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The family of Bob McEwen has asked me to reach out on their behalf and is asking for all of our prayers.  Bob is going into hospice care today (May 10).  He has suffered greatly the past few months.  Following his return from Bangkok in March, he continued to have issues and dementia became more and more prominent.  He broke three vertebrae on April 17.  Last Wednesday, in an effort to save him from circulatory problems that were increasing, he had a below-the-knee leg amput

With 64 players braving an early start to a very hot summer afternoon, the 13th annual USMCCCA (Florida Chapter) Golf Tournament held April 28 at Sherman Hills Golf Club in Brooksville, FL, now goes into the books as a resounding success! Tournament chair “Red” Carpenter reports that even though it was a smaller field than usual, the USMCCCA Foundation will be a winner. The tournament itself saw a profit of $5,237. Chapter member Gene Smith , who is Tournament Director

Yes, it's a little delayed this year, but hopefully it will be worth the wait. Jack Paxton , executive director says if you don't receive yours by April 29 , (and you are a paid member) to contact him with a correct snail mail address and he will get one out to you. Contact him at +1 352-748-4698 or email: usmccca@cfl.rr.com

Here is your chance to win a handmade quilt by Joe Galloway 's wife, "Doc" Gracie . We are raffling off this one of a kind item for $10 a ticket. Quilt is 62"x72" and is accompanied by a 22" square matching pillow. Drawing will be held in the command post after the awards banquet August 24, 2017 and winner will be notified. You do not need to be present to win. All proceeds will go to the USMCCCA Foundation. You can send a check, money order to Jack Paxton, Executive Dire

(Ed. Note:  There are no reviews as yet on what promises to be a fine accounting of a combat correspondent who had several tours in Vietnam.  What we do have are quotes from those who will be featured on the dust cover.  Watch for this one!) I predict this is a great book by Bob Bowen who is writing about his own life during the Vietnam War. Bob is an expert photographer and was a war correspondent and a fine writer. This job was dangerous. This book could really take off a

There have been several changes to the DOD awards programs. This past year, Defense Media Agency was directed to consolidated the three awards programs into one. A joint working group was formed to determine new categories and program criteria. This attachment is the final outcome of those efforts. This year the Marine Corps awards will be conducted in accordance with the DOD Media Awards Program guidance attached. All categories in the Marine Corps Program will mirror thos

The 2017 golf tournament of the USMCCCA Foundation (Florida Chapter) will be held Friday, April 28 with a 12:30 p.m. shotgun start at the Sherman Hills Golf Club , near Brooksville, Fla. The Tournament, now in its 13th year, enables the USMCCCA Foundation to provide grants for the Injured Marines Semper Fi Fund , Oceanside, CA which assists our wounded Marines, their widows, and their families.  The tournament also enables the Foundation to offer scholarships to active duty

By Dale Dye It’s time to sober up and evaluate this thing. Back here in The World there’s a little elbow room, a little space that’s not filled with specters of an old and controversial war. There’s been a day or two to fight through the roiling brain mists that engulfed most of us on the return engagement to Vietnam, so there’s no balm in shirking.  What we need now are insights and inspirations, florid vocabulary that will instantly and accurately convey the nature and dep

by Dale Dye Day Four of The Great Ghost Chase gives me a case of the staggering willies even before the bus rolls out of Danang headed north on Vietnamese Highway 1. Our course runs through the once-infamous Hai Van Pass that meanders as it climbs toward the far north. Then – somewhere up around 1500 feet – it twists into a series of radical switchbacks. And it’s up there where the road contorts like Lawrence Welk’s old accordion (okay…google it…he used to be a popular polka

(Ed. Note:  Dale Dye and other CC “Snuffys” returned to Vietnam this week.  This is Dale’s first installment): An emergency room physician circulated among the survivors. His diagnosis was quick and easy: Terminal culture shock. If the moment had been some jangled parsec in the psychedelic sixties he’d have called it a bad acid trip, but the Doc knew where and when he was even if the shocked Veterans kept claiming if couldn’t be Vietnam, the war-ravaged turbulent country th

