On 14 October 1968, more than 350 young men from around the country report to the United States Marine Corps’ 55th Officer Candidates School (OCS) Class at Quantico on the western bank of the Potomac River. The war in Vietnam is in its deadliest year to date and Marine lieutenants are in high demand. As a result, the Corps has opened an OCS annex on the edge of a swampy marsh bordering the Chopawamsic Creek, about 1 mile south of OCS proper. This will be home to the candidates for the next 10 weeks. Marines have trained at Quantico since the base was opened in 1917, shortly after the United States declared war on Germany. From Quantico, the base’s first trainees would sail to France to win glory at Belleau Wood and earn the grudging respect of the German Army that would bestow on them the moniker “teufelshunde” (“devil dogs”).
These would-be officers of the latest generation of Marines have joined the Corps for some of the same reasons as those who had signed up for duty in World Wars I and II and Korea. Among the candidates’ motivations are the following: they have fathers who have served, they respect the storied history of the Corps, they want to be where the action is, they want to be a part of the best, and they value good, old-fashioned patriotism.
They do everything together. The first night in the barracks, they suppress laughs as their platoon sergeants and sergeant instructors host a show and tell of all of the contraband that the candidates had brought with them. One hypochondriacal individual had stowed enough medications (none were allowed) to stock a small pharmacy; another, with an exaggerated libido, had felt the need to bring a gross of condoms; and still another (or maybe his mother) had packed footed sleeper pajamas (FSPs). This latter candidate, fully outfitted in his FSPs, was made to shuffle from squad bay to squad bay, his rubber-soled feet scuffing along the floor (which the candidates would soon learn to call a “deck”).
The next morning, when the sergeants, employing a less than subtle alarm clock, kick the GI cans down the concrete deck of the squad bay at 0530, they wonder, for a split second, if joining up had been the right decision. They run the miles together. They do countless situps, pushups, and pullups. They learn to negotiate the obstacle and confidence courses, and they hike the Hill Trail in accordion-like columns. In Butler building classrooms, they study tactics, Marine Corps history, and first aid. They stand fire watch. They drill. They feed the mosquitoes . . . and then they drill some more. They stand and fail inspections and retrieve unsatisfactory weapons from the swamp into which the infuriated sergeants have hurled them. They learn to fight, and they learn to shoot. They endure the carefully calculated abuse of their sergeants. As the weeks pass, the candidates evolve from a confused herd of cattle to a confident company of professionals. And all along the way, they watch as their ranks are decimated by the voluntary and involuntary departures of those who are unable or unwilling to summon the required mental or physical discipline. In late December, those who make it are declared officers and sent home for a brief Christmas leave, to take pride in and show off their hard-earned brown bars.
3 January 1969
The 243 surviving members of the 55th OCS Class, representing 42 states and the District of Columbia, report back to Quantico where their OCS six-platoon identity is disbanded and The Basic School (TBS) Class 7–69, consisting of five new platoons, is formed based on a single run through the alphabet, from Acord in the 1st Platoon to Young in the 5th. Another 11 members head off to flight school. TBS at Camp Barrett, 11 miles west of Marine Corps Base Quantico, is full, so the newly minted officers need a place to stay until the next TBS class graduates. Their temporary new home is the Quonset-hutted Camp Upshur, some 10 miles from Barrett. Upshur, named for a Marine captain awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery in action in Haiti in 1915, was TBS until 1958. The quarters and other facilities at Upshur seem a poor reward for their OCS labors, but fresh from that major accomplishment, the spirit of this class of lieutenants is undampened. The men of Company G, as it is designated, jump right into their training, and keeping their eyes on the mounting casualties in Vietnam, they take to the task with unquenchable fervor. They hone their skills in land navigation, communications, rifle squad (and platoon) tactics, scouting, patrolling, and other activities, all the while “nourishing” themselves on box lunches and jostling for “comfortable” seats on the “cattle cars.”
