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JULY 2009
HMM-262 Vietnam Veterans - Dallas Reunion 2009.
I am very pleased to announce “Mission Accomplished”. We had 47 attendees: 32 Old Tigers and 15 Guests. But what was absolutely amazing is that we had 7 FNG’s. Seven (7) first time attendees, who have never attended any type of Old Tiger reunion:
Gene Cornstubble
Robb Denhoff
Chuck Gustafson
Don Hardy
Rick Hayes
Dale Riley
Although John Kosinski had attended Popasmoke reunions, this was his first dedicated Old Tiger reunion.
As usual, it was really nice to see some of the guys with whom we had lost contact, some 40+ years ago. For example, the last time I saw Rick Hayes (Avionics 66-67) was on Okinawa in December 1967, when I lent him one of my uniforms so he could get on that Continental flight back to THE WORLD. His sea-bag was lost from wherever it had been put into storage while we were in-country. Sgt.Maj. Home informed him that he had to be in the Uniform-of-the-Day to be able to get on that airplane. I had completely forgotten about that – Wow - Deja-vu!!
The Hotel Garden Inn (DFW South) pulled out all the stops and made this a memorable event for all. The rooms were clean, the food was OUTSTANDING and they never hesitated once when we asked for anything. And…..they did not gouge us on the cost of incidentals as do a lot of hotels.
Our guest speaker for this Annual Squadron Dinner was Col. Michael Farrell USMC, the CO who took our squadron to Iraq in 2007 – the first time our squadron had been in combat since Vietnam. Joining him were: LtCol. Damien Marsh, the XO in Iraq and soon to be the CO of HMM-265 in Okinawa and LtCol. Todd Terry, the Aircraft Maintenance Office (AMO) in Iraq, and soon to be the CO of HMM-204T in Camp Pendleton.
Association Modifications
For several years now, your Board of Directors has been considering some modifications to our Association. I’m sure all of you followed the exploits of HMM-262 while deployed to Iraq and many of you donated in some way to the Old Tiger Iraq Program (OTIP) to support them while in Iraq. And, I know that all of you felt the loss of Cpl. Thomas Saba, our brother HMM-262 Crew Chief, who was killed when his helicopter was shot down in Iraq.
Many of you were consulted and have given your opinions on some of the new modifications. The result of which is that, at the Squadron Dinner, it was voted unanimously to open up the Association membership to those Marines who “served in Combat” with HMM-262 during the deployment to Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom. These Old Tigers are now eligible to join our Association.
At the same time, it was announced that the Association would change its name to encompass these Iraqi Old Tiger Combat Veterans as well. Therefore, our Association is now called:
HMM-262 COMBAT HELICOPTER ASSOCIATION
Your new Board of Directors is as follows:
Commanding Officer: Joseph “Jake” Jacobs
Executive Officer: James Connell
Adjutant: Steve Bravard
Director (Admin): Mike Harr
Director (JAG): Fred McCorkle
Director (Historian): Kreig Loftin
Director (Support): Dennis Blackwell
Director (OIF Liaison) Mike Farrell
We will be modifying the website and posting reunion pictures pretty soon.
Semper FI
Jake
Joseph “JAKE” Jacobs
HMM-262 Combat Helicopter Associati |
