This is the start of my boat with Sgt Grit vinyl stickers. They work and look awesome. So what do you think?
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Category: Proud to be a Marine
​​Platoon’s Battle Guide
Seeing the drill instructor names on this banner makes me think of what my SDI called our platoon's battle guide, this one possibly for platoon 1054. We were allowed to create one for our platoon after sweeping the inter-battalion competition during boot camp. Attached is my graduation photo. In it, you can see the Marines in the second row holding the guide. It amounted to a tribute to our drill instructors for leading us to victory, their names in the upper left corner with USMC slogans in the opposite corner. Ours never left the barracks and I have no idea what happened to it. It should have been disposed of given the nature of some of the content. I'm top row, fourth from the right.
I Wandered Around For A While
BOY! Do these photos bring back MEMORIES!
Too bad the few remaining huts have fallen into such disrepair. I went to the USMC Scout Sniper Association reunion a few years ago in San Diego and we as a group attended a recruit graduation. Things have really changed since I went thru MCRD in '64. For one thing, on that grad day the recruits did not march in review like we did back then. They were marched out by platoons, lined up in front of the reviewing stand and just stood there while a Colonel gave a congratulation speech. Then they were dismissed and that was it. (R. Lee Ermey showed up and visited with some of the officers and DIs, then left without even a nod to us).
Walking In The Footprints Of Heroes
In your last newsletter there was a story about Hue City. A couple pics from 1969. Walking in the footprints of Heroes, 1969.
Ken Martin
Cpl USMC
Captain Walker
Am adding to a 2013 post I read about Capt. Walker.
Captain Hiram Walker and Hockaday Walker are one in the same. Served with him at Camp Pendleton in 1964 and 1965. Never saw him in civilian clothes. He would get his hair cut twice a week and would run 5 miles every day. To say he was "gung ho" would be an understement.
Old Corps photo
Grit. Thanks for reposting the picture of me and Dave Sawyer. It was posted the week I retired from the Orange County Sheriff's Dept. Someone posted it on the OCSD Facebook page on 19 March, the day I retired after 29 yrs.. Boy the memories!!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
I would like to share with you and all U.S. Marines. These photos show images of World War II, the Pacific Theater, U.S. Marines, Iwo Jima, February 19 – March 26, 1945, in commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the most costly battle in U.S. Marine Corps history. (7,500 U.S. Marine Corps casualties and 21,000 Japanese casualties).
3rd Recon Marines In Vietnam
This widely distributed WANTED POSTER was printed by the North Vietnamese and specifically targets the 3rd Recon Marines in Vietnam. I guess we caused a few too many problems for them and they clearly wanted us eliminated.
The value of piastres varied all over the place, but I have been told that in my day this was about $750 US Dollars. Hell! We were worth more to the NVA than the Marine Corps because my pay as a 2nd Lieutenant, with the combat kicker, was less than $400 a month.
POW Times Two
In 1960-61, I was Maintenance Officer for 3rd AT at Camp Schwab, Okinawa. My Maintenance Chief was Gy.Sgt John Vogel. He had been captured on Wake Island in WWII and was a POW. Then came Korea and again he was again captured and was a POW of the Chinese.
Camp Fuji ’55-’56
While reading the newsletter from the last week I saw Camp Fuji mentioned so I thought I would send some of my memories of the camp from my stay there for 14-1/2 months in 1955 & 1956.
Berg