Docent's stories make Marine Corps history come alive

he Marine Corps is like a big old oak tree, the former devil dog said. It stands tall, proud and upright. Throughout its history, people have tried to cut it down, yet it still stands.
Since the National Museum of the Marine Corps opened in 2006, retired Col. Barry Colassard, a docent there, has done his best to ensure that the “big old oak tree” stays standing by passing on his experiences and stories to visiting veterans and Marine Corps newcomers alike.
His experiences include three years as an enlisted tank driver before becoming an infantry officer in 1955 at the Officer Candidates School. He has lead units in post-World War II Japan and Vietnam, been the head drug abuse officer on Quantico, worked on the presidential nuclear war plan committee and helped create the Marine Corps Junior ROTC curriculum upon the program’s inception in the early 1980s.
“When people walk into the museum, I point out that they are walking through living history,” Colassard said. “It’s a history built of the sweat and backs of brave Marines like those at Belleau Wood or Chosin. It’s a history you feel when you notice a former Marine approach the museum’s Iwo Jima wall with all the Eagle, Globes and Anchors representing his fallen Marines and just rubbing his hands over them  and whispering ‘My buddies, my buddies.’ It’s a history still being written to this day. I want our visitors to leave here with a sense of pride for my beloved Corps.”
To pass this message, Colassard uses a personal anthology of Marine Corps history he has collected within several thick binders. He helps share the stories within by imparting three themes to his guests.
First theme: Ordinary people do extraordinary things.
“Marines do things that make no sense to a civilian,” Colassard said. “They’ll run toward the sound of the guns to get the mission done.
“I remember when a 90-year-old man, Bob Hughes, who came to the museum in his wheelchair to see our exhibit of the Iwo Jima flag,” Colassard said. “He came to me and told me he was fighting in the 'Rock Quarry' on Iwo when the first flag was raised above Mount Suribachi. In the middle of the battle he watched the flag being raised. Amidst the gunfire, he stood and held a hand salute. While standing at attention in the quarry a Japanese sniper must have seen him, because as he saluted, a shot was fired so close to his face that it snapped the strap holding his helmet. Although he knew of the danger, he was willing to lose his life to render respect and honor to the flag.”
Second theme: One person can make a difference.
“You don’t have to be the president or a general, anyone can alter the course of history and change lives,” Colassard said.
“I was taking part in a tour through Guam, and walked on a tour bus and sat in the only seat still available,” Colassard said. “The women sitting next to me subtly leaned over and handed me a copy of an Associated Press article.
“It tells of a 3rd Division Marine, Richard Washburn, who was part of the recapturing of Guam during World War II. He wrote home to his mother joking that he hadn’t seen a lot of blond girls on the island. Weeks later he received a package from his mother. The Marine was expecting to see candy or other goods, but instead he was embarrassed to find his mother had sent him a blond-haired rag doll to keep him company.
“One day while on patrol Washburn came across a local women walking with her 3-year-old daughter who clung tightly to her dress. The Marine stopped them and kneeled down and looked at the raggedy clothed, malnourished child. He pulled out the blond-haired doll from his pack and offered it to her with a big smile. He wanted to give that girl a little hope. The girl took it, squeezed it tight, looked up at the Marine and smiled. They would both remember those smiles for the rest of their life.
“It turns out that the woman I was sitting next to was named Natty Calvo and she was the little girl from the story,” Colassard said. “She had first met with Washburn  in 2001 and their families have stayed in contact ever since. She now has 13 grandchildren,” Colassard said. “I promised I would continue telling her story while giving my tours at the museum.
“One day I was telling this story to a tour group at the museum,” Colassard said. “It happened that a women in the crowd knew Washburn. When she returned home, she told Washburn that I was telling his story to visitors of the museum. He was touched by what he heard and wrote me a letter.
Colassard carries a copy of the letter in which reads in part,“Too often the stories of war tell only the horrors of combat. That may be necessary but it is not all that transpires on and at the battlefield. Nearly all Marines carry with them a loneliness and desire to create a feeling to bring some joy into the lives that have been subjected to carnage enveloping their lives. What I did was something out of heart and opportunity.”

Calvo and Washburn would eventually meet once more at the museum to hear Colassard share their story.
Third theme: All the vehicles and weapons in the museum are nice, but they are nothing without the Marine behind them.
“Everyone who comes here loves to see the tanks and see the different rifles from the different eras, but I try to impart on them the stories of actual Marines who used those items in the fight,” Colassard said.
“A gentleman came up to me and told me his father, George Mavromatis, had fought on Iwo Jima,” Colassard said. “He asked me for a tour and I gladly guided him around for the morning. After the tour was done he took me aside and told me he had a copy of his father’s diary that he kept throughout the Iwo Jima invasion, and he asked me if I would like a copy. I said yes, and a few weeks later I was received a copy of the diary.
“I was amazed by what I read,” Colassard said. “It accounted for the Marine’s entire journey with 4th Marine Division from their time training for the invasion in Hawaii, the landing and battles he fought in for more than a month on the island. I knew the diary had to be real by the way it was written. He sounded just like a typical Marines, from ‘liberating’ food from the Navy to chasing nurses on Hawaii. At the time of the landing, he was still a teenager. In the diary he describes the beach as a living hell blanketed with bodies.
“In the diary he often spoke of his worries for his friend, Abie,” Colassard said. “He was the kind of gung-ho Marine who was the first to charge in every cave. It turned out Abie was a relative of Mavromatis’ wife. As fate would have it, back in 2009 I personally led Abie, then around age 90, through the museum.”
“The artifacts we have on display here are great to look at, but without Marines like Mavromatis they would be just tools,” Colassard said. “I want to make sure people know these unique stories about Marines.”
The moment Colassard was handed an Eagle, Globe and Anchor as a teenager by his World War II veteran Marine cousin, he knew he wanted to be part of the brotherhood, he said. As a Marine he enjoyed nothing more than a challenge and finding ways to do more than just the bare minimum. After retiring in 1981 with 29 years of experience as a tank driver and unit leader, he took his skills to the civilian business world.
After seeing a want ad in a newspaper, already with two jobs as an auto dealer and a historical tour guide, Colassard took up the call to be a volunteer docent at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
For Colassard being a docent is about making every visitor’s trip memorable, like the time he spent eight hours on one tour with a blind couple. Colassard knowing that his guests couldn’t see the exhibits, described each one in detail so they had a visualization of the museum by the time they left.
“I’ve been asked why I do a job that doesn’t pay,” Colassard said. “Well, in my opinion, I’m more than overpaid for what I do by all the wonderful people I meet, the stories I hear and the history I get to pass on.”
Colassard says he finds great satisfaction knowing he has done his part to make sure the “big old oak tree” remains standing tall and proud.

Editor's note: Reprinted from The Quantico Sentry