Some Sad USMC news

[Old Dog]

Today's edition of the Chronicle is filled with page after page of accolades spewing forth about the greatness and complexity of Michael Jackson.

The other day, they had a couple of paragraphs on Ed McMahon's Hollywood career and aptly noted he died a pauper.

Something wrong with American journalism?






COLONEL ED HAS DIED

He wanted to be a Marine fighter pilot. The US was building up their military force, but they were not at war yet and the Navy required all its potential Navy and Marine pilots to have two years of college. So Ed started classes at BostonCollege.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked the Army and the Navy both dropped the college requirement and Ed applied to the Marines. His primary flight training was in Dallas and then he went to Pensacola, Florida. He was carrier qualified, which means he knew how to perform a controlled crash of his single engine fighter, onto the rolling deck of a Navy floating runway.

It took Ed almost two years to get through all the Navy flight training. His problem was he was a very good pilot and the Marines needed flight instructors. He had a great command presence and public speaking ability, which landed him in the classroom, training new baby Marine pilots.

His orders to the Pacific fleet and the chance to fly combat missions off a carrier came in the spring of 1945, on the same day the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Of course his orders where changed. He never went to sea and he was out of the Marines in 1946.

Ed stayed in the USMC as a reserve officer. He became a successful personality in the new TV medium, after the war. His Marine command presence helped. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He never got to fly his fighter aircraft, but he saw his share of raw combat. He flew the Cessna O-1E Bird Dog, which is a single engine slow-moving unarmed plane. He functioned as an artillery spotter for the Marine batteries on the ground and as a forward controller for the Navy & Marine fighter / bombers who flew in on fast moving jet engines, bombed the area and were gone in seconds. Captain Ed was still circling the enemy looking for more targets, all the time taking North Korean and Chinese ground fire.

He stayed with the Marines as a reserve officer and retired in 1966 as a Colonel.

The world knows Ed as Ed McMahon of the Johnny Carson, Tonight Show. One night I was watching the show when the subject of Colonel McMahon earning a number of Navy Air Medals came up. Carson, a former Navy officer, understood the significance of these medals, but McMahon shrugged it off, saying that if you flew enough combat missions they just sort of gave them to you. McMahon flew 85 combat missions over North Korea; he earned every one of those Air Medals. The casualty rate, for flying forward air controllers in Korea sometimes exceeded 50% of a squadron’s manpower. McMahon was lucky to have gotten home from that war.



Once a Marine, always a Marine.

When the public was spitting (taking their personal safety into their own hands) at Marines on the streets of Southern California during Vietnam, Colonel McMahon was taking Marines off the streets and into his posh Beverley Hills home. I spoke to a retired Marine aircrew member the day Colonel McMahon died and he personally remembered seeing McMahon at numerous Marine Air Bases in California in the 1960s. He was known for going to the Navy hospitals and visiting the wounded Marines and Sailors from this country’s conflicts, even in the last years of his life.

Colonel McMahon presented awards and decorations to fellow Marines and attended many a Marine ceremony and the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball. He stayed true to his Corps as a board member of the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund and as the honorary chairman of the National Marine Corps Aviation Museum. After retiring from the Marine Reserve, one night on the Johnny Carson show, members of the California Air National Guard came on stage.

Colonel McMahon was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Air Guard in front of millions of Americans who watched it happen live. You will not see anything like that on TV anymore.

The three core values of a United States Marine are; honor, courage and commitment. This is what a Marine is taught from the first day of training and this is what that Marine believes. That was Colonel Edward P. McMahon Jr. USMCR Retired. Before he was a national figure he was a true combat hero and a patriot the nation needed then and this country needs now.

Your war is over. Thank you Colonel McMahon.

Semper Fi Sir.

23 June 2009

Major Van Harl USAF Ret.

[RON (PA)]

I only knew that Ed McMahon was Johnny Carson's side kick. I never knew that he was a decorated combat veteran. Rest in Peace, Colonel, Rest in peace. My you join the other service men and women and guard the pearly gates and God's Kingdom.

[johnnycat]

Soldiers are used too dying like that.

[Old Dog]

But
they
shouldn't
have
to.

[Montana Jim]

Great post.




It's a direct reflection of people's dependence on a steady diet of brain numbing entertainment while tripping through life completely unaware of their own surroundings much less national and international events that matter.