Several weeks into their instruction, they move to Camp Barrett, where they are housed—in alphabetical order, predictably—in what could easily pass for a college dormitory. Life is still hard, but conditions have improved! Training continues with familiarization exercises, as the lieutenants are exposed to the devastating firepower that is the Marine Corps arsenal, including the M79 grenade launcher, the flamethrower, and crew-served weapons, such as the 60 and 81mm mortars and the 50-caliber machinegun.
At night and on the weekends they study, and when their studies are done (or earlier for some), they employ their newly gained navigational skills to find DC or Mary Washington College in nearby Fredericksburg, where they employ more instinctive navigational skills. Highlights of TBS include the “3-Day War,” tactical exercises in and around Xa Viet Thang (Camp Barrett’s “Vietnamese village”), the “Mad Minute,” mess night, and graduation. In prophetic fashion, the Company G mess night program closes with the words, “So we go, so we remember, so we will return. So we go.”
On 3 June the officers of Company G graduate. After a well-earned leave, during which many of the lieutenants marry (some to Mary Washington ladies), MOSs in hand, they head off to additional training, such as artillery and tank school. On completion of the specialized training, most receive orders for Vietnam, while others go to Marine Corps bases, such as Camp Lejeune and Camp Pendleton.
Nearly all of the graduates will eventually serve in Vietnam. Five of them will die there, and a number of others will be wounded. When their original enlistments end—for the most part, in late 1971—more than two dozen reenlist, seeking to make a career of the Corps. Most, however, return to civilian life; many become teachers, lawyers, certified public accountants, businessmen, or render further public service with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), or Secret Service.
So We Remember
Undoubtedly, like most Marines—indeed, like anyone who has experienced life-altering events as vital and meaningful as OCS and TBS—these Marines, through the years, would find themselves recalling the bonds they formed and the friendships they made over the course of what was likely the most challenging 8 months of their lives in late 1968 and early 1969, an interval that occurred during one of the most tumultuous periods in American history. Memories were freshened when Saigon fell to the Communists in 1975; when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall was dedicated in Washington, DC, in 1982; when diplomatic relations were restored between America and Vietnam in 1995; when Vietnam became a popular tourist destination for Americans, including veterans of the war; when “conflicts” broke out in other parts of the world, putting Marines in harm’s way; and each time a Marine was killed or wounded on a foreign shore.
So We Will Return
June 2009. Maurice DelVendo, a member of TBS’ 1st Platoon, is searching through his mementos, stashed for many years in the basement of his mother’s home, when he runs across an old OCS photo and asks himself, “Who the hell are these guys?” As a group, of course, he knows exactly who they are, but while he recognizes the individual faces, he can’t, for the most part, put names to them. Suddenly he is struck with the notion of getting his old OCS platoon together. He calls fellow platoon member, Jerry Spencer, to move the idea forward. Spencer, for his part, had tried to pull together the same OCS class for a reunion back in 1984, but the timing wasn’t right. “We were all in our peak career and family-raising years,” says Spencer, who functioned as the “class scribe” during the search, maintaining a detailed spreadsheet listing each lieutenant’s vitals. “Plus,” he adds, “it was difficult to locate people without the computer.” Through good old-fashioned letter writing, he did manage to track down a few. From a long-saved file, Spencer pulls a letter from J.J. Graham (who had written to say how excited he was to hear about a planned reunion) and notes with sadness how Graham had passed before the reunion could become a reality. From the conversation between DelVendo and Spencer, and their ensuing conversations with another former OCS platoon member, Darryl Parmenter, comes the idea of a project on a much grander scale—a TBS reunion.
The search begins in earnest and benefits in the early going from friendship cells, small groups of lieutenants who had stayed in touch over the years, that often overlapped into other friendship cells. With about 80 percent of the TBS lieutenants found, however, the search hits a wall, and finding “TBSers” becomes like finding needles in a meadow of hay.
It is at this time that the search group finds Ray Tripicchio, a retired DEA agent, who had been particularly hard to find because his birth name, Tripicchio, was shortened to Tripp by his father when he was very young. In 1982 Tripp obtained a court order to change his name back to Tripicchio. A tenacious Tripicchio takes the baton from the original search group and carries it the rest of the way, often making 100 to 200 calls a day. Super sleuth that he is, Tripicchio finds all of the remaining lieutenants, and the search dubbed “The Forty-Year Cold-Case Investigation: The Missing Lieutenants” by DelVendo is closed. Sadly, the search also reveals that 24 of the 259 men who survived their time in the Marine Corps have since died.
