Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association
 
Home | Gatherings | Memorial | History | ITT's | Bulletin Board | Gear Locker | Links
Members Only which requires a Password

Timothy C. Brown

My Marine service began in 1954, at age 16, when I joined the Marine Reserve 49^th Special Infantry Company in Reno, Nevada, since transformed in to 4^th Force Recon Battalion. After I turned 17 in boot camp at San Diego, I served a short tour with HQBN 7^th Marines at Las Pulgas, Camp Pendleton, where I became a Message Center Man, MOS 2543. Shortly after arriving at Pendleton, and while still 17,  I was promoted to CPL, began reading every announcement on the bulletin board.  During my second enlistment I went to the Army Language School in Monterey, California  to study Thai for 41 weeks, from July 1960 to July 1961, at the end of which I  was designated an Interrogator-Translator (Thai), MOS 8631. From Monterey I was given some leave before reporting into the Army Intelligence School at Ft. Holabird, MD in September for its nine week POW Interrogators course. I turned out to be the only Marine, only NCO and only regular in my training unit and so, as a Marine Sgt and the only non-college graduate in my class, became “Commander” of a platoon of 29 US Army Pvts and Pfcs, all reservists just out of boot camp and most graduates of Ivy League colleges. My Right Guide was even a graduate of Harvard Law.  It was after graduating at the top of my training class (to the surprise of my Ivy League platoon) that I proceeded to Hawaii and reported in to the 1^st Interrogation-Translation Team on November 16, 1961. The 1^st ITT, a new unit under FMFPAC located at Camp Smith, Oahu, Hawaii, was in the process of being organized when I reported in
13 November 1961.  The first one to report in had arrived several months before and had immediately started arranging office spaces for those to come, obtaining furniture and furnishings and setting up a rudimentary administrative process. The Marine who took this initiative was a mere LCPL named Ronald Sawin, a near-native speaker of Vietnamese who had been born and raised in Hanoi, North Vietnam by American missionary parents and whose parents were still living in Vietnam, albeit Saigon. But then, the 1^st ITT was to be made up of extraordinary Marines.  I was a Thai and Spanish language member of the 1st ITT at FMFPAC 1960-64 (Capt. Cook was my first CO), am writing my memoires and am digging through photos and documents from the period. From the 1st ITT I went into the Foreign Service for 27 years. After retiring I went back to college for a PhD and was a research flow at the Hoover Institution. I currently I write, speak and lecture on COIN and terrorism, most recently at JSOC and NISA in The Netherlands, and on May am scheduled to speak March 3 in DC at the Institute for World Politics on geostrategic. My lecture begins with my experiences while with the 1st ITT, a bit different from what ITTers did later. For example, I did COIN in Thailand and the Philippines, was interpreter for Gen. Simpson while he was CG of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force (and later Assistance Commandant), did some archeology, village studies, and even interpreted for the King of Thailand. Unfortunately, I will be out of the country and won't be able to join you in Texas. I'm included in the recent Above and Beyond - Former Marines Conquer the Civilian World (photo below left). Also is a photo (below right) that appeared in Leatherneck, taken while I was Consul General in Martinique, during a ceremony at the HQ of the 33rd French Marines during which - with the Commandant's permission, I swore in my son-in-law for his second enlistment. My second daughter, his wife and also a Marine and disabled Persian Gulf Ware vet, is wearing the only Marine maternity uniform the French Marines had ever seen!

Hawaii, FMFPAC, 1963. 1st Interrogator/Translator Team. Left to right, Sgt Pentony, Mandarin; 1Sgt. Bowman, Farsi; Sgt. Brown, Thai, Spanish, Cpl Chang, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese; unidentified Sgt.;  Sgt Smith, Vietnamese; Capt Beal, Mandarin, CO. Most of the Team was usually deployed.

Updated:02/12/11