PROSPECTOR Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California Colonel Sekou S

The P rospector Serving the Corps since 1943 Vol. 5, No. 23 Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow December 8, 2016

Toys for Tots

Trees for Troops Marine Corps Birthday Ball Your home is your castle On The Cover: Front Cover: Laurie Pearson ...or is it? Staff Sgt. Frank Kovach, training chief, proves that children come in all sizes as he takes a bicycle Submitted by: Marine Corps Police Department donation for Toys for Tots on a test ride, at the entrance gate to Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, Calif., Dec. 6. The toys and monetary s your home really safe once you leave for work or school? Your donations will benefit families in need in the home is considered a sanctuary where you should feel safe. Your High Desert this Christmas. Ihome is the only environment where you have control over who can get close to you or your family. Protecting your home and family from criminal intrusion should be high on your list of priorities. Back Cover : Carlos Guerra Captain Ryan Fuller, base adjutant, aboard The first step is to harden the target or make your home more difficult Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, Calif. to enter. Remember, the burglar will simply bypass your home if it reads General Lejeune's message at the Marine requires too much effort or requires more skill and tools than they Corps Logistics Base Barstow Birthday Ball held at the Aquarius Resort and Casino in possess. Laughlin, Nev, Dec. 3. THE PROSPECTOR Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California Colonel Sekou S. Karega, commanding officer Sgt. Maj. Sergio Martinezruiz, base sergeant major

Public Affairs Staff Public Affairs Officer: Rob L. Jackson Public Affairs Specialist: Keith Hayes Public Affairs Specialist: Laurie Pearson Editorial Assistant: Julie Felix Combat Camera Chief: Carlos Guerra Multimedia Specialist: Cheri Magorno

The editorial content of this magazine is prepared, edited and provided by the Public Affairs Office of Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California. Mailing address: Commanding Officer, Attn: Public Affairs, Box 110130, Barstow, CA 92311-5050. The Public Affairs Office is located in Building 204. Phones: (760) 577-6430, 577-6450, 577-6451, FAX 577-6350, DSN prefix 282. This magazine is an authorized publication for members of the Department of Defense. Contents of THE PROSPECTOR are not necessarily the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Marine Corps. On the web Links in this publication are interactive in the online version

Website: http://www.mclbbarstow.marines.mil http://www.facebook.com/pages/ Marine-Corps-Logistics-Base-MCLB- Barstow/116845431679314 http://www.twitter.com/#!/MCLB_Barstow

2 Photo by: Rob Jackson Gunnery Sgt. Joel Berberena, MCLB Barstow supply chief and this annual LA to Vegas run, Nov.25. The organization contributed year's Toys for Tots coordinator, unloads a box of new toys donated about six boxes of toys, like the one the gunny is lifting, for the by the American Motorcycle Association's District 37 during its Toys for Tots campaign. Got news? Call us! (760) 577-6430

