t want excuses; they want the job done, and I feel that realizing that had made a big difference.”
Alberson tells the interesting story of a visit he had some years ago from a Lieutenant and a Sergeant from Parris Island who wanted his company to make pull-up bars for use by Marine recruits. “So we sketched it up here about 20 years ago and have been making it for them ever since.” Staff Sergeant Justin Lundy of the Enhanced Marketing Team with the 6th Marine Corps District said that Alberson’s pull-up bars “are used throughout the Marine Corps and enable us to inspire a competitive nature while visiting high school students, county fairs, and large national events. Having an interactive element at an event provides the public with more than just a conversation.” Alberson said of the use of his company’s pull-up bars by the Marine Corps that “I really see [them] as my way to give back to the Marine Corps. I think the Marine Corps really gave me the drive, enthusiasm, the ability to stick to it—to all of this stuff. I look at it like the Marine Corps is still giving after all these years. The Marine Corps is one of the best things I have ever done for myself in order to get my head together.”
[i] Materials for this article is taken from an essay titled “The Pleasure of Knowing a Marine.” A copy of the essay may be found here: https://www.mcrc.marines.mil/In-the-News/Stories/Article/Article/3197054/the-pleasure-of-knowing-a-marine/
[ii] Varnville, South Carolina is the town of Greenbow, Alabama in the movie “Forest Gump.”
