Message from the President
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Volume 14 Issue 1 February 2016 Officers & Trustees Message from the President President Phil Leslie Brothers, family, and friends of Vietnam Veterans of 2 /1 [email protected] 919-210-4559 Greetings and best wishes to all in 2016. First, I wish to thank Imme- diate Past President Paul Mangan for his dedication and service to Vice President the organization over these many years. During his tenure we have gone from a bunch of vets meeting in a motel somewhere in the Dale Williams Washington DC area to an organized and well put together reunion [email protected] covering both coasts and middle America. However, Paul has not left 704-989-4013 us. He will continue to participate with the Officers and Trustees in certain functions. And I wish to thank all of you for your vote of Secretary confidence in electing me as your new president. Ben Dickson I am overwhelmed when I think of what we - no, all of you have accomplished in [email protected] erecting two [2] monuments to The Vietnam Veterans Second battalion, First 757-621-8019 Marines; The first at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, Quantico VA dedicat- ed to “All who served or supported” and a monument listing all of our KIA by compa- Treasurer ny in the First Marine’s Memorial Garden, Camp Pendleton, CA. Neither could have been accomplished without the donations and support of our members. Here, I Mario Sagastume would like to publicly thank all who worked on either or both monuments. However, [email protected] there is one member, newly elected Vice president Dale Williams who not only had a 530-521-3298 major role in the design and approval for the monument at Quantico, he took the lead for design and placement of our monument at First Marines Memorial Garden. Also, Trustees of immense assistance in this effort was Linda Sundram and the Camp Pendleton Rotary Club who erected the wall for our KIA plaques. We would not have a wall to Mike Valdez mount the plaques if not for Linda and the Rotary Club. And thanks to Bill Robb, [email protected] 713-822-1165 BLT 2/1 Family Readiness officer who was our ‘go to guy’ during this endeavor. And a Big Thank You to Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, CO Second Battalion First Marines who Gary Gordon assisted us throughout the process and ensured the monument dedication went as [email protected] planned. And, not to be forgotten is Tim Stanton, our Southern California and Camp 210-834-1027 Pendleton "Go To Guy". Tim was out direct face to face contact with LtCol Smith Tom Isenburg and Bill Robb throughout this process. [email protected] 408-386-0048 And a salute to all the officers and trustees who worked hard to make the San Diego Jose L. Perez reunion and dedication at CamPen a huge success. And Trustee Bob “Sparkee” [email protected] Sparks, stepped down as a Trustee so he could concentrate on building a church in 972-816-2706 the Amazon. Thanks You Sparkee!! Tim Dunn [email protected] And a BIG welcome aboard to our newest board members, Trustees Jose Perez [Golf 303-733-6920 69-70] and [Past President] Tom Isenburg [Echo 65-66]. Business Agent For your consideration and comments. Do we continue as a “last man standing” Bruce Oliver organization, or do we become a ‘Combat Veterans 2/1” organization and/or have [email protected] ‘Chapters” to include 2/1 warriors from WWll, to present? The reason I ask is that 973-960-8239 LtCol Smith, the current CO of 2/1 is so excited about what WE have accomplished, he wants to continue the legacy of V V 2/1 and copy what we have done with the Webmaster current 2/1 and/or somehow join, copy, be one with us. Think about it and let me or Vin Burdziuk any officer / trustee know how you feel. I for one, believe WE can make this work. [email protected] 617-840-6700 Page 2 2nd Bn 1st Marines Newsletter Message from Dale Williams - Vice President First I want to express my thanks to LtCol Smith and the Marines and Sailors of 2d Battalion 1st Marines for the support and assistance that they provided for the dedication ceremony at Camp Horno. When we did the monument dedication at the Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, we were essentially given a space and told to have at it. We had to contract for the tent, chairs, podium, speaker system, arrange for the color guard, in other words, everything. This time around all we had to do was ask for something and it appeared. I probably can’t list everything they did for us but some of the things were: chairs, heads, color guard, bugler, fly over, sound system, firing detail, mess hall