“A MARINE’S MARINE”
General, U.S. Marine Corps
In November 1950, during the Korean War, General Chesty Puller assigned Captain Robert Barrow’s Company to escort a convoy of 34 vehicles from Wonsan to relieve the Marines at Majon-ni. Barrow’s first attempt failed due to darkness, ambushes and a lack of air cover. He reported to Puller that he failed but vowed to make it the next day. A strategy came to him in the middle of the night. The North Koreans could hear the trucks coming and prepared their ambushes, so Barrow assembled a reinforced platoon to proceed several thousand yards ahead of the convoy. This point team caught the North Koreans cooking rice and decimated their numbers and took 650 prisoners. Barrow said, “Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.”
Robert H. Barrow was born in 1922 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and grew up in West Feliciana Parish during the Great Depression. He attended LSU from 1939 to 1942 and proved to be a good student and cadet. He left school and joined the Marine Corps at the beginning of World War II.
His experience during Marine training in San Diego left a lasting impression on him. He was never satisfied with the experience and preparation troops received before being sent to war. This would be revisited later in his career.
Barrow served in China during World War II. He was promoted to First Lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Group China, where he trained a Chinese guerilla team that operated behind the lines in Japanese-occupied Central China. He described his China service as one of his “most vivid experiences,” and he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V.”
In Korea, Captain Barrow was Commanding Officer of Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, Marine Division (Reinforced) and led his troops in action including the Inchon-Seoul operation, a daring amphibious strike led by General Douglas MacArthur. Captain Barrow also led his company in the Chosin Reservoir campain. He was considered the “finest regimental commander” of the Korean War and was awarded the Navy Cross. After Korea, Barrow was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and he graduated from the National War College in June 1968.
Barrow served in the Vietnam War as Commanding Officer of the 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division. He led them in combat near the DMZ, Khe Sanh, Da Krong Valley, A Shau Valley and Operation Dewey Canyon and received the Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism.
Barrow, Commandant of the Marine Corps from 1979 to 1983, was the first Commandant to serve, by law, as a regular full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Commandant, he helped create reforms designed to end physical abuse and harassment of recruit trainees by drill instructors. He demanded that there be no more “excess stress” on recruits by drill sergeants, and he also succeeded in raising the quality of recruits. In 1975, fewer than half of the recruits had high school diplomas; by 1982, that number increased to 82 percent.
Upon retirement from the Marine Corps in 1983, Barrow was presented the Navy Distinguished Service Medal and appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and to the Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management.
Robert Barrow died on October 30, 2008, at the age of 86. He was buried with full military honors, in accordance with his wishes, at Grace Episcopal Church and Cemetery in St. Francisville, Louisiana. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James T. Conway, delivered the eulogy, recognizing Barrow for his many initiatives, including reforming recruiting and training.