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68jk09

68jk09

Joined
May 6, 2010
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A NEW DD214 RETRIEVAL PROCEDURE....

If you were asked for but didn't know how to get it DD214, well now they have made it real easy for you and your family members to get your DD214. Go to this Link and down load it on line.
It's official, DD-214's are NOW Online.

The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) has provided the following website for veterans to gain access to their DD-214's online:
http://vetrecs.archives.gov/   

This may be particularly helpful when a veteran needs a copy of his
DD-214 for employment purposes. NPRC is working to make it easier for veterans with computers and Internet access to obtain copies of documents from their military files. Military veterans and the next of kin of deceased former military members may now use a new online military personnel records system to request documents. Other individuals with a need for documents must still complete the Standard Form 180, which can be downloaded from the online web site. Because the requester will be asked to supply all information essential for NPRC to process the request, delays that normally occur when NPRC has to ask veterans for additional information will be minimized. The new web-based application was designed to provide better service on these requests by eliminating the records centers mailroom and processing time.

Please pass this information on to former military personnel you may know and their dependents.
 
68jk09

68jk09

Joined
May 6, 2010
Messages
16,224
The 70th Anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Okinowa, an island 300 miles from Japan.. This was the last major battle in the Pacific theater in WW II . Thousands of U.S. Marines and Soldiers were killed and wounded in this three month fight to defeat the Japanese military. ......... CONTINUED RIP TO THOSE KIA THERE & THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED SINCE.......NEVER FORGET !........ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa
 
grumpy grizzly

grumpy grizzly

Joined
Jun 27, 2007
Messages
3,470
My son was stationed at MCAS Futema on the island of Okinawa. He was later part od a 12-man detechment that was on the island of Ie Shima. It was on this island that the war correspondent lost his life on April 18, 1945. A monument was erected by the 77th Infantry Division, when the island was returned to Japanese control it was one of three monuments that were allowed to stay. I think the 77th has some New York lineage.

The pix is my sons P-19 @ Futema.
 
68jk09

68jk09

Joined
May 6, 2010
Messages
16,224
6 SECONDS..... QUOTE..I think the tragic death of NYPD Officer Moore makes this even more important. We work with so many people with the same qualities as these two Marines, the real heroes in life that you could never pick out on a street or having a cold one with or joking around with. Whether military, cops, firefighters, or anybody else tasked with the safety and security of their friends and neighbors, this shows that real heroes exist in our midst.

May Corporal Yale, Lance Corporal Haerter, and Officer Moore Rest In Peace. The world is a better place because of men like these, and I'm sure they're getting to know each other right now.

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Subject: The last 6 seconds

One can hardly conceive of the enormous grief held quietly within General Kelly as he spoke.

On Nov 13, 2010, Lt. General John Kelly, USMC, gave a speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, MO. This was four days after his son, Lt. Robert Kelly, USMC, was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat tour. During his speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication and valor of our young men and women who step forward each and every day to protect us.

During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son. He closed the speech with the moving account of the last six seconds in the lives of two young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect their brother Marines.

"I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they are, about the quality of the steel in their backs, about the kind of dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and forever after as veterans. Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22 ND of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, and the other just starting its seven-month combat tour. Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda.

Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and whom he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple America's exist simultaneously depending on one's race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like, "Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?"

I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like, "Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, "No kidding ?sweetheart?, we know what we're doing." They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way - perhaps 60-70 yards in length, and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different.
Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different. The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event - just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I'd have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured, some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, "They'd run like any normal man would to save his life." "What he didn't know until then," he said, "And what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal."

Choking past the emotion he said, "Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did." "No sane man." "They saved us all." What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before, "Let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were - some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines' weapons firing non-stop the truck's windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the (I deleted) who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers - American and Iraqi-bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground.

If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber. The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight - for you.
We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could bestow to man while he lived on this earth - freedom. We also believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious - our soldiers, sailors, airmen, U S Customs and Border Patrol, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines - to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can ever steal it away.

It has been my distinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest assured our America, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the "land of the free and home of the brave" so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who would do us harm.
God Bless America, and SEMPER FIDELIS!"

IT WOULD BE NICE (GREAT!) TO SEE the message spread if more would pass it on Semper Fi, God Bless America and God Bless the United States Marine Corps...

Often Tested, Always Faithful, Brothers Forever
UNQUOTE....SEMPER FI....RIP.

 
68jk09

68jk09

Joined
May 6, 2010
Messages
16,224
US Marine helicopter missing in Nepal earthquake aid mission

Published May 12, 2015
FoxNews.com


A U.S. Marine Corps helicopter providing assistance after the earthquake in Nepal was reported missing Tuesday, U.S. officials said.

Navy Capt. Chris Sims said the Huey was conducting disaster relief operations near Charikot. Six U.S. Marines and two Nepalese soldiers were aboard the helicopter.

Pentagon Spokesman Col. Steve Warren said there are "no indications of a crash," because the area is rugged.

Other aircraft nearby heard the helicopter's pilot say something about a "fuel problem."

The aircraft is part of Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469. It had just dropped off supplies at one area and was en route to a second location.

The Pentagon said that other U.S. military aircraft, including the MV-22 Osprey, were taking part in the search. Warren said the search has been suspended for today due to darkness.

Charikot was one of the villages hardest hit by a 7.3 magnitude quake Tuesday, Reuters reported.

 
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