Contents

Trees for Troops Pearl Harbor 5 remembered 9

Marine Corps Chaplain's Birthday Ball 6-7 Corner 10

Toys for Tots Christmas tree 11 8 safety

3 News Briefs Leave Share Program Toys for Tots Third Annual Individuals currently affected by Softball Tournament medical emergencies and in need Sat. Dec. 10 of leave donations: The third annual Toys for Tots Jacqueline Griffin Softball Tournament will have a Yvette Costilla Toys for Tots Tuesday 10 team maximum and will take Louis Trifos Front gates Nebo/Yermo place on Sorenson Field. Entry Noah Glaza Annex fee is a new unwrapped toy valued Jobie Howell Rear gate Yermo Annex at $10 from every player or $10. Miguel Reyes 5:45 - 7 a.m. Restricted to DoD & contractor Anyone desiring to donate annual Dec. 13 employees, public safety and leave under the Leave Share Program It's that time of year and MCLB military personnel only. For more should contact the Human Resources Barstow has begun activities and information contact Paul Purdy, Office at 577-6915. fundraisers in support of the Toys at 760-577-6866 or email paul. for Tots Campaign. MCLB Fire [email protected]. Department and MCLB Police Spouses Annual Cookie & Department in conjunction with Ornament Exchange the Toys for Tots Foundation will Multipurpose Room Hobby be collecting toys at the front gate at Combined Federal Shop Bldg. 375 Nebo and Yermo Annex, as well as, Campaign Dec. 13, 9 - 11 a.m. the rear gate at Yermo Annex. Toys kick off for Tots Tuesday will be Nov 22 and Each fall, millions of federal Calling all active duty military 29, and Dec. 6 and 13. Please bring spouses! Bring three dozen of your in a new unwrapped toy to help out employees like you are invited to favorite cookies or other holiday the underprivileged children or donate to one or more charities. treats and an ornament for a fun cash donation to be collected. You choose the amount; you time learning about one another and choose the group or groups. A great fellowship with friends. For volunteer from your agency will more information contact MCFTB Annual CDC Cookies with ensure that you receive a catalogue at 760-577-6675. Santa and Holiday Program listing the international, national CDC Bldg. 372 and local charities that are eligible Thurs. Dec. 15, 9:30 a.m. for the CFC. The volunteer will VPP Corner: Holiday also provide a pledge card that All parents of CDC enrolled asks you to specify the amount of Safety Tips children are invited to join us for cookies with Santa and then stay for your gift and the organization(s) to • Check the condition of receive your support. electrical outlets and our annual holiday performance. For more information call 577- extension cords. 6287. • Check the flammability of Library Services Holiday your wreath. Puppet Show and Open House, Bldg. 218 • If hosting a party be sure Self Defense Class all of your guests designate Dec. 15, 4:30 - 6 p.m. their drivers in advance, Semper Fit Gym Wed. Dec. 14 Sing along with our puppets to or help arrange ride-share your favorite holiday music, do with sober drivers. Take 6 - 8 p.m. crafts, write a letter to Santa, and the keys away from anyone All ages and skill levels are welcome who is thinking of driving to attend this free class. Even if you have cookies and milk and more! while impaired. don't want to participate you can We're going to have a great time! watch and learn how to be your own personal safety advocate. For more information call 760-577- 6533 or visit www.mccsbarstow. 4 com/prevention-education/. Trees for Troops Christmas 2016 Story and photos by: Keith Hayes their families will get them.” Public Affairs Specialist Donning Santa hats in the iconic purple and white yuletide essential was distributed to Marines, of FedEx, Marines and soldiers helped unload the soldiers and sailors living aboard Marine Corps wrapped trees and displayed them in the parking ALogistics Base Barstow as the Trees for Troops lot of the community center while about 50 people, program delivered fresh cut Christmas trees Dec. 7. including children, gathered for the event to Active duty military personnel and their families carefully consider their selections before giving one turned out at the Desert View housing community a home for Christmas. center aboard base to claim a Christmas tree from Abbie Fuller, the wife of Capt. Ryan Fuller, base Federal Express in partnership with the Christmas adjutant, was at the event with her daughter to pick Spirit Foundation. out the perfect specimens, one large tree for the Scott Graham, marketing director, Marine Corps living room and a smaller one perched atop the Community Services Camp Pendleton, said MCCS toddler’s baby carriage to be carted home. has participated in the Tree for Troops program for “I think the Trees for Troops program is awesome,” more than a decade. she said. “I really appreciate what FedEx has done “FedEx has delivered 100 fresh trees from for the Marines." Oregon,” Graham said. “They’re available to active duty military personnel and their families. If there are any left over then National Guard members and

