November 2009

Current Issue

FEATURES

• 16 The Commandant’s Birthday Message
  Happy 234th Birthday to all Marines, everywhere.
  Read the message and watch the video.

• 18 Vietnam: Last Full Measure of Devotion: Extraction of Team “Box Score,” 16 February 1968
  By Dick Camp
  Caught in the middle of the devastating fire of two NVA units, Marine recon team Box Score could not escape.

• 24 The United States Marine Corps Historical Company: Celebrating the Corps
  By the United States Marine Corps Historical Company
  Preserving and presenting the Corps’ history, this active group “takes history from behind glass.”

• 30 The War on Terror
  Edited by R. R. Keene
  The 2d MEB marks 100 days in Afghanistan, while the “Wolfpack” of 3d LAR Bn roam the Iraqi desert building security for the emerging government of Iraq.

• 40 With Special Operations Marines in Afghanistan
  By Stewart Nusbaumer
  Leathernecks of Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command are “smack in the middle” of some of the nastiest regions of Afghanistan, teaching, training and treating.

• 46 How Do You Rate?
  Compiled by R. R. Keene
  Test your Corps knowledge and see how you “shoot” on the trivia range.

• 52 “Semper Fidelis”: Witness to Its Meaning
  By Col W. Hays Parks, USMCR (Ret)
  The Corps goes all out to honor the memory of a Vietnam War casualty whose remains have yet to come home.

• 54 Winning Hearts and Minds With the Spirit of America
  By Karen Karl
  One man and his organization are making a difference in the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• 58 Elite-to-Elite Makes Higher Education Easier
  By Cpl Katie Densmore
  North Carolina veterans get “a leg up,” making transition to college much easier.

• 60 Corps Album
  Edited by Nancy Lee White Hoffman
  Photos from the bottom of readers’ footlockers offer a look into the Corps’ history.

Marines stationed in Peking and Tient­sin, China, and Iceland wore the “Mongolian p***-cutter” made of lamb’s wool or, reputedly, cat’s fur.(Courtesy of the National Museum of the Marine Corps)

Petty Officer First Class Adrian Trollip, a Seabee builder assigned to NMCB-5, home-based at Port Hueneme, Calif., helps construct the MEB-Afghani­stan combat operations center at Camp Leatherneck.
(Photo by Cpl Aaron Rooks)

Marine veteran Wesley I. Slagle sent us this 1922 photograph of his father, John W. Slagle, taken while he was serving in the Dominican Republic with the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force during the “Banana Wars.” John Slagle also served in USS Utah and USS St. Louis.
(Photo courtesy of Marine Veteran Wesley I. Slagle)