From the Quantico Base Newspaper - "For firing Expert with the rifle (221) and pistol (350) L/Cpl Robert Job is congratulated and awarded his shooting badges by Col. Jonas M. Platt"



Blair House, probably 1960. Photo from the New York Times. Gunny Smith and I have the door as the Prince and Princess of Japan are leaving. The two civilians are Secretary of State Christian Herter and his wife. Notice the expression on the Gunny's face? Eyes closed, maybe holding his breath? Whatever could be wrong?
I showed the photo to Gunny Smith and asked what was up? He said, "That Prince was wearing a strange hair dressing (in his words, "pomade"), the worst I ever smelled, and I was trying not to breathe."



At the DC National Guard Armory



Capt Maclendon M Morris in front, and Capt Overcash (rear).
My favorite MMM story as told to me by Gunny Smith: Our platoon was running a live-fire transition course at Quantico during one of our 'winter breaks' as an element of our assignment as a unit of Hotel Company 2/8, Camp LeJuene. (Yes, we were really grunts and would have had to serve with that unit in an emergency) I was a BAR guy and Joe Laudisio was my ABARman. I used to bang the magazines on Joe's helmet to align the rounds. I don't think he liked that. When I ran out of ammo I would throw the magazine up in the air and Joe would catch it on the run. Anyway, we're running this course and firing away at the objective and guys are moving around a lot and pretty soon we find we are firing over the heads of people. Up in the tower observing all this are Capt Morris and Gunny Smith (Korean vet, Bronze Star) Morris gets nervous and tells the Gunny to stop, it's getting too dangerous firing over you own people. Smith says, "NO, NO, that's the way it really is, let 'em go, dammit let 'em go!" And on we went. And it was fun!

A non-dress white-blue white performance!



An excellent rifle inspection by Doug Stevens.





Pass in review, Murray and Stevens up front.



Exhibition at Soldier Field in Chicago







The arrival of Nikita Kruschev, with President Eisenhower at Andrews AFB. Capt Hatch has the company (behind the two doggies). I'm in ranks next to Chester Shear, who had the ability to make his face expand by gritting his teeth and blowing very hard into his mouth. The result was a very expanded face that, with his naturally upturned nose, looked exactly like a huge pig with a white gourd on its head. As Nikita passed by reviewing the troops, Chester blows up his face. I can still see the expression of disbelief on Nikita's face as he did a double-take of Chester!

Anyone having additional submissions for this page should send them to: CGC Webmaster.

Contact us at: 8th&I Reunion Association

Return to top of page

©Copyright - All Rights Reserved - September, 2007
8th & I Reunion Association

Design and Layout by BT Productions