5 241st Marine Corps Birthday Ball Photos by: Carlos Guerra and Rob Jackson

6 241st Marine Corps Birthday Ball Photos by: Carlos Guerra and Rob Jackson

7 Marines and civilians gather Toys for Tots Story and photos by: Laurie Pearson December,” Purdy said. “This has that families in need are able to Public Affairs Specialist been extremely successful.” provide toys to their children for "The program also receives Christmas. To allow for processing irefighters and Marines continue major donations from big of the toys, counting, sorting, and Fto gather new, unwrapped, toys businesses in forms of toys and packaging, the application window at the entrance gates to Marine book donations," said Steve has been closed. This year, there Corps Logistics Base Barstow, Mathos, station captain with SES. will be two distribution dates, with Calif., Dec. 6. As toys are being collected, appointed times. In 1948 the United States Marine applications have been submitted “Time windows at Barstow Corps adopted Toys for Tots online by families in need. and Victorville Salvation Army and expanded it to a nationwide This year, to assist with the locations will be on the 21st and community action project, processing of applicants and to 22nd of December,” Berberena explained Gunnery Sgt. Joel add an additional distribution site, said. “Applicants will be informed Berberena, property chief, and this Berberena has partnered with the of their respective dates and times year’s coordinator of the base’s Toys High Desert Salvation Army in via email upon the approval of their for Tots collection efforts. both Victorville and Barstow. applications.” Last year enough toys were “We are two organizations This is just one way in which collected to benefit more than performing the same function; MCLB Barstow continues to 8,000 children in the High Desert, serving the High Desert strengthen relationships in the Berberena explained. That’s more Community,” Berberena said. High Desert community. than 8,000 children who received “Combining our efforts would “We are here to support the toys for Christmas, who could allow us to reach many more High Desert, knowing that many have otherwise gone without any children in the High Desert children face the prospect of Christmas gifts at all. Community who are in need; one finding nothing under the tree The toys are collected in various team, one fight. It is my hope that this year,” Purdy said. “Merry ways. In addition to collection future coordinators (of the Toys Christmas!” boxes placed throughout the High for Tots program for our base) will Desert by Marines, the MCLB Fire expand upon that in order to have and Emergency Services personnel a more efficient campaign. The also help with collections with two Salvation Army screens applicants primary events. from the community who are in “One (event) being a softball need. This frees up valuable time tournament where we expect to for the coordinator to be present receive (more than) 100 unwrapped at more toy drives, deliver more toys,” said Paul Purdy, fire chief. toy collection boxes, and host They also conduct Toys for Tots other events to raise funds and Tuesdays. toys.” “These start the week of He emphasized that the toys Thanksgiving and continue to mid- will remain within the High Desert as always. “The Barstow Salvation Army supports Barstow and surrounding areas, while the Victorville locations support Hesperia, Oak Hills, Apple Valley, Adelanto and other surrounding areas,” he explained. “The toys are not just handed off to the Salvation Army for them to distribute. The Toys for Tots coordinator is ever present in the handling of toys to applicants on distribution day, along with other Staff Sgt. Frank Kovach, training chief, collects A firefighter with Security and Emergency Marines. This is a joint effort a monetary donation for Toys for Tots, from a Services collects a toy at the front gate for civilian employee at the entrance gate to Marine between two organizations to give Corps Logistics Base Barstow, Calif., Dec. 6. The Toys for Tots, aboard Marine Corps to the community.” Logistics Base Barstow, Calif., Dec. 6. money and toys collected will benefit families in 8 The primary focus is to ensure need in the High Desert this Christmas. Pearl Harbor remembered Story by: Keith Hayes Public Affairs Specialist esterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was “Ysuddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Those fateful words about the surprise attack on the United States Naval Base Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which propelled America in to World War II, were delivered by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to a joint session of Congress and the American people on Dec. 8, 1941. During his declaration to the nation Roosevelt also announced that simultaneous attacks by Japanese forces took place against American bases