arrangements, static display and most important of all the working party. We could not have had an event without them. On to the planning for the next reunion. We are planning some kind of color ceremony on the Friday of the reunion. The thought is to have it at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in San Antonio. www.VietnamVeteransMemorialofSanAntonio.com We will pursue permission and hopefully we can use the space for our event. Since Friday is the 11th and Veterans Day we might have to be flexible. The memorial is only a few blocks from the hotel. Something came to my attention at the last banquet, several of our members were wearing miniature medals. Although not exactly in compliance with the Marine Corps Uniform Regulations, I like the idea. As one of the members said, “I earned them, why shouldn’t I wear them”, and our banquet seems to be a good place to do the wearing. I would encour- age more of our members to do so. If you want to pursue the purchase of miniatures any PX can help or several civilian businesses: Sgt. Grit (they support our reunion with donated items), The U.S. Cavalry Store and Medals of America are three that I know of, I’m sure there are others. Hope to see all of you in November. Semper Fi, Dale Williams Bruce Oliver [GOLF 68-69] resigned as a Trustee. In accordance with the By Laws, The officers and trustees voted to fill his position with Tim Dunn [Hotel 66]. Tim brings a wealth of knowledge and experience with fiscal [money] and organizational management. We will miss Bruce as a Trustee, but he has not left us. He will remain as the contact with state of NJ as our incorporation Business Agent, our liaison / contact person for our printer, and maintain the newsletter mailing list. 2nd Bn 1st Marines Newsletter Page 3 Meeting Minutes VIETNAM VETERANS OF 2/1 2015 MEMBERS MEETING 8 NOVEMBER 2015 CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL Ben Dickson Secretary SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA The meeting was called to order at 0900hrs. by President Paul Mangan. 74 members were in attendance including officers and trustees. A role call was taken and all of the officers and trustees were present: Paul Mangan - President Phil Leslie - Vice President Mario Sagastume - Treasurer Ben Dickson - Secretary Bruce Oliver - Trustee Bob Sparks - Trustee Dale Williams - Trustee Gary Gordon - Trustee Mike Valdez -Trustee Vin Burdzuik - Webmaster The President called for the reading of the minutes. A motion was made and passed to forgo the reading of the minutes. They are available on the website, in the newsletter and may be obtained from Ben Dickson upon request. Presidents Report: Our President reports that the dedication ceremony at the Memorial Garden at the 1st Marine Regiment went extremely well. The Association is in good shape due to the work of all of the members through their donations, time, and suggestions. Paul discussed the role of the trustees and officers, the time commitments, and the amount of meetings that go into the planning and maintenance of the organization and the reunions. The use of a phone service to facilitate meetings allows us to save time and money and make it available to anyone who would like to take part to observe. The calls are recorded to make it possible to archive and review them. We are a transparent organization dedicated to you, the members. Vice Presidents Remarks: Phil gave a hardy thanks and appreciation for all the hard work that Dale Williams and his committee put into this dedication. A standing ovation followed. Treasurers Report: Mario gave us the yearly balance and income information. We closed last year showing a deficit of $4000. But we collected over $100,000 over the last two fiscal years which has gone for the monument at Quantico last year and the Memorial Plaque Dedication at the 1st Marine Regiment Memorial Garden this year. $10000 of designated funds left over from the monument had not yet been transferred to the general fund as planned due to accounting procedures, but when things are balanced this year and the reunion expenses are resolved we will be ok. Anyone has access to the B&I sheet, just make a request to Mario. The board feels we don’t think it best to publish this information to the newsletter or web site to protect our members. As of this mo- ment we have about $35000 in our account before expenses for this reunion. We will want to start building the account up again with donations and appreciate the generosity of our members. Communication Committee Vinny states that the movie we had shown will be on the web site when it is released by the producer.