Marine Corps League

Melvin M. Smith Detachment #586

Editors: Dennis and Sam Dressler

(509) 953-6266 (Dennis) or (509) 953-6267 (Sam)

sam.djd@comcast.net

COMMANDANTS CORNER

Seasons Greetings to all Marines of Melvin M. Smith.

Judi and I are enjoying the Arizona heat and thinking of all of you. I hope your winter is better than last year.

I get a little reflective this time of year, thinking about past Christmas’.

Christmas 1963 I was at Camp Pendleton (H&S 2/5) and we were shipping out. Liberty was canceled for the most of us, only Married guys got to go home. I was Kind of bummed because Christmas was important in my family and I was stuck in the Barracks with 75 other Marines.

About 1900 hrs a buddy said, “Come on, there is a USO show in the Mess Hall.” I didn’t know anything about a USO show and wasn’t interested in finding out. But he made me go and we spent the next hour and a half being entertained by Young folks. (I suspect most were still in high school.)

They gave up their Christmas Eve to cheer up a bunch of Marines they didn’t even know. The final song was “I’ll be home for Christmas.” I’ll never forget it.

Toys for Tots is just one way I pay back. There are a lot of folks hurting this year. If we can ease the burden, then that’s the thing to do.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Semper FI New Year!

Your Commandant,

Jim Bennett

ADJUTANT/PAYMASTER/JR. PAST’S TIDBITS

My apologies for being so long winded this month.  This post will hit the news stand after the Toys kickoff; however, your assistance is greatly needed at the warehouse and our annual Spaghetti Feed.  I have plenty of tickets left to sell.  Plus we will have plenty of food for everyone.  Please come and join the fun.

For those of you that didn’t make the meeting, we were given a pleasant surprise by Marine Ed Thew.  He removed his Marine Corps League Cover and promptly donned his VFW Quartermaster Cover to announce the payment of reimbursement for the past Memorial Day Ceremonies.  THANK YOU VFW POST 51!  They support us in many things and we greatly appreciate all of them.

With a respectful Semper Fi!

Your Adj/Pay & Junior Past Commandant,

Randy

998-9031

I have been in the process of updating our records and have found many small things that need to be updated.  Please take a moment to update this form and send it back to me. 

My address is:

3924 N. Sunderland Ct., Spokane Valley, WA 99206

Or you may call me to expedite the updates: (509) 998-9031

First Name: ______________________        M/I: ______   

Last Name: ______________________         Sr/Jr. _______   

DOB: _______________        Phone #: ____________________        

Address: __________________________________________________

City: ____________________State: __________ Zip: _______

Date Joined the MCL (if known): ___________________   

Spouse’s Name: _______________________ 

Email address: ___________________________________

Thank you for your time and patience while I update the Detachment’s Records.  I greatly appreciate this. 

Semper Fi!  Randy Ott

                              From the Desk of Doug

Things are going well in Arizona.  Thanksgiving Day was warm and windy, the turkey tasted just fine in the 75 degree weather.  So far one rifle match has been canceled due to wind and the one this morning (11/27) went off as scheduled.  It was a .22 silhouette match which I use for standing practice.  Next high-power will be the first weekend in December over in California near El Centro.

All oranges in Yuma County have been quarantined and in order to take them out of the county they have to be processed at a commercial citrus packing plant.  Some kind of small gnat that snuck across the border from Mexico.  The oranges are real large this year but still have the color of limes.

Now back to League stuff, attended one meeting here in Yuma and a growl.  For the Marine Corps Birthday they just do a cake cutting at the VFW in the afternoon on November 10th.  Anyone can stop by and have cake from 1 to 4 pm.  Each unit at the Air Station has their own celebration so they go on at various times throughout the birthday week.

Your thought for the month:" "Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines" (unknown)

Semper Fi,  Doug

Calendar of Coming Events

The Melvin M. Smith Detachment, Marine Corps League, invites you to our

Annual

Toys for Tots

Spaghetti Dinner

We are serving dinner at VFW Post 51 on 300 W. Mission from 4:30 until 7:30 pm.