Nothing saddened the searchers more than finding that a classmate had passed on. Other sad stories were uncovered as well. As with any cross-section of American society, a number of former lieutenants had encountered the physical, emotional, familial, and financial setbacks that life can bring. Not everyone wanted to be found. In the latter stages of the search, some of the “missing,” who didn’t respond to letters, phone calls, or any other form of communication, were still missing because they wanted it that way. Not everyone had found his experience in the Marine Corps to be one he wanted to resurrect. Not everyone had been able to parlay his Marine experience into a life he wanted exposed to the light that a reunion effort might shed.
Along the way, of course, it made sense to develop a website to conveniently link the 200-plus lieutenants who had expressed an interest in being in touch with their band of Marine brothers. Parmenter, a successful real estate executive, stepped up. Using his Parmenter Realty corporate resources, primarily in the name of his talented and enthusiastic executive assistant Michelle, Parmenter established a website that features a complete roster with contact information, biographies (187 at last count), OCS platoon photos, a blog, a photo blog, a memorial page, and reprints of both the OCS graduation exercises program and full mess book. Now, in a matter of a few hours, a lieutenant can catch up completely on most of his fellow lieutenants’ Marine experiences after TBS and how they have spent the last 40 years. Getting in touch with a buddy he hasn’t seen in perhaps four decades is now only a mouse click away.
June 2010. At this writing, a reunion of the lieutenants and their families is planned for early June 2010. A 3-day event, chaired by Parmenter, is scheduled to include a tour of TBS, with lunch at the TBS mess hall; a tour of OCS; a visit to the recently opened National Museum of the Marine Corps; and the Sunset Parade at 8th and I, “The Oldest Post in the Corps.” After a formal dinner at the museum, Gen Anthony C. Zinni, USMC(Ret), former staff executive officer of and staff instructor to Company G, will speak to the TBS lieutenants, as a group, for the first time in 41 years. To maximize attendance and ensure that no lieutenant is denied the opportunity to attend, a group of Marines with the means to do so established a reunion “scholarship fund.” Loyalty is one of the Marine Corps leadership traits.
Other lieutenants who have been particularly helpful to the search or the reunion are Curt Bradley (VA), Steve Doyle (VA), Jack Leonard (VA), Dwight Murray (Washington, DC), Bucky Peterson (CA), John Mestepey (FL), Don Bibb (KY), Mike Conway (FL), Alec Wrenn (NC), Larry Hayden (TX), and Rick Marsh (OH). In addition, the contributions to the search made by Bob Ross (TBS 4th Platoon Commander) as well as John Marcello and J.D. Miller (two of Tripicchio’s DEA colleagues) were invaluable.
As the enthusiasm for the big event builds, word has spread of numerous minireunions of two to a half-dozen lieutenants that are taking place throughout the country, all driven by the classwide effort. By and large, lieutenants are reporting how easily they are able to slip into the relationships of 40-plus years ago, picking up right where they left off. When asked how the clarion call to reassemble Company G has impacted their lives, these lieutenants weighed in.
John Nowlin (MS):
Both OCS and TBS were a life-altering experience for me. I developed a kinship with the entire class even though I did not know everyone all that well. I have wondered about my class since I left the service and this reunion is going to be a coming home experience! I can’t wait to see how everyone else has changed!
Dan Favreau (OH):
I have always wondered about what happened to all those young, hard-charging people who raised their hands with me so long ago in Quantico. I’ve talked to and e-mailed people from that long-lost era, and we just seem to take up where we left off—still young, still proud, still Marines. It isn’t possible to explain how much this means to me and to the others I have talked to. You’ve got to have been there to understand. They call it ‘esprit de corps.’