[Old Dog]

Thanks Jim,
That explains a lot.

[greydigger]

As a side note, some may remember Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers, both childrens TV hosts.
Look up their military histories. Audie Murphy has company.

Grey

[rangler]

Jim,
It's a direct reflection of people's dependence on a steady diet of brain numbing entertainment while tripping through life completely unaware of their own surroundings much less national and international events that matter.


Truer words are not spoken anywhere on this forum, or anywhere else for that matter!
Thanks to you for saying them
and Thanks Thom for bringing that news to light, it is greatly appreciated
rangler

[Montana Jim]

Jim,
It's a direct reflection of people's dependence on a steady diet of brain numbing entertainment while tripping through life completely unaware of their own surroundings much less national and international events that matter.


Truer words are not spoken anywhere on this forum, or anywhere else for that matter!
Thanks to you for saying them
and Thanks Thom for bringing that wonderful news to light, it is greatly appreciated
rangler

Thank you rangler... I appreciate your comment.

[fmrUSMC_0844]

Semper Fi Col McMahon.

Funny how you didnt see much about him when he died, yet Michael Jackson is STILL on the new and for what?


Its sad how America has forgotten about the true heros of this country.

[dogcaught]

As a side note, some may remember Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers, both childrens TV hosts.
Look up their military histories. Audie Murphy has company.

Grey

Fred McFeely Rogers never served in any branch of the military. Thats a fact.

[ivan salis]

old soldiers never die -- they just fade away. ---

[greydigger]

"Fred McFeely Rogers never served in any branch of the military. Thats a fact."


Well I guess I was misinformed. If that is the kids show guy.

Also heard John Denver aka John Deuchsomething was a war hero. Is that wrong too?

No wonder the kids of today have no-one to look up to.
Gangstas and other crazy things.

Grey

[dogcaught]

Also heard John Denver aka John Deuchsomething was a war hero. Is that wrong too?

John Denver received an army induction notice in 1964, but he was classified 1-Y due to having lost two toes in a lawn mower accident and never served in any branch of the military.

[Old Dog]

As a fan of John Denver I have some unique history.
He was part of the Chad Mitchell Trio when he was younger,
The trio got into financial trouble and declared bankruptcy.
Denver worked independently on his own to pay off all the debt incurred by the trio before going out on his own.

No he wasn't allowed to serve in the military, but not for lack of trying.
He did however try to enlist several times, after his rejection made all efforts to keep moral up by entertaining troops at every convenience.

[greydigger]

Well so much for the media BS that I heard.
Gosh - all my heroes are false.
Next you are going to tell me the Tooth Fairy and Santa are bogus.

Well I'll tell you what.
THEY are REAL.
If you have kids you know too...


Walter also was a ham radio operator.
Now tell me that is not true.

Grey

[RGINN]

I knew that about Ed McMahon. It goes to who's more controversial, so Michael Jackson got the press. We didn't even mention Farah. Also, it's John Deutchendorf. His grandparents lived in Corn, OK, about 30 miles from where I grew up. I don't know about his efforts to enlist, but he was a military brat. He came down there a few times in the summers when he was younger, and hauled hay or whatever, just like a regular guy. I now see what he saw in Colorado.

[Old Dog]

I knew that about Ed McMahon. It goes to who's more controversial, so Michael Jackson got the press. We didn't even mention Farah. Also, it's John Deutchendorf. His grandparents lived in Corn, OK, about 30 miles from where I grew up. I don't know about his efforts to enlist, but he was a military brat. He came down there a few times in the summers when he was younger, and hauled hay or whatever, just like a regular guy. I now see what he saw in Colorado.

Me too, I have never been able to leave it for long.
I admire John's early charachter.
But his love for this State was rarely equaled.

[EDDE]

As a side note, some may remember Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers, both childrens TV hosts.
Look up their military histories. Audie Murphy has company.

Grey

Keeshan was born in Lynbrook, New York. He attended Fordham University, following his service in the United States Marine Corps Reserve during World War II. An urban legend claims that actor Lee Marvin said on "The Tonight Show" that he had fought alongside Keeshan at the Battle of Iwo Jima. However, Marvin never said this, never served on Iwo Jima (having been invalided out after the Battle of Saipan many months before), and Keeshan himself never saw combat, having enlisted too late in the war to go overseas.[1]