If you read the January Leatherneck (and you should have) there was a piece on AllMarineRadio which was fascinating.  You watch/listen on your computer/iPad/i/phone/tablet, et al.  I contacted Mike McNamara thinking he would be an interesting addition to our San Diego conference as he lives in the area.  He will join us if he can.  Meantime, he set up an interview with me.  We did the first of two parts Feb. 7 and will do another segment next Tuesday, Feb. 14.  If you are in

Thanks to CC Cid Atwood we learned that globetrotting Bob McEwen was hospitalized in Bangkok and had to be flown home in an aerial ambulance.  We checked in with Bob’s daughter Megan Britt, and received the following info: In a follow-on email Megan indicated that Bob had taken out trip insurance and that paid for the aerial ambulance, a Cessna Citation jet.

CAMP PENDLETON -- With sought-after strategy comms expert Helio “Fred” Garcia among the speakers, the First Marine Expeditionary Force public affairs office convened its second annual Communications Summit at Camp Pendleton earlier this week. MEF PAO Lt. Col. Chris Perrine credited his deputy, Maj. Staci Reidinger , with pushing the concept - a robust blend of academic and real world thought and discussion which included a variety of southern California military public af

On The Road:   Past USMCCCA President and current Conference Emcee Fred Lash (standing) and wife, Donna (r), were lunch guests of National USMCCCA Executive Director Jack Paxton (2nd from l) and his wife, Pat on Sunday in the Villages, FL.  Fred and Donna, Springfield, VA were on the way to visit friends in Florida.

HOMETOWN BARBER IS NEWEST MEMBER -- Ray Adams , a combat correspondent at Camp Lejeune and on Okinawa in the late 1980s, retired from the Corps after a successful line recruiter tour in 1998. Now, he cuts hair in national president Keith Oliver 's hometown of Eustis, Fla . Ray well remembers working with PANCOs Ken Boss and Chuck Betz when he was enlisting Marines out of RS Manchester, N.H.; and he served with the likes of Norm Garrett, Marty Hopper, Gary Mosley and Nor

America has lost one of its true heroes from a bygone era when space exploration was still considered a modern miracle. John Glenn passed December 8 at age 95. He was a highly decorated Marine Corps fighter pilot from World War Two and the Korean War and the first American to orbit the earth at a time when the Russians had already put Sputnik into orbit and we needed to save face. I met John Glenn when he was running for president in the Democrat Party primary of 1984 on Tyb

Chuck Beveridge, 'laissez les bons temps rouler!' One of my personal heros, Chuck Beveridg e, passed away just a day before the 241st birthday of his beloved Marine Corps last November  at age 90. At the time I met Chuck, Mike LaBonne, Sally Pritchett, Bill Rowe, Charley Rowe, Angie Peraza, Angel Arroyo, Daryl Bennett, Mike Waters, Mike Rosas and a host of other Jarheads were running the nationwide Toys For Tots campaign from the 4th Marine Division/Wing Headquarters office

Update: A Memorial to be held at Arlington National Cemetery , Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 11 am. A journalist, filmmaker, broadcasting executive and Combat Correspondent in the Marine Corps, Bob had a fascinating career developing motion picture scripts and serving in news rooms on the east and west coasts. He served as KNBC Vice President and News Director from 2003 to 2009 when he retired and accepted the teaching post in Istanbul. He had previously served at NBC as

https://youtu.be/Q1_DJJODv9c?list=PL2EAAB5D3510275E1

Update:  Charles W. "Chuck" Beveridge(1925 - 2016) Charles W. "Chuck" Beveridge, retired creative director and artist and recipient of the Purple Heart after being wounded on Iwo Jima in World War II, died Wednesday. He was 90. Beveridge joined the Marines at 17 with permission from his parents and fought in some of the Pacific Theater's most significant battles from January 1944 through October of 1945. He fought with the Fourth Marine Division on Roi Namur, Saipan, Tinian