Category: Marine Families

This is me and my youngest sister in full dress greens circa 1944. My Dad had them made in Hawaii when he was recovering from a wound received on Saipan.   Buck Sgt Fred Finch USMC 1955-1959

Last summer my employer wanted to honor our Veteran’s for the 4th of July. The asked for a summary of our military service. My current employer is “New Breed”: Logistics.

The following was my submission:

Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller once said,
"Old breed. New Breed. There's not a bit of difference as long as it's the Marine breed!" read more

Sgt Grit….

Enjoy the newsletter every week, great stories and memories.

For those that endured Okinawa some time during their enlistment here’s a Marines first tour!

1950-1955 our family was based on The ROCK. Dad, Major Douglas J Ash, Sr. was an operator with THE COMPANY. Before joining that outfit he severed in the Corps during WWII as 105 Howitzer training officer at Camp Pendleton, then landed on Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa as a 105/155 Battery CO, served as the Provost Marshall of Nagasaki and then brought home the 1st Japanese Army from Manchuria. read more

Dear Sgt. Grit,   As you know, “Once a Marine, Always a Marine” applies to the families as well.  My dad was a 6’3”  200+ pound Marine that yelled reveille every morning and that was before he went to work.  I always said he was a little sentimental because he never forgot my mom’s birthday…he’d say, “How could I forget, it’s 5 days before the Marine Corps Birthday”.  That was the biggest holiday in our family growing up!   My dad, Gy/Sgt Patrick J. Kelly retired after 30 years in the Corps.  He proudly served in Korea, Okinawa and 3 tours in Nam. He was also a weapons instructor to the Royal Thai Marine Corps from 1960-61.   I was the first baby born in the new hospital at 29 Palms, My sister(s) Colleen was born at Camp Lejeune, Kathleen and Mary were born at Quantico, and finally, Patrick J. Kelly II was born in New York but conceived on base at 29 Palms.  The family joke was, my dad would come home long enough to get my mom pregnant and then he’d ship out again.   I remember every base we lived on (except Hawaii) and I have amazing stories from my dad, about my dad and all revolved around the Marine Corps.  When he retired in 1968 from Parris Island he was honored with a framed golden DI hat on red velvet with a plaque that says “To one of the most colorful Staff NCO’s in the United States Marine Corps.”   Above the plaque was a crossed sword and scabbard about 6”.  A few months ago the sword was somehow lost in a move.  My mom is heartsick about it as it’s always been hanging in a place of honor in our home.  I’ve been trying to find a replacement for it and that’s how I came across your website.      I have been reading the stories and comments from Marines and I have to tell you, it sure brings back so many memories.  I remember praying every night that dad would not be killed in Viet Nam as so many of our friends and neighbors were.  His third tour in Nam he was blown off a weapons carrier and they did surgery in a field hospital…dad’s comment…"They stitched me up and I’m as good as new; they did their job, now I’ll go finish mine”.   My dad ran the Staff NCO club when at Quantico and a couple other bases.  Sometimes he’d take me early and I’d get to set up shuffleboard, spit shine the bar stools (yup someone out there sat on one) and I’d get the place GI’d.  Those were some happy memories!  I remember Parris Island in the 60’s watching  recruits get their hair buzzed and some of them would actually cry (shouldn’t have joined the Marines)…Once we passed out old k-rations at Halloween, nothing goes to waste. I remember hearing, Sir, the smoking circle is formed; everyone called my dad Gunny and I remember terms like Jar Head, Grunt and I stand corrected.  Being Irish, we’d often hear my dad pay tribute by saying, “Yea, though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for I am the meanest SOB in the valley” (it was years before I knew that wasn’t the original verse)…and my all time favorite “mother is just half a word”.  At  night when it got a little rowdy in our quarters (as you’d expect with 5 kids) we’d hear LIGHTS OUT and knew it was time to knock it off!   After dad retired, and we settled in upstate New York, he’d get together with one of his best friends Colonel William Morgan (Uncle Bill); they would sit in the back yard for hours and “shoot the sh*t”.  I loved sitting there and listening to some of the stories.  I was the oldest and got to listen because I was also the “beer runner”!  The faster I ran the longer I stayed.   It wasn’t until I was married and moved to California that I realized that my dad and his buddies weren’t the only ones that served.  My mom, Glad, was a true warrior in her own right.  Mom was the stealth fighter in the background that kept everything together on the home front.  Mom’s idea of “getting out” would be to load up all five of us and go grocery shopping at the commissary and clothes shopping at the PX.  I never heard her complain and never realized how worried she was when dad was overseas.  She always kept us upbeat and happy.   Two years ago, my husband spent 254 days out of the country on business; it was then I realized how lonely my mom was through the years.   Dad died in 1985; it seems like yesterday.  We talk about him as if he were still here and as all things go, we can now reminisce and laugh at some of our own war stories being brought up in the Marine Corps.  We do it because that’s the way he’d want it. If anyone out there remembers Gy/Sgt Patrick J. Kelly, I’d love to hear from you.  Attached pic has dad and mom on the left (Marine Corps Ball-Parris Island).   I didn’t mean to rattle on like this but that lost sword (which I will replace for mom) brought me to your site and to so many wonderful memories growing up in the Marine Corps…different time in our country’s history. Thank you for letting me share my little piece of Marine history.   To all the men and women serving here and around the world, may God Bless you, protect you and keep you and your families safe as you are doing for us at home.   God Bless America God Bless our Troops God Bless and thank our Vets Semper Fi   Michelle (Kelly) Lewandowski