Retired mustang Maj. Nat Fahy has been appointed chair of the 2018 USMCCCA Training Symposium, National President Keith Oliver announced today. Set for Aug. 20-23 at the New Bern, North Carolina DoubleTree Hotel, the CCs’ annual gathering will feature “robust professional development value for our active duty Marines,” said Oliver, Read more…
President’s Notes Lance Cpl. Roderick Jacquote was our latest cover shooter for Leatherneck, capturing an image for the September “Magazine of the Marines.” The shot featured Marines hard at work prepping precision airdrops during training at MCAS Yuma – demonstrating that the Corps is still very much in the parachute Read more…
Petition spearheaded by the Joe Rosenthal Chapter
What began as a pipe dream for a handful of veterans has become the goal of 1,000s of people nationwide: Name a US Navy warship for the late Joe Rosenthal (1911-2006), the San Francisco photographer who took the iconic Iwo Jima flag raising photo.
The photo is believed to be the most recognized and reproduced in history, and has become a symbol of the United States Marine Corps. Six Marines raised the flag on February 23, 1945, in the midst of the bloody battle on Iwo Jima, a small volcanic island in the Pacific, the first land battle of WWII on Japanese soil. It raised the spirits of the American public, and raised $26.3 billion for the war effort as the symbol of the Seventh War Loan Drive.
Marine Corps veteran Dale Cook, president of the Joe Rosenthal Chapter of the USMC Combat Correspondents Association, a group of retired and active duty Marine journalists, knew Rosenthal well. “He was a member of our chapter and president of the Press Club. We renamed our chapter after him. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his Iwo photo, but the thing he was most proud of was the certificate that said he was an Honorary Marine,” said Cook who was an 18-year-old Marine in the battle, and became one of the more than 25,000 American casualties.
On October 9, 2017, (Rosenthal’s birthday), Cook’s group will deliver their petition with over 2,000 signatures and a letter requesting a future USS Joe Rosenthal to Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer, who is responsible for naming ships.
William “Bill” Wasson was a photographer and Senior NCO for the Marine Corps in San Francisco during WWII. After the war, he was a photographer for many years for Kaiser Aluminum and ran his own photography business. He did so much aerial photography he learned to fly a helicopter by observing the pilots—but never flew himself.
Pre-order your copy today!
Certainly, if your name is in the index below, you will want a copy of the book that commemorates the role you played in our history, right? The original history “Last to Know, First to Go” covered our history from slightly before WWII to about 1987. We have included excerpts from the original and brought it forward from that date – thanks to those who answered our requests – to about 2012.
The book’s cost is $33 to members; $40 to non-members. If you use a credit card, add a dollar. There is a button on our website www.usmccca.org that permits this. If you wish to use a check, make it payable to USMCCCA, 110 Fox Ct., Wildwood, FL 3478. The book will be shipped from St. Johann Press directly to you with free postage.
Executive Director Note: The Stars and Stripes writer of the article, “War-movie adviser looks to troops, vets to fund his directorial debut” should not have been surprised at anything during this interview. I’ve known Dale Dye since he was a young lance corporal and nothing surprises me these days about Read more…