By Todd DePastino Every Marine celebrates the USMC's birthday on November 10. Some attend balls with cakes, swords and special messages from the Commandant and Maj. Gen. John A. Lejeune. But the story of how that date became the Marine Corps’ official birthday is complicated. Not a simple matter of the Second Continental
By Kevin Horgan VBC Marine veteran from Atlanta, Kevin Horgan, is publishing his 6th book, CORPS TO CORPORATE, Your USMC Transition Made Simple, and it is available on Amazon November 1. The book is based on the stories and advice from 35 Marines Kevin served with back in the 1970s and 1980s. It's priced at $10, one
By Vietnam Marine Veteran Rich Thurmond We called the United States “The World” in Vietnam. That's how it felt. Vietnam seemed like another planet altogether, and “The World” was the distant place we dreamed of going back to. My return home almost didn’t happen on schedule. Two days before I was supposed to leave,
From left to right: Michael Archer, Tom Mahoney and their senior drill instructor at Boot Camp Graduation, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California, August 1967. (Michael Archer) By Michael Archer Michael Archer is an author, lecturer, and Vietnam Veteran who served as a radio operator during the 1968 siege of the
Written by John Duresky After we ran our VBC Magazine piece asking “When is V-J Day?” I heard from historian John Duresky, co-author (with David Britt) of Relentless Hope: A True Story of War and Survival about Bataan Death March survivor Chester Britt. John noticed the radio in our V-J Day photo from 1945
Japanese children, seeing a Marine for the first time, eagerly reach for chocolates offered them by SSgt Henry A. Weaver, III. (National Archives) By Morton Stith I worked as a Bomb Disposal Marine, a part of World War II that seems to have been wiped from history. Our mission was to neutralize