Don Bibb (KY):
What this experience has meant to me is to appreciate even more our service to our country (fresh out of college, newly wed, with no money), the sacrifices we made during a turbulent time when Marines were not appreciated. We were thought by some to be ‘baby killers,’ too stupid to avoid the draft, etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reading the biographies posted on the website was really inspiring to me, the talent levels, the different careers, etc. It also makes you realize how short life is and to appreciate what time we have left that hopefully we’ll use to make a difference.
At the reunion, the lieutenants of the 55th OCS, TBS Class 7–69, will pay homage to their five brothers whose names appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. In order by date of casualty, and including their rank, age at death, hometown of record, cause of death, billet at time of death, unit, and location on the Wall, the five who died were:
2dLt Kenneth Arthur Kubik, 25, FL, 22 October 1969, small arms fire, platoon leader, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, Panel 17W Line 105.
2dLt Vincent Burke Lee, 24, MA, 23 November 1969, explosive device, platoon leader, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, Panel 16W Line 112.
1stLt Arthur Powell Gray IV, 24, VA, 19 July 1970, training accident, platoon leader, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, Panel 08W Line 031.
1stLt Lauren Walter Standring, 26, CA, 22 July 1970, multiple fragmentation wounds, forward observer, 3d Battalion, 11th Marines, Panel 08W Line 045.
Capt Donald Charles Breuer, 29, NY, 20 November 1972 (missing), 26 March 1976 (declared killed in action), air loss over Laos, fixed-wing crew, Marine Fighter/Attack Squadron 32, Panel 01W Line 091.
Lessons Learned
S.L.A. Marshall once wrote that a commissioned officer in the Armed Forces of the United States, concomitant with the prestige that accompanies his position, accepts an “exceptional and unremitting responsibility.” That responsibility, of course, applies first and foremost to the men under the officer’s command. That responsibility can also attend to his fellow Marine officers, even if they are of another class or even another generation. In that spirit, the “search party” that succeeded, almost universally, in tracking down the whereabouts of Company G’s 249 former Marine lieutenants and 7 staff officers, wants to share the methodology behind its success and make recommendations for the benefit of future generations.
To the Marine Corps, it recommends the establishment of a unit-specific database that all Marines can voluntarily sign up for. This would include key information, such as the date of birth, last four digits of the social security number, home of record, family history, and schools attended. The information gathered for this purpose should be distributed to all Marines upon completion of trainings, tours, etc.
To reunion organizers and the attendant search committees:
Be persistent (and remain thick skinned). Don’t let apparent rejection in the form of unanswered letters, ignored e-mails, and unreturned phone calls get in the way of finding your man. In your communications, establish credibility by providing as many details as possible, including the successes of the search to date and the specific names of located individuals to whom the person you are trying to reach might react. At the same time, be sensitive to the fact that not everyone will be as enthusiastic as one might wish. Knowing when to disengage is an art not a science.
Make use of existing internal resources. Look for Federal agents among your class members. Many of them have been professionally trained to find people. Beyond the familiar databases, the following were particularly useful:
www.merlindata.com
www.lexisnexis.com
www.lookupanyone.com
www.anyhoo.com
www.pipl.com
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com
www.felonspy.com
www.zabasearch.com
www.peoplesearch.com
Beyond the Internet, other search avenues include:
Local government agencies in the homes of record of those being sought.
College and university alumni offices.
Statewide professional organizations (state bars, education councils, licensing boards, etc.).
In Closing
When the members of the 55th OCS Class and Company G gather in Quantico, relationships faded but never forgotten will be rekindled, and bonds stretched but never broken will be strengthened. There will be memories shared. There will be laughter, and there will be tears. There will be periods of unrestrained joy, and there will be moments of quiet reflection. And in the tradition of the Marine Corps, there will be many toasts. The members of the 55th OCS Class and Company G will toast the President of the United States, Gen Zinni, the Marine Corps, and their brother lieutenants who could not be with them. And surely, because it is so richly deserved, they will drink a toast to themselves—to the lieutenants of Company G!
