HAPPY NEW YEAR

Photos from Danang, Vietnam, Tet New Year Celebration. A little different today then back in our day.

Danang is Fireworks Festival city. Lunar New Year’s Eve Fireworks is a great celebration.

Which is the way I remember it. We watched the Tet Celebration for 1970 from the top of Hill 327 looking over DaNang and south to Chu Lai.  You could see many tracer rounds fired up from positions up and down the coast, with multiple explosions. Very impressive. The rounds were going up, mostly. They just don't make fireworks celebrations like they did back in the good old days.

https://chinesenewyearblog.com/danang-lunar-new-year/

Click to read the article and view more photos:

https://pierretrowbridge.com/celebrating-tet-new-years-in-vietnam/?doing_wp_cron=1609438817.9648399353027343750000

This time-lapse photo shows a Douglas AC-47 "Spooky" at work on the outskirts of Saigon. The sheet of red raining down from the night sky represents only one of every five bullets fired from the gunship’s miniguns. (U.S. Air Force)

https://www.historynet.com/strange-gunship-operations-in-the-vietnam-war.htm

The New Years celebration in Vietnam in 2021 is much nicer and better than the ones during the Vietnam War.

Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men (and Women)

Merry Christmas, Marines! Semper Fi

 

Thanks to Larry Larry Magilligan for sending.

Semper fi

Marines - Thinkers

 Marine Infantry Training Shifts From ‘Automaton’ to Thinkers, as School Adds Chess to the Curriculum

By: Gidget Fuentes

December 15, 2020 3:59 PM

Infantry Training Battalion instructors play chess in their instructor ready room at School of Infantry-West at Camp Pendleton, Calif. US Marine Corps photo.

The Marine Corps is about to revolutionize infantry training, more than doubling the length of initial training for enlisted infantry Marines and weighing consolidation of its core grunt specialties into a single, all-around infantry warfighter.

The transition – which aims to build Marines adept in ground weaponry that can tackle the higher-end threats they will face on the dispersed battlefields of the future – will focus as much on brains as brawn.

In a School of Infantry-West initiative, chess will be part of the pilot of a 14-week basic infantry training starting next month. The Infantry Marine Course, or IMC, will replace the eight-week Infantry Rifleman Course for new Marines assigned to the “03” occupational field. The new IMC course, as directed by Commandant Gen. David Berger, will grow to 18 weeks once enough instructors are assigned to the course. Infantry is the Marine Corps’ largest enlisted community.

Click to read the full article:

https://news.usni.org/2020/12/15/marine-infantry-training-shifts-from-automaton-to-thinkers-as-school-adds-chess-to-the-curriculum

_______________________________

STEEL THRUST LITE

They should be playing Steel Thrust Lite.  My final four years in the Marine Corps Reserve were the Amphibious Warfare Technology Directorate at Quantico.  I took our Steelthrust Game and reduced it to a two to six man game, with the idea that two or more Marines could play it for recreation, or to drive an exercise.  We used regular maps so there was little start up work and it could be played quickly.

Too much work to recreate the idea, but the Marines would be better playing that versus chess.

S/F

Craig Hulligner

More Marine Casualties in Vietnam Than World War II

The Marine Corps had more casualties in Vietnam than we did in World War II.

War	Killed in Action	Wounded in Action	Total Casualties
World War I	2,461	9,520	11,981
World War II	19,733	68,207	87,940
Korean War	4,267	23,744	28,011
Vietnam War	13,091	88,594	101,685

Divison - KIA	WWII	Korea	Vietnam
1st Marine Division	3,867	4,004	7,012
3rd Marine Division	2,208		6,869

The 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th Marine Divisions also fought in WWII.

KKIA - Killed in Action WIA - Wounded in Action

Conflict	KIA	WIA
Revolutionary War	49	70
Quasi-War with France	6	11
Barbary Wars	4	10
War of 1812	46	66
Creek-Seminole Indian War	8	1
Mexican War	11	47
Civil War-Union	148	131
Spanish-American War	7	21
Samoa (1899)	0	2
Boxer Rebellion	9	17
Nicaragua (1912)	5	16
Mexico (1914)	5	13
Dominican Republic (1916-1920)	17	50
Haiti (1915-1934)	10	26
Nicaragua (1926-1933)	47	66
World War I	2,461	9,520
World War II	19,733	68,207
Korean War	4,267	23,744
Dominican Republic (1965)	9	25
Vietnam War	13,091	88,594
Lebanon (1982-1984)	240	151
Grenada (1983)	3	15
Persian Gulf (1988) (Oil Platforms)	2	0
Panama (1989)	2	3
Persian Gulf War (1990-1991)	24	92
Somalia (1992-1994)	2	15
Afghanistan (2001-2015)	378	4,955
Iraq (2003-2016)	853	8,642

Sources:

https://www.usmcu.edu/Research/Marine-Corps-History-Division/Research-Tools-Facts-and-Figures/Marine-Corps-Casualties-1775-2016/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Marine_Division_(United_States)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Marine_Division_(United_States)

Alice Marie Joralemon-Strong

Fifty years ago - what was I doing?

