When a couple of old Marines who served together over 45
years ago get together, what do they do? Have a few beers
and talk about other old Marines. So it went when John
Pointer from San Diego stopped in to see Bill Rajewski in
Harrisburg, MO on a cross country trip.
"Did you hear Mike became a prison psychologist? Must have
been the training working with us."
"Think that's bad? Hall got elected to public office…
several times. Made me lose faith in democracy!"
"Whatever happened to Mad Dog?"
"The guy with the lip print tattoo on his rear? No idea. I
know AJ was KIA in '67 and Harry died a couple of years ago.
But I lost track of the rest."
So a few more beers and they call Mike to come over. Then
they call me (the recovering politician) long distance. Then
they get on the computer, and start putting names to faces
in the 1965 class photo from MCRD Radio Relay Repair School
at MCRD. (See attached, though we are all better looking
today.) And the hunt was on. So far, we have found eleven,
we know that two are gone and five are still missing…
including Mad Dog. This has resulted in long phone calls and
e-mails as we reconnect with friends of our dimly-remembered
youth. Reunions and meetings are planned.
If you haven't looked up your old Marine buddies, remember
tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Get on the vet sites or something
like Net Detective or Switchboard.com and get with it. Or
you'll be doing bends and thrusts until I get tired!
Robert A. Hall
USMC 64-68, CPL
USMCR 77-83, SSgt