Members of 55th OCS/TBS Class 7-69 (Golf Company)
| 1st Platoon | 2nd Platoon | 3rd Platoon | 4th Platoon | 5th Platoon | ||||||||||
| Acord | Ronald | E | Doran | Robert | H | Hofman | John | W | Mcgovern, II | Francis | E | Salvant | Wayne | E |
| Adkisson | Gid | Dowd | Robert | M | Holloway | Ronnie | McGrath | Timothy | S | Sanders | William | E | ||
| Ake | Richard. | T | Doyle | Stephen | P | Hopkins | Dick | J | McInerney | Thomas | K | Sauer | Ronald | C |
| Alexander | Ruffner | R | Drake | Gary | M | Hubbard | Donald | E | McKissick | Richard | M | Semler | John | D |
| Allen | Timothy | J | Drinan | Robert | T | Hume | James | D | McNally | David | D | Shepard | Richard | S |
| Anderson | Robert | D | Druley | Daniel | R | Jacobs | Roger | A | Mele | Michael | M | Skoog | Jim | D |
| Baker | Carl | W | Edwards | Jay | W | Jenks | Richard | L | Mestepey | John | T | Spadafora | John | E |
| Bann | Donald | Elder | William | D | Johnson | Charles | W | Metzger | Dirk | M | Spencer | Jerry | J | |
| Baukol, II | Marcus | M | Erickson | Richard | H | Johnson | Randall | A | Molbeck, Jr | John | N | Splan | Stuart | A |
| Beaghler | Michael | J | Etchart | John | Jones | Robert | D | Mortimer | James | J | Stahl | Mike | E | |
| Beaman | Larry | G | Etherington | Robert | C | Jordan | Gerald | D | Moughan | John | H | Staley | Al | |
| Bennet, Jr | John | T | Etzel | James | A | Jordano | Alfred | A | Murray | Dwight | D | Stamper | Larry | J |
| Benson, III | John | S | Fairwell | William | P | Juettner | John | T | Murray | John | T | Standring | Lauren | W |
| Bibb | Donald | R | Farris | Pete | M | Keller | Bruce | W | Murray | Larry | J | Steffen | Brian | L |
| Blazek | Richard | E | Favreau | Danny | W | Kennedy | Patrick | F | Narvaez | Henry | F | Steinbaugh | Eric | N |
| Boyd | Mike | J | Fenner | William | E | Kent | Michael | L | Neskow | Paul | Y | Stewart III | Frank | R |
| Bradley | John | C | Fitzpatrick, Jr | Eugene | W | Kentro | Richard | A | Nicosia | Russell | E | Stocks | Charles | E |
| Brandt | Gary | L | Fox | James | A | Keyes | Bruce | G | Nowlin | John | H | Straus | Robert | J |
| Brent, Jr | Lawrence | J | Frazer | Robert | A | Kirtland | Wilbur | H | O'Connell | James | R | Swanke | Michael | H |
| Breuer | Donald | C | Fredericks | Dale | E | Kitko | David | J | Olive | Donald | J | Taylor, Jr | David | H |
| Brown | Kenneth | J | French | James | H | Kloberdanz | Michael | J | O'Reilly | Thomas | K | Taylor Jr | Donald | N |
| Bryant | Danny | L | Galyean | Michael | L | Kollenborn | Dennis | H | Palmer | Steven | S | Taylor | James | W |
| Cain | Carl | F | Geary | Jeffrey | B | Kubik | Kenneth | A | Parmenter | Darryl | W | Teevan | Charles | L |
| Carlson | Theodore | D | Glass | John | K | Kyle | Robert | E | Payne III | William | W | Thinschmidt | Donald | M |
| Chambliss | Richard | W | Goedert | Michael | J | Lancia | Richard | A | Pazourek | James | R | Torson | Jim | D |
| Chaney | Stephen | R | Goode, Jr | Ralph | G | Langdon, Jr | Edwin | V | Pendleton | John | W | Tripicchio | Raymond | W |
| Cleek | William | D | Gordon | Paul | D | Lee | Vincent | B | Pendoley | Robert | J | Turay | David | M |
| Cogswell | Frank | B | Gowrie | William | A | Lemessurier | James | T | Perry | Frederick | V | Van de Water | Charles | M |