December 10 th, 1970, is my PEBD (Pay Entry Base Date), the day I signed the paperwork to become a Marine Officer. It was also the day I began the greatest adventure of my life.

At the time, I was only 20 and a student at Mansfield State College in PA. On that day, my OSO, Captain Tschan and the MSGT drove me 25 miles from the college campus to my home for my parents to give their approval.

My Mom thought joining the Marine Corps would be a good opportunity to get out of our rural area and see more of the world. Dad was a different story. He had been exempt during WW2 as a dairy farmer whose milk supported New York City. His younger brother served in the Army in Alaska during the Korean War. So, we weren’t sure what Dad would decide and his was the deciding signature.

The Captain and the MSGT explained all about the Woman Officer Candidate Course (WOCC). As a junior in college, I would be committed to an 8-week course in the summer of 1971 at MCB Quantico, VA. before returning to college and completing my senior year. At week 5 in the training, the Marine Corps or I could call it quits if we didn’t fit. No harm. No foul.

“After all, Dad, what can they do to me in 5 weeks that I can’t survive?” He signed.

Five weeks into WOCC, even though I wasn’t the greatest at drill and I had been advised continuously that my hair was too short and too straight, and my acne was unsightly, the Marine Corps did not ask me to leave. I didn’t ask to go home either! I loved the Marine Corps so much that I didn’t want to return to college; I wanted to stay. Rules are rules though, so a college graduate I must be before becoming an Officer.

The summer of 1972 began with my graduating from Mansfield State College (MSC) in my USMC Dress Whites. During the ceremony, Captain Tschan and GySgt David administered the oath. Later that evening, we discovered that the local television station included my part of the MSC graduation ceremony in their broadcast. (All of the male graduates joining the Marine Corps had a separate, private ceremony elsewhere).

So, fifty years ago, I was beginning my journey with the Marine Corps. It was a journey that would took me to Quantico, Parris Island, El Toro, 29 Palms, Washington DC, Glenview, Chicago and Camp Smith.

I met and worked with some wonderful people and I made friends who remain close to my heart. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Doug Barney

Larry Woods, Doug Barney, Will Holahan

 How I Became a Marine

Early in 1965 I was teaching school, but my personal life was a train wreck. A planned marriage didn’t work out, I was drinking way too much and I had no plans for the future. 

Having nothing better to do I decided to go to grad school at Butler where I did my undergraduate work. One evening while attending class I ventured to the student union to get something to eat. When I went down the steps to the cafeteria a Marine Captain was standing behind a table passing out recruiting literature. I nodded as I passed him and took two steps inside the cafeteria door when I did an about face, walked up to him an said “I’d like to join the Marine Corps.” Until the words left my lips I had never, for a single day, considered serving in any branch of the military much less the USMC.

My parents were not happy. My brother was an Army officer and they were concerned about having two sons serving at the same time with Viet Nam going hot and heavy. But, they almost didn’t need to be concerned because the Marine Corps thought long and hard before allowing me to enter.

My father and his entire family, with the exception of one sister, were born in Russia. Before being “Americanized” the family name was Barnaj. Because the USSR was a major concern at the time, it took months to get a clearance. But that wasn’t all. I had received several speeding tickets and decided to go to Florida on vacation instead of making my court date. The judge wasn’t amused when I returned and hit me with a significant fine that I couldn’t pay. That cost me two days in the Marion County jail and several sessions with a government shrink who questioned my maturity. In the end, the Corps must have been hard up for officers because I was accepted with a Base Pay Entry Date in December 1965.

Later on I became the OIC of HQ Det4.

John Burwell Wilkes

At my Basic School reunion, a major topic was our experiences in Vietnam. Several of my classmates persuaded me to write my memoirs of my tour there, because so many interesting things happened.

The memoirs tell the story of me pulling the unrecognizable mangled body of a marine officer out of a ditch after his airplane was shot down. I was later led to believe he was a good friend of mine from Basic School. For 52 years, I thought he was dead until I saw his name on the attendance roster for the reunion last spring. This pic is that officer with his wife taken at the reunion.

John Burwell Wilkes

Colonel of Marines, Retired

Click to read the memoir.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j_54yDXq9QnZuvdCcQKFzUtAphKbfSf8/view?usp=sharing



Books by John

John and the Airplane he built.