He wanted to be a Marine fighter pilot. The US was building up their military force, but they were not at war yet and the Navy required all its potential Navy and Marine pilots to have two years of college. So Ed started classes at BostonCollege.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked the Army and the Navy both dropped the college requirement and Ed applied to the Marines. His primary flight training was in D allas and then he went to Pensacola, Florida. He was carrier qualified, which means he knew how to perform a controlled crash of his single engine fighter, onto the rolling deck of a Navy floating runway.
It took Ed almost two years to get through all the Navy flight training. His problem was he was a very good pilot and the Marines needed flight instructors. He had a great command presence and public speaking ability, which landed him in the classroom, training new baby Marine pilots.
His orders to the Pacific fleet and the chance to fly combat missions off a carrier came in th e spring of 1945, on the same day the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Of course his orders where changed. He never went to sea and he was out of the Marines in 1946.
Ed stayed in the USMC as a reserve officer. He became a successful personality in the new TV medium, after the war. His Marine command presence helped. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He never got to fly his fighter aircraft, but he saw his share of raw combat. He flew the Cessna O-1E Bird Dog, which is a single engine slow-moving unarmed plane. He functioned as an artillery spotter for the Marine batteries on the ground and as a forward controller for the Navy & Marine fighter / bombers who flew in on fast moving jet engines, bombed the area and were gone in seconds. Captain Ed was still circling the enemy looking for more targets, all the time taking North Korean and Chinese ground fire.
He stayed with the Marines as a reserve officer and retired in 1966 as a Colonel.
The world knows Ed as Ed McMahon of the Johnny Carson, Tonight Show. One night I was watching the show when the subject of Colonel McMahon earning a number of Navy Air Medals came up. Carson, a former Navy officer, understood the significance of these medals, but McMahon shrugged it off, saying that if you flew enough combat missions they just sort of gave them to you. McMahon flew 85 combat missions over North Korea; he earned every one of those Air Medals. The casualty rate, for flying forward air controllers in Korea sometimes exceeded 50% of a squadron’s manpower. McMahon was lucky to have gotten home from t hat war.
Once a Marine, always a Marine.
When the public was spitting (taking their personal safety into their own hands) at Marines on the streets of Southern California during Vietnam, Colonel McMahon was taking Marines off the streets and into his posh Beverley Hills home. I spoke to a retired Marine aircrew member the day Colonel McMahon died and he personally remembered seeing McMahon at numerous Marine Air Bases in California in the 1960s. He=2 0was known for going to the Navy hospitals and visiting the wounded Marines and Sailors from this country’s conflicts, even in the last years of his life.
Colonel McMahon presented awards and decorations to fellow Marines and attended many a Marine ceremony and the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball. He stayed true to his Corps as a board member of the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund and as the honorary chairman of the National Marine Corps Aviation Museum. After retiring from the Marine Reserve, one night on the Johnny Carson show, members of the California Air National Guard came on stage.
Colonel McMahon was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Air Guard in front of millions of Americans who watched it happen live. You will not see anything like that on TV anymore.
The three core values of a United States Marine are; honor, courage and commitment. This is what a Marine is taught from the first day of training and this is what that Marine believes. That was Colonel Edward P. McMahon Jr. USMCR Retired. Before he was a national figure he was a true combat hero and a patriot the nation needed then and this country needs now.
Your war is over. Thank you Colonel McMahon. Semper Fi sir.
23 June 2009
Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
.
‘Westboro Baptist Church’ Protests Col. Ed McMahon Funeral there are a few Patriot Guard Riders there too to keep an eye on the vile Protest people
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Wild Thing’s comment…….
I wish so much the media would get their act together. They really aren’t giving the news and they sure as heck are not covering other stories in any detail. Ed McMahon dies, he gets a mention, Michael Jackson dies and he has been worshiped from that moment up to now and it will probably continue for awhile longer. grrrrrrrr
My other post about Ed McMahon passing away….from June 24th.
WW11 Fighter Pilot and ‘Tonight’ Show Sidekick Ed McMahon Dies
WW11 Marine Fighter Pilot . After several months of training at Miami and El Toro, McMahon arrived in Korea in February 1953. He flew 85 artillery-spotting missions in the Cessna OE Bird Dog before Sources Boston Herald Lowell Massachusetts
….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Hey Mark, just was searching through pics on the web and came across the recent ones with Marines in Afghanistan. You guys said you didn’t know who they were. Well that’s my husbands company 1st Bat 5th Mar =) There are other companys with them but I’m not sure who they are, but the pictures you have up with them lying on cots, that’s 1/5 =)
You’ll never see that Westboro Baptist bunch protest a funeral of a soldier being held at an inner city church. They always go where there a plenty of cops to protect them.
WT – you know the media plays the idol bit for all it is worth and sells tabloid rags and tv time based on pop culture.
Ed McMahon accomplished something in life that was not controversial. Michael Jackson’s entire life was controversial and revenue generating. As long as loads of simple people follow that pulp, it will sell.
