EXTRA! NEW DELIVERY TIME RECORD SET FOR FIRST CLASS MAIL BY UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE!

ONLY 39 DAYS FROM MIAMI TO EL PASO WITH CHRISTMAS CARD!

SETS OFF SPASM OF INDIFFERENTIATED MARINEOBILIA, A RELATIVELY NEW AND HITHERTO UNDESCRIBED CONDITION IN THE MANUAL OF POLITICALLY, IDEOLOGICALLY AND INTELLECTUALLY CORRECT FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY [AKA DSM IV]!

OH MY GOODNESS!

Seriously, folks. Thirty-nine days is pretty good time in delivering a Christmas card sent from a former Marine CO, Col. Edward F. Danowitz, now living in Florida to one of his former Combined Action Platoon leaders, then- Sergeant(E-5) Dennis Paul Morony, now living in El Paso. But! With the "old" 37-cent stamp of John A. Lejeune on the envelope, just getting it, period, was a reminder of the importance of continuity. Along with the comforting probability that Colonel Danowitz was still hanging in there: a platoon leader in WW II, a company commander in Korea, and a battalion commander in Santo Domingo, plus our own CO before going on to command the 9th Marine Regiment in Nam.

What this all boils down to is the simple historical reality that, in relation to combat command and leadership issues, the United States Marine Corps is continuity. Even more, it is continuity personified!

For example:

Yours truly arrived at the rural South Vietnamese compound south of Da Nang holding the Second Battalion First Marines (2/1), and was assigned to Fox Company's First Platoon, under Second Lieutenant George Mallon, right around Thanksgiving, 1966.

I had been assigned stateside to the 3rd Replacement Company, of Replacement Draft Number 3017, and after my first leave I was at Staging Battalion "Gateway to the Pacific" at Camp Las Pulgas, part of the vast Camp Pendleton Marine Corps complex, for some hurry-up shake and bake training.

But! It was only upon arrival in Vietnam that things really began to move. Because this was where we began our 12-month combat apprenticeship, the Marine Corps way. In time, this would be followed by around another 21 months of hands on training, only this time we'd be gaining NCO-level combat command leadership experience, much as Marines are learning these days in Afghanistan, Iraq, wherever.

As it was, Fox Compay's CO, Captain Gene Deagan, would in time become a Major General commanding Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Our Fox Company First Sergeant Claud V. Thorpe was a Marine of the Class of 1944. Fox Company Gunnery Sergeant (E-7) Alex Romero was hideously scarred from multiple machine-gun bullet hits in his stomach area, whether from fighting the Japanese in WW II or the Red Chinese or North Koreans in Korea, hell, no one really knew which. Nor did all this slow him down any.

Staff Sergeant Gutherie, First Platoon's Platoon Sergeant, was a Korean War combat vet too, and still carried his MI Carbine. So, too, was Lance Corporal (E-3) "Pappy" who'd been in the Korean War and signed up for this one for good measure. Sergeant (E-5) Bernard Terhorst, First Platoon Right Guide, was a Canadian national who had been with the Corps since at least the late Fifties. Even our First Platoon First Squad Leader, buck Sergeant Otis Lovejoy, told us he had participated in joint training exercises with the French Foreign Legion on the island of Corsica in 1963, this would have been within a year or so of the Legion's departure from the still-smoking hot battlefields of Algeria in old French North Africa. Corporal Bradley (E-4) was yet another squad leader in First Platoon with beaucoup time in: around seven years total USAF - Marine Corps service.

These men on the rifle company level provided the backbone of the wartime Marine Corps of that era, and I'll guarantee their contemporaries still do today, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or who knows where.

So, for all you gyrenes out there, in whatever war zone, fleet deployment or shore installation you may find yourself in this season, here's Col. Danowitz's belated Christmas Greetings to all of us, of whatever generation or war:

"It's always great to hear from a brother and share a holiday greeting. Good luck in your life and in your work.

Wishing you every happiness at Christmas and always.

Semper Fidelis,

(signed) Ed. Danowitz."