| Coleman | Claude | S | Graham, Jr | John | J | Leonard III | John | P | Peterson | Bucky | W | Vogel | Michael | J |
| Conant | James | D | Grammer | Gary | F | Leslie | John | W | Peterson | Kenneth | L | Wacker | Dennis | W |
| Conneely | Charles | F | Gray IV | Arthur | P | Liebenow | William | M | Pickrell Jr | Floyd | W | Wadas | Kenneth | K |
| Conner | William | V | Green | William | W | Lindner | Dennis | F | Plank | Thomas | E | Walker III | Richard | D |
| Conners | William | B | Gregory | Thomas | E | Livingston | Stanley | H | Price | Thomas | A | Walsh | Michael | R |
| Conway | Michael | C | Greska | Thomas | J | Lohmeyer III | William | J | Prichard | Edwin | E | Walters | Anthony | A |
| Cookley | Louis | J | Griffin | Anthony | H | Lyon | Bruce | C | Randolf | Christoper | F | Walz | Arthur | J |
| Corbett | Thomas | J | Grundmann | Paul | A | MacDonald | Alan | V | Ransom | Michael | J | Warrington | Sandy | E |
| Coulson | John | S | Guild | John | W | MacIntire, Jr | Scott | H | Reed | David | R | Watanabe | George | I |
| Cowan, III | James | Guymon | J | C | Mahony | Michael | V | Reeves | David | L | West | Phillip | R | |
| Crawford | Harry | R | Hall | Daniel | G | Malter | Raymond | C | Rickert | John | H | Whitman | Lawrence | D |
| Cushman | Eugene | C | Hall, Jr | John | H | Marsh | James | A | Robbins | Gerald | W | Whitner | Ned | P |
| D'Achille | Peter | J | Hanly | Peter | T | Marsh | Richard | A | Robinson | George | V | Wiggins Jr | Robert | S |
| Daugherty | Lou | E | Hardy | Preston | B | Martin | James | E | Robinson | Thomas | E | Wilkins | Ryan | R |
| Davidson | Timothy | B | Harmon | Douglas | A | Marye | Robert | F | Rudesill | Clint | L | Williams | Dennis | A |
| Davis | Rusty | H. | Hayden | Lawrence | J | Mathews | Robert | G | Russell | John | D | Willis | Leonard | H |
| Davis | James | E | Healey | Daniel | J | McBurnett, Jr | Patrick | E | Russell | Lawrence | C | Winstead | P | G |
| DeGroff | Maurice | M | Hebert | Thomas | W | McClanahan | Larry | J | Rutherford | Charles | W | Wrenn | Alexander | E |
| DelVendo | Maurice | A | Hefner | Robert | F | McCormick | Michael | T | Ryan | Thomas | P | Yakamavage | Paul | J |
| Diller | Charles | H. | Hession | Dennis | C | McDonald | Patrick | O | Saggese | Robert | P | Young | Thomas | E |
| Dockstader | Steven | W | Hicks | Thomas | H | |||||||||
| Hoerner | Richard | R | ||||||||||||
| 55th OCS | Air Wing | Beeler | Don | Kux | Steve | Merring | Dick | Samuelson | Steve | |||||
| DeHoust | Walter | Larson | Larry | J | Nielson | Ken | Zilla | Gary | ||||||
| Evans | Stanley | McPike | Alden | Norton | John | |||||||||
| Bold = KIA | ||||||||||||||
|
1968 VIETNAM 1969
|
||||||||||||||
Comments
Commissioned
I was given a Field Commission. I was on the NATO bomb threat Detail, 1984, at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD. I was then sent inside the U.S. on a " Retaliation, 3 Marine Barracks Lebonan Priority One Top Secret LRRP and will return to Marine Barracks in Sept..
I have aquired the proof needed to fashion this country into a Military Federal Teritorry with Federal Authority. The so, called private citizens of this country are sadicious. Including all politicians except the President and Vice- President. There will be no disclosing my evidence to the public or, private sectors. This belongs to my Commanding Officer and Commandant.
Captain Day
Post new comment