All proceeds go to the Spokane Toys for Tots Program.

Tickets are $6 per adult and $5 per child under 12.

Oldest Lady Marine Dies:

On a crisp fall day in a cemetery in Queens, a Marine Corps honor guard blew taps over the country's oldest female Marine.

Sgt. Miriam Cohen did not die jumping on a hand grenade, or storming the beaches of Normandy or battling the Japanese on Iwo Jima.

Most appropriately, she died on Veteran's Day, one day after the 234^th birthday of the United States Marines Corps. Cohen lived nearly half as long: She would have been 102 on Dec. 13.

When World War II threatened civilization, this beautiful, gutsy Brooklyn gal answered the call of a bugle, just like the one that played over her coffin Tuesday.

"Miriam was born in Sheepshead Bay and graduated from Smith College, where she was the only Jew in the school," says her younger sister Marine Roberta Eaton, 86, of the Women's Marines Association of New York.

"On Feb. 13, 1943, Miriam graduated in the first class of WWII women Marines. At 35, she was one of the oldest women to ever join the Marines."

Cohen did six weeks of basic training at Hunter College, (where Lehman College stands today) honing her secretarial skills to fulfill the Marine Women's motto: "To Free a Man to Fight."

"Unlike the WACS and WAVES, Marine women have no acronym," Eaton says.  "We were Marines. Period. Marines for life. Miriam told me she was stationed at USMC headquarters in Washington during WWII. She had special clearance to handle sensitive documents."

In those days, Marine women did not live on base with the men. They got "subs and quarters" allowance to live in boarding houses. Pay was less than $50 a month.

Miriam also served in the Korean War, traveling with generals to Virginia and San Francisco.
     

"Miriam never owned anything besides a dog and a cat," Eaton says.  "Always rented apartments. Never drove. Always took the subway. Never married. Had no children. She had a brother who died many years ago."
     

After retiring from the IRS, where she worked after 10 years of military service, Miriam Cohen refused to collect Social Security.   "I told her she was nuts," Eaton says. "Miriam said, 'My government needs the money more than I do.' I'm telling ya, she was a real character.   I'd call her avant-garde, an independent thinker in the tradition of Amelia Earhart ... and Susan B. Anthony."

Cohen volunteered at Brooklyn's VA Hospital, where she pushed wounded G.I.s in wheelchairs into her 90s.  Every Saturday she went to New York Foundling Hospital to read stories to the city's forgotten children, unless the Women's Marine Association had a meeting.  "Her sister Marines were like family to her," Eaton says. "She was also a helluva sketch artist and a member of the Art Student's League. She adored museums and Broadway shows and if you went out with her she'd have a glass of wine and always insist on buying you dinner.

"She was incredibly generous. She also enjoyed a beer with a hot dog at a barbecue. Miriam must have had a few bucks, but she never talked about money. She followed the beat of her own drum: She'd eat chicken for breakfast and scrambled eggs for dinner, and pickled herring on a holiday.

"If I had to sum up Miriam Cohen in a single word, I'd say she was a pisser.”

Cohen was so impulsive that when her Brooklyn landlord gave her grief, a friend told her Tucson was a nice place to live, so she just packed up, at 93, and moved.

 "When I visited her I asked how the hell a Brooklyn girl could live in 3,000-degree desert heat," Eaton says. "She said, 'I like it.'"

Four years ago Cohen finally moved into a private nursing home, still insisting on taking a long Marine march each day.

"It was no coincidence that stubborn old Miriam chose Veteran's Day to salute the world goodbye," says Eaton, who stood graveside in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale as a USMC bugler played taps over the flag-draped coffin of our oldest lady Marine, who heard a similar bugle call her to duty 66 years ago.

DECEMBER MARINE HISTORY

 

DETACHMENT OFFICERS 2009 – 2010

UNIT OFFICERS 2009 - 2010

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