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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.

Virginia "Ginny" Kyser of Springfield, VA, passed away gently on January 30, 2017 at INOVA Fairfax Hospital after a short but courageous battle with cancer. She was born Virginia Lee Detweiler in 1936 in Reading and spent her formative years in Easton. A devoted "Red Rover" and member of the Eastern Star, she graduated from Easton High School in 1954 and worked at the very first Crayola factory.She met the love of her life on a blind date in 1955 and shortly found herself en

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

Please join me in congratulating CC Col. Annita Lane Best on her retirement this week following 30 years of service. Elsewhere on FB news pages her ceremony at Camp Lejeune is pictured. Anita is a long-time member and strong supporter of the USMCCCA. We wish her well in retirement.