"Semper Fi Sir"

[John Schmidt]

Don't know if this has been posted before or not. If so, sorry...I don't read everything on here. I just felt this more worthwhile.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Today's newspapers are filled with page after page of accolades spewing forth about the greatness and complexity of Michael Jackson , a man who never served his country; who never spent a day of selfless service to others; a man who knew nothing of sacrifice or love of country.
Last week, a man worthy of accolades passed, yet only a couple of paragraphs on Ed McMahon's Hollywood career were put forth in the papers, which aptly noted he died a pauper.  It's just more proof of the failure of American journalism and the fact that anti-military, freedom hating liberals run the mainstream media.  How about printing the story below?  I'll bet you'll never read it in any paper or hear it on any news channel in your hometown....
 
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 Boston College.
 
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 Edward P.McMahon.

[Crazyhorse]

Thanks for the story it does the soul good to hear about the real heros.

Mac

[Gear Jammer]

 This will be forwarded to my Marine son in Oceanside,CA.  Thanks for the post.   

[FLAVALK]

It's a messed up world John. Yesterday the VP of our company ran into my office asking if I was watching the "Ceremony" for Michale Jackson on my PC.....I looked at him like he had lost his mind. Apparently, several of our office personnel were streaming it live and sucking up our bandwidth. Of course, it was the usual suspects, those who don't have a freakin clue about much of anything.

Yesterday on the news, I heard the statement made by the good reverend Al Sharpton addressed to the "children" of Jackson. He said, "Your daddy wasn't STRANGE, it was just STRANGE what your daddy had to go through" .....WTF???  

It's a messed up world John

[John Schmidt]

I also heard but don't know if it's true....the House of Reps. had a moment of silence in honor of Jackson. What's with that? How about a moment of silence in honor of someone/something worthy....like a Purple Heart award, Navy Cross, Medal of Honor?  Or maybe a weekly thing honoring the fallen. We're paying their salaries, how about they do something worthwhile to earn it. 

[shortleg]

   Not sure that this is well known but,
there is a building named for him at Catholic Univ.
in Washington D.C.
    He gave 3/4 of the money to build it.
              Shortleg[Dave]

[R J]

Don't get me started on these firkin over paid celebrities........  The state of California is already in debt up to their eye brows, and now they get slapped with a protection bill for LA security for a firkin $1.4 million.   It will get handed back to the County, & finally to the city for payment.  So who gets stuck, the California tax paying residents, you know the firkin illegals won't pay anything, their $$$ has already been sent to their homeland to help support their families, so they can get them in here also.

Besides that, they want to use mine & about 3 1/2 million other retiree's  retirement $$$ to cover most of the cost.   We have been able to keep the firkin Governor and Legislators out of it since the 1st time old Gov Brown thought it would be a good fund to help balance da Budget.

Payment should come out of the pockets of the ones who organized the whole grab ass situation......

Everyone is correct, less BS on the celebrity and more things on our fighting men.

Semper fi till I die, and I'll still take the honor with me into the unknown.

[Rowdy]

Semper Fi

[Skinhead]

A U. S. Marine squad was marching north of Basra when they came upon an Iraqi terrorist, badly injured and unconscious. On the opposite side of the road was an American Marine in similar but less serious state.
 
The Marine was conscious and alert and as first aid was given to both men, the squad leader asked the injured Marine what had happened.
 
The Marine reported, "I was heavily armed and moving north along the highway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent. We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road.
 
"I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein is a miserable, lowlife, scumbag,
 
And he yelled back that Senator Ted Kennedy is a good-for-nothing, fat, left wing liberal drunk. So I said that Osama Bin Ladin dresses and acts like a frigid, mean spirited woman!"
 
He retaliated by yelling, "Oh yeah? Well so does Hillary Clinton!"
 
"And, there we were, standing in the middle of the road, shaking hands, when a truck hit us."

This country doesn't do enough for it's VETs and 95% of our politicians should be in prison, not running our country.  God bless our servicemen and women, and God save America from the politicians.

[Tundra]

Thanks John, I will be forwarding to my Marine Corp Father and brother...Right on RJ