Nick Sparacino had wanted to be a Marine since he was in the fourth grade.
He was, as he describes himself, “gung ho.”
The phrase is a Chinese saying meaning “work together,” but it gained extra zip and was imbued into the image of the Marine Corps by a 1943 Randolph Scott movie. The film, a hit, was “Gung Ho!: The Battle Cry of the Marine Raiders.”
Sparacino is a young-looking 77 and a resident of the Illinois Veterans’ Home at Manteno. He has lived there for two years and is very pleased with the care.
In Vietnam, Sparacino saw serious combat during a year-long tour that ran from 1966-67.
“I’m proud of what I did,” Sparacino said in describing his Marine service. Sparacino believed in the mission of stopping communist aggression.
He signed up for the delayed enlistment program while still a senior at De La Salle High in Chicago. Ordinarily that gets you some time off after graduation before you report. But Sparacino was “antsy.” He wanted to go, he said.
The son of Albert and Gloria Sparacino, his dad was a World War II vet of the Italian campaign. He also had an uncle who served with the 82nd Airborne in Korea.
And despite the fact Sparacino saw serious action in Vietnam, he said he probably would sign up for the Marines if he had to do it all over again.
Sparacino was in the Marines just two weeks after high school. He was in boot camp in San Diego and went for infantry training at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He then landed in Vietnam as one of 300 replacements and was assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Marines.
He became part of the defense of the “Rock Pile,” a peak a mere 10 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone that separated North and South Vietnam at the time. It was about as far north as you could get in South Vietnam.
Taking part in Operation Hastings and Operation Prairie near the Demilitarized Zone, Sparacino battled North Vietnamese regulars.
His assignment also included defending Camp Carroll, an Army firebase that sheltered 175-millimeter artillery pieces used to bombard the enemy. There would be two Americans assigned to each bunker, he explained. One would be awake while the other rested or slept. The bunkers would have interlocking fields of fire defending the base. Aiming stakes would be placed in the ground and used as firing guides.
He also earned a Purple Heart while in Vietnam. While out on patrol and crossing a rice paddy, a punji stick impaled him above the knee. Such sticks were used as crude booby traps by the communists. The sticks were sharpened and thrust into the ground. The upper tip would be smeared with some sort of venom, poison or even human feces with the intent of causing an infection.
Evacuated by helicopter and treated, he was back in “light combat” within two weeks.
Sparacino also volunteered to use a flamethrower. No one, he said, liked to see the flamethrower carrier hop on to the helicopter. It meant there was serious combat ahead. The flamethrower rig also weighed about 68 to 72 pounds. It took a strong and committed Marine to carry out that assignment.
When his combat tour was over, he still had three years to serve. He remembers watching the 1968 Chicago demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention on television.
Sparacino became a shipboard Marine, serving on the USS Guadalcanal and the USS Boxer. His last assignment in the Marines was as a weapons instructor. His final rank in the corps was sergeant.
Returning to civilian life, he recalled his uncle was a police officer. Sparacino studied for the job and started as a part-time officer. By 1972, he was full time in Oak Forest. He had a 30-year career, retiring as a lieutenant.
He and his wife, Cheryl, have a blended family of four children.
Sparacino passes the time at the Illinois Veterans’ Home walking and watching television, particularly old military movies.
“I’m grateful for a lot of things here,” he said, adding he’s in good health and has made a lot of friends at the home.