established in Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island, and Midway Island. (The complete text of the speech can be found at https://www.loc.gov/item/afccal000483/.) Photo by: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Barker Historical accounts of the assault on Pearl Harbor Members of the U.S. military perform a flag presentation during the interment of Seaman 1st Class Wallace F. Quillin at the USS indicate nearly 800 Japanese military aircraft and naval Arizona Memorial on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. The guests vessels launched the attack Sunday morning just before in attendance included Pearl Harbor survivors and other veterans 8 o’clock when it was known that most U.S. military at the National Park Service and U.S. Navy-hosted joint memorial personnel and civilians would be at home. ceremony. As the smoke rose over the lush, picturesque island it was sunk to serve as a permanent memorial to all the state, 2,403 U.S. sailors, soldiers, and Marines, and 68 Americans killed that fateful morning. civilians lay dead and 19 Naval ships including eight The three U.S. Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers were not battleships were heavily damaged or destroyed along with berthed at Pearl Harbor that morning because they more than 300 Army and Marine Corps aircraft. were participating in maneuvers at sea and could not be located by the Japanese. (Complete listing of casualties and losses at The National World War II museum website at http://www.nationalww2museum.org/assets/pdfs/ pearl-harbor-fact-sheet-1.pdf.) History records indicate that the master planner of the Japanese military strike was Japan’s Naval Marshal General Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who intended that a declaration of war be delivered to the U.S. just before the attack, but that declaration was delayed for reasons that are unclear. (Source: Encylopedia Britannica https:// www.britannica.com/biography/Yamamoto-Isoroku.) A quote following the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor often attributed to Yamamoto but never verified as actually having been said by him is “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Official U.S. Navy photo That “terrible resolve” resulted in a global war which claimed more than 60 million lives from 61 countries The USS Arizona Memorial, dedicated in 1962, straddles the remains of the battleship sunk during the surprise Japanese air attack, Dec. before it ended on Sept. 2, 1945, with the official 7, 1941. The memorial pays tribute to the nearly 1,200 sailors and surrender of Japanese forces in a ceremony aboard the Marines who died aboard the Pennsylvania-class super-dreadnaught battleship USS Missouri. The war in Europe had ended during the attack as well as all of the 2,403 military and civilian for Germany and the Axis powers on May 8, 1945, personnel who perished that Sunday morning. A bomb detonated in following the suicide death of Adolf Hitler. her powder magazine caused a violent explosion and immediately sank the craft, Navy hull number BB-39.The more than one million A U.S. military presence is still at the same location visitors a year to the memorial can see the diesel fuel leaking from the now called Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam. submerged wreck to this day. Irv Jennings Jr is a retired Navy enlisted man who has lived at Veterans Home of California Barstow since 2013. Half of those killed in the attack included the crew of He was 16 years old on the day Pearl Harbor was the battleship USS Arizona, which to this day lies where attacked when he and his continued on page 10 9 father, a retired Marine Corps officer join the armed forces. in February 1945, and took pictures who served in World War I, heard on During his service in WWII of the original raising, not the the radio what had happened. Jennings was part of the force that iconic one that was later staged for “I remembered telling my father retook the island of Iwo Jima from photographers. that I was going to enlist when I the Japanese while he served as Fire He served for part of his turned 17,” Jennings said. “I was the Controlman 3rd Class aboard the enlistment with the Naval oldest of three boys. I was also Construction Battalion, or Seabees, a member of the Army JROTC and took part in the operation that (Junior Reserve Officer Training ended the war in the Pacific. Corps) at North Phoenix High “I had the happy job of drilling School. There were 24 members of holes in the ground and filling them my ROTC platoon, most of whom up with dynamite so the bulldozers signed up for the war when they could make the airstrip on Tinian turned of age. Eight of them never Island from whence the Enola Gay returned from war,” he remembers. (bomber) took off to drop the first He recalls the mood of the atomic bomb on Japan,” Jennings country after the