Dani, unless things have changed. The original article said they were from Camp Lejeune, 1/5 is NOT from Camp Lejeune. 1/5 has always been part of the 1st MarDiv, Camp Pendleton California.
Also it says 2nd MEU, MEB or whatever it is now. So I am still confused.
Thank you WT and Mark.
‘Westboro Baptist Church’ makes my blood boil, they need the same lesson as my unit hecklers got the day we deployed to Ft. Lewis from a ‘small town’. We were at attention for a Boeing sponsored flyover on mainstreet with our Greydogs waiting, when hecklers tried to disrupt the ceremony, without missing a beat, the rear rank fell out, took care of the problem then fell back in. It was almost surreal and it was fast. Not one soul said a word, those bastards were still “out” when we boarded Greyhound’s finest.
Thanks Dani. God bless you and your husband.
Is 3rd Mar Div HQ still at FPO AP 96602 Mark?
Jack, FPO San Fran the Zip, please, don’t ask me to remember that one, That’s 43 years ago. It was 9 something, but I can’t remember.
Sorry Mark, some things are better left forgotten, LOL, mine was an APO SF. I meant only are they still Hq’d in Okinawa?
I’m reminded of another son of the greatest era like Ed McMahon, Edward Albert Heimberger, RIP.
Here’s another ball of confusion, Jack. 1/9 was deactivated in 1994. Then re-activated in 2004 at Camp Lejeune, Formerly, Home of the 2nd Marine Division. During our Time, 9th Marines was quarteded at Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Schwab was also a cheap R and R place to send companies and regiments. And, those returning to conus. First stop would be Schwab then they were sent down to Camp Hanson for departure to Conus, also across the street were the guys headed to RVN. That whole area at Hanson was a study of two different emotions, Jublilation and Depression.
At one time Okinawa was the home of the 3rd MarDiv. Until April 65 when they went to vietnam, for a very Photo op landing. All coming ashore with their M-14’s, then the 1st. I joined the 3rd MarDiv a year later.
What an experience.
If you can use this great and if not I do understand.
Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
COLONEL ED HAS DIED
He wanted to be a Marine fighter pilot. The US was building up their military force, but they were not at war yet and the Navy required all its potential Navy and Marine pilots to have two years of college. So Ed started classes at Boston College. When Pearl Harbor was attacked the Army and the Navy both dropped the college requirement and Ed applied to the Marines. His primary flight training was in Dallas and then he went to Pensacola, Florida. He was carrier qualified, which means he knew how to perform a controlled crash of his single engine fighter, onto the rolling deck of a Navy floating runway. It took Ed almost two years to get through all the Navy flight training. His problem was he was a very good pilot and the Marines needed flight instructors. He had a great command presence and public speaking ability, which landed him in the classroom, training new baby Marine pilots. His orders to the Pacific fleet and the chance to fly combat missions off a carrier came in the spring of 1945, on the same day the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Of course his orders where changed. He never went to sea and he was out of the Marines in 1946. Ed stayed in the USMC as a reserve officer. He became a successful personality in the new TV medium, after the war. His Marine command presence helped. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He never got to fly his fighter aircraft, but he saw his share of raw combat. He flew the Cessna O-1E Bird Dog, which is a single engine slow-moving unarmed plane. He functioned as an artillery spotter for the Marine batteries on the ground and as a forward controller for the Navy & Marine fighter / bombers who flew in on fast moving jet engines, bombed the area and were gone in seconds. Captain Ed was still circling the enemy looking for more targets, all the time taking North Korean and Chinese ground fire. He stayed with the Marines as a reserve officer and retired in 1966 as a Colonel. The world knows Ed as Ed McMahon of the Johnny Carson, Tonight Show. One night I was watching the show when the subject of Colonel McMahon earning a number of Navy Air Medals came up. Carson, a former Navy officer, understood the significance of these medals, but McMahon shrugged it off, saying that if you flew enough combat missions they just sort of gave them to you. McMahon flew 85 combat missions over North Korea; he earned every one of those Air Medals. The casualty rate, for flying forward air controllers in Korea sometimes exceeded 50% of a squadron’s manpower. McMahon was lucky to have gotten home from that war. Once a Marine, always a Marine. When the public was spitting (taking their personal safety into their own hands) at Marines on the streets of Southern California during Vietnam, Colonel McMahon was taking Marines off the streets and into his posh Beverly Hills home. I spoke to a retired Marine aircrew member the day Colonel McMahon died and he personally remembered seeing McMahon at numerous Marine Air Bases in California in the 1960s. He was known for going to the Navy hospitals and visiting the wounded Marines and Sailors from this country’s conflicts, even in the last years of his life. Colonel McMahon presented awards and decorations to fellow Marines and attended many a Marine ceremony and the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball. He stayed true to his Corps as a board member of the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund and as the honorary chairman of the National Marine Corps Aviation Museum. After retiring from the Marine Reserve, one night on the Johnny Carson show, members of the California Air National Guard came on stage. Colonel McMahon was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Air Guard in front of millions of Americans who watched it happen live. You will not see anything like that on TV anymore. The three core values of a United States Marine are; honor, courage and commitment. This is what a Marine is taught from the first day of training and this is what that Marine believes. That was Colonel Edward P. McMahon Jr. USMCR Retired. Before he was a national figure he was a true combat hero and a patriot the nation needed then and this country needs now. Your war is over. Thank you Colonel McMahon. Semper Fi sir.
