by jack | Mar 13, 2023 | USMC, Vietnam War
September 4, 1967, Hill 63, near Chu Lai, South Vietnam Although he never signed up for combat, Father Vincent Capodanno boarded the chopper with the last group of Marines of Mike Company, headed to the Operation Swift battlefield in the Que Son Valley. Priests did...
by jack | Jan 23, 2023 | USMC, WWII
One of the six Marines shown in the famous photo of raising the flag on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima was PFC Ira Hayes. 19 years old at the time, Hayes, a member of the Gila River Indian community, enlisted in the Marines 8 months after Pearl Harbor and volunteered...
by jack | Nov 11, 2022 | Korean War, USMC
Oct. 27, 1952 Near Panmunjom, Korea Marine 2nd lieutenant George Herman O’Brien leads his platoon to retake a vital hill in an area known as “The Hook” which has been overrun by a huge Chinese force. Facing withing enemy fire, O’Brien led his...
by jack | Oct 14, 2022 | Medal of Honor, USMC, Vietnam War
Perkins enlisted in the Marines in 1966. During boot camp, Perkins expressed a desire to be a Marine photographer. After receiving this assignment, to his chagrin, he found the work as a still photographer at Marine Corps Supply Center, Barstow, California, dull and...
by jack | Oct 8, 2022 | USMC, WWII
One of the last of the Navajo Code Talkers passed away in August. Samuel Sandoval was one of 29 Navajo men selected by the Marine Corps in 1942 to create a code based on their language, at the time mostly unwritten. Their clever technique used word substitution and...
by jack | Aug 25, 2022 | USMC, WWII
In his youth, Darrell Cole was a Sunday school leader, choir boy, and vagabond. He burned down his father’s barn when he was 3, ran away from home at 10, was vice president of his high school Dramatics Club, and joined the CCC when he was 17. Looking for some...