attack on Pearl recounted. Harbor. Tinian Island was one of three “It was stunning to say the islands in the Northern Marianas least. Everybody was in awe of the about 1,500 miles south of Japan and fact, but when it sunk in what had was the launching point of the attacks happened and that the future of Photo by: Keith Hayes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. our country was in grave danger, Irv Jennings, a 91-year-old resident of Veterans National Pearl Harbor I don’t think there was a kid in Home of California-Barstow, explains the Remembrance Day was entered various medals, citations and awards he earned North Phoenix High School that during the most destructive conflict in human into the Congressional record if they’d handed them a gun and history. He served aboard the destroyer USS (Public Law 103-308) 22 years a hat wouldn’t have walked off to Case, which supported the attack on the island of ago on Aug. 23, 1994, “… to urge war that day,” he said. “That was the Iwo Jima. Jennings also helped build the airfield all Federal (sic) agencies, and climate of the time. We were in the that launched the Enola Gay, the bomber that interested organizations, groups, dropped the first and only atomic bomb used in ROTC. There was already a war in modern warfare. and individuals, to fly the flag of Europe. We were getting ready to the United States at halfstaff (sic) go to war.” destroyer USS Case. each December 7 in honor of the Jennings did enlist in the Navy at Jennings was on the island of Iwo individuals who died as a result of 17 years old with signatures from his Jima when the Marines raised the their service at Pearl Harbor.” parents to allow the underage teen to American flag on Mount Suribachi Chaplain's Corner: The true spirit of Christmas Submitted by: Lt. Heath E. Taylor How am I doing at serving, loving, and being a Chaplain, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton blessing to friends, family and loved ones in my life? Who might be someone I should intentionally try to hat comes to mind when you think about serve this holiday season and in the coming year? Are WChristmas? Is it candy canes, peppermints, trees there people who may have wronged or committed beautifully decorated with lights and ornaments? Or grievances against me whom I can afford to forgive and maybe it’s holiday shopping, long lines at the mall, start the relationship anew with a clean slate? While awkward sweaters that should never be worn or these questions may be hard to ponder I would argue fruitcakes that aren’t actually eaten? The truth is I think they are worthy of our consideration in keeping with about those things and many more as we approach the the true spirit of Christmas. holidays but I’ve found that if I’m not careful, with all If God so loves and forgives us that he was willing to the hustle and bustle and excitement of the season I send his son on our behalf we should probably follow just might miss the true spirit of the season. his example to love and forgive others. So go ahead In keeping with my faith tradition, Christmas began and make those last minute trips to the mall and make 2,000 years ago when God fulfilled a promise He made sure you get your gifts and cards in the mail in plenty in sending his son into the world to be a blessing to of time. Enjoy the lights, decorations, and whatever all people of the earth. The story is one of selflessness, traditions you enjoy the most during this special time love, forgiveness, and sacrifice that embraces the ethos of the year. Just make sure that after the ornaments of giving up of ourselves and serving one other. While have been packed away for another year and that once there are gifts to be purchased and cards to be mailed it beautiful tree finds its way to the curb that you don’t might do us good to slow down for a minute and start the New Year having missed the true meaning of 10 ask some introspective questions. Christmas. ChristmasSafety Tree

As you deck the halls this holiday season, be fire smart. A small fire that spreads to a Christmas tree can grow large very quickly. After Christmas Get rid of the tree after Christmas or when it is dry. Dried-out trees are a fire danger and should not be left in the home or garage, or placed outside against the home. Check with your local community to find a recycling program. Bring outdoor electrical lights inside after the holidays to prevent hazards and make them last longer.

FACTS

! One of every three home • Christmas tree fires are caused by electrical failures. ! Although Christmas tree fires • are not common, when they do occur, they are more likely to be serious. ! A heat source too close to the • tree causes roughly one in every five of the fires.

Name or Organization Here Your Source for SAFETY Information NFPA Public Education Division • 1 Batterymarch Park, Quincy, MA 02169 Contact Information Here 11