23 June 2009
Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
vanharl@aol.com
WE BURIED ANOTHER VETERAN TODAY
We buried another veteran today.
He went to his God, from us, he went away.
This one was young, in the prime of his life.
He left twin children and a very courageous wife.
It wasn’t a bullet, a plane crash or a bomb.
It was cancer, and he just finally, could not hold on.
He fought “it” like a military campaign.
But the time came to surrender, to end his earthly pain.
He knew he would be fine in the presence of his Lord.
But what about his twins, those children he adored?
Will they grow strong and at “life” win.
Please God, let them always remember him.
We buried another veteran today.
It seems, all my life, it has happened this way.
From my uncles of the WW II-time frame.
To the military friends, Vietnam would claim.
For me the number of dead, is always on the rise.
When I get a call another veteran is gone, it is never really a surprise.
From lost sub-mariners, in early days of my life.
To the forever gone, military-medical friends of my veteran wife.
I lost a Korean War veteran friend this year, to a crashed airplane.
I lost a Gulf War friend to cancer, a difference in their age, but still that pain.
I lost an Uncle to cancer who did Korea with the Navy, steaming off shores.
I lost my father-in-law who fought in Korea, from a “fox-hole” in the frozen outdoors.
We buried another Veteran today.
It seems in all my family’s generations, it happens this way.
From my Revolutionary War Grandfathers who started this sad, but needed trend.
To the family members on both sides in 1861, who just would not bend.
Some of my family lived a long and happy life, after “their” war.
They died of old age in their bed, safe-behind a locked door.
They died in battle, buried where they fell.
They died years later, carrying emotional scars, in their own personal hell.
My family is no different than thousands who met our Nation’s call.
They rose to the demands of this country and some gave their “all”.
We have to continue doing this, to make America free.
But, it’s that Veteran’s twin-little children that keeps worrying me.
We buried another Veteran today.
It seems all my life it continues this way.
Now my only child is sixteen and we reside on a military installation.
My wife and I truly want her to live safe, in a free nation.
But what happens, when it is her-generation’s turn to make a stand.
Do we lose our only child in some forsaken-foreign land?
Does she play it safe, stay home and say “that’s boy’s stuff”.
Or does she join like her mother and go right into the ruff.
She has to be that one Veteran I don’t see, make that final “call”.
Let me go before her, let me first give this country my fighting “all”.
Maybe if I go “out-there” and make my final stand.
She can stay safe-at-home, in this wonderful free land.
WE BURIED ANOTHER VETERAN TODAY
Major Van Harl, USAF Ret.
vanharl@aol.com
Thanks for clearing that up Mark, I appreciate it, it sure is convoluted. Back in late ’69 my next door neighbor was a recuperating 3rd Div. Marine, medical retired, he’d had taken a blast to his stomach big enough to stuff a rucksack in the year before, we’d both settled in the same hood at the same time, we still keep in touch at Christmas, he’s in S. Dakota now. My topkick in armor was a former 3rd Marine Div Gunny Sgt., Korean era, a first rate guy. Some of my RVN connections were with those 26th regiment devil dogs along the DMZ. I was just passing through you guys were stuck there.
“What an experience.” You sure as hell paid for it Brother. Semper Fi
Welcome Home Mark
Wonderful tribute Major Van Harl, USAF Ret. Thank your for your service and thank you for honoring Theodores World.
HI Dani Nicole and welcome. Please thank
your husband for his service to our country,
and God bless both of you.
I wish I could help, I have no idea, I saw the
photo images at a military site and the only
information with them was what I posted with
the photos. My guess would have to be the
person that posted them originally made a
mistake in the labeling of the photos.
BobF., thanks and good point too. That
church is one of the sickest things I
have ever learned about.
Tom, yes your right, I never have liked
thos gossip magazines. But they need
sensationalism to sell them, your
so right.
Major Van Harl USAF Ret, Welcome to
Theodore’s World blog,I love what
you wrote.
Thank you for serving our country and
for the poem too.
Just a brief historical correction: McMahon did not fly the O-1E (a Vietnam-era designation) but, rather, the OE-1. The OE-1 was the USMC variant of the L-19A delivered during the Korean War. Later, after the Korean War, the USMC ordered some Bird Dog “hot rods” with a supercharged Continental TSO-470-2 that produced a 180 mph top speed — the OE-2.
In 1958, the Army bought the first L-19Es with, among other improvements, a beefed-up airframe. In 1962, these were redesignated O-1E.