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missingmarines

The Fourth Row

How a row of thirty graves on Betio was laid out and then lost, forgotten and then found.

The 2019 MCHF Awards

It started with an email and escalated from there.

“It is my distinct pleasure to inform you that your article “2d Lt Elwood R. Bailey, VMF-223” has been selected for recognition with the Foundation’s 2019 General Roy S. Geiger Award for the best Marine Corps Aviation article.  The award will be presented at a black tie dinner to be held on Saturday evening, April 27th at the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico….”

I read the email three or four times. I’d had a rejection already. I was tough and could take it.

The message resolutely refused to change. “…selected for recognition…”

“Holy shit!” I said. A coworker jumped. I had my headphones on and she wasn’t expecting an outburst at that volume. Whoa, I thought. How cool! An award for me! Such an honor…

…where the hell am I going to get a tux?

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Silver Stars

They were not friends in life, these men. They were not even passing strangers. Each spent the short arc of his life in total ignorance of the other’s existence. Outwardly, they had little in common – a small, stolid Massachusetts Yankee and a tall, imposing blacksmith’s son from Louisiana – save the Marine uniform both wore with pride from 1940 until their deaths on remote Pacific islands, a world away from Springfield and Chatham. Yet they shared a selfless inner quality that shone through in the final hours and minutes of their lives – and their deaths would mark the start of seven decades of uncertainty for two families far apart.

PFC Francis E. Drake, Jr. and Second Lieutenant Harvel L. Moore

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CV-2

Yesterday, Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist/explorer Paul Allen announced the discovery of the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2), lost at the battle of the Coral Sea on… Read More »CV-2