Peters, Dave (DWP), 4th Platoon

Peters, Dave (DWP), 4th Platoon

PETERS: Dave Peters 1968

My Marine Corps career started when, on my 17th birthday, I walked into the USMCR recruiting office at NAS Alameda. I was interested in the MarCad Program – High School to Flight School. I passed all the tests, aptitude and physical. The minimum age for flight school was 19 and a minimum of an Associate’s degree. I enlisted in the USMCR MARTU Alameda NAS (delayed entry of 7 Jan 62 waiting for a slot for MCRD-SD Boot Camp). I was assigned to 4thMAW VMA-133 as an A-4C Skyhawk Avionics technician. In range of obtaining my Associates degree in Electronics I reported for my flight physical. A big disappointment came when I failed the eye test – something about binocular vision out of spec.

Dave & Jeanne Peters

Undeterred, I transferred to San Jose State Univ. School of Engineering, joined the PLC Program (Jr and Sr) and graduated in June 1967 with a BS in Aeronautical Maintenance. I was discharged from the USMCR as a Corporal and accepted a Regular commission. With orders in hand, I was off to TBS 1-68.

After TBS I was assigned to the 3rd MAW 5th LAAMBn (Light Anti-Aircraft Missile Bn) at MCAS Yuma. I was put in the queue for Hawk Missile School. After a few months, I finally made it to the 6-week Hawk Missile School (6704) at USAADS Ft Bliss, TX.

Then it was back to Yuma and again in a waiting stance for the 9 month Guided Missile Systems Engineering School in Ft Bliss (6703). Upon graduation in May 1969, I had orders to RVN MACG-18 where I worked at 1stMAW G3 with Tactical Air Support/Control duties (6702) – mostly in The Bunker but thankfully, a few days in the field every month. And of all things, it was the USAF that gave me my I-Corps Area Fam.

After RVN I was off to 2nd MAW MCAS Cherry Point. The USMC was in a drawdown when I arrived. There were limited billets open when I checked in. I was assigned as an Intermediate Aircraft Maintenance Officer (KC-130) and was off to 3-months AMO School (6002) at NAS Memphis. In 1972 I left the USMC and became a graduate student at San Diego State Univ., earning an MS in Aerospace Engineering.

Hired by General Dynamics as a Structural Dynamics engineer, I had a 22 year career in the NASA/USAF Atlas/Centaur Space Satellite Launch Vehicle programs as well as the Tomahawk and Advanced Cruise Missile programs. With General Dynamics folding up shop in San Diego, I elected to not transfer to our new owner, Lockheed-Martin in Denver. I instead joined the BQM-145 UAV team at Teledyne Ryan.

With Teledyne Ryan subsequently selling out to Northrup-Grumman, I returned to graduate school at the University of Calif. – San Diego, earning a MS in Computer Science and Engineering. My next adventure was as a USN Civilian employee at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) where I worked in Cyber Defense and Satellite Communications Programs until my retirement in 2011.

Contrary to all appearances, my military career was not quite over when I left the USMC in 1972. In 1985 I joined the USNR Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Unit at NAS-NI as an Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer – 1515. During the next 19 years, I did my yearly active duty at NAVAIR in Washington, DC as well as at SPAWAR in San Diego. In 1999, I was voluntarily recalled to 3 years of active duty at HQ SPAWAR. After 29 total years of USMC/USN service, I retired from the US Navy in 2004 as a Commander.

An accounting of my career would not be complete without mentioning my wonderful wife, Jeanne and our three kids, Alexa, Zach and Andy – the greatest children in the world! I met Jeanne in 1982 where we both worked as engineers at General Dynamics in San Diego.

Pfeiffer, George Martin Jr. (George), 4th Platoon

Pfeiffer, George Martin Jr. (George), 4th Platoon

25 June 1943 – 14 November 1998
Plano Mutual Cemetery, TX 75074

The Basic School at Quantico was George Pfeiffer’s second go-round with Marine-tough obstacle courses and endless training days. He had been through Marine Corps Recruit Basic Training at Paris Island four years earlier. Perhaps it was being twice trained that made Corps physical standards stay with him. Even after USMC days, he ran a fast mile and bench pressed far beyond what his weight would predict, until his final run—in brand new running shoes—on a warm November Saturday, 1998, when an unknown circulatory condition felled him.

George graduated near the top of Delaware’s Harrington High School class of ‘61, earning letters in five sports and setting track records that would remain unbroken through the 1980’s. However, having grown up in a foster family, he possibly lacked financial resources for college. He left the University of Delaware after one year and joined the Marine Corps.

Post-MCRD, he was onboard ship at the Bay of Pigs crisis and then had a very short Mediterranean cruise that ended when he was selected for the Naval Enlisted Scientific Education Program (NESEP). He reported to the University of Missouri in the fall of 1963, met and married Mary Ennis, June 3, 1966, and graduated at the top of his NESEP class in 1967 with a BS in Electrical Engineering.

Next stop: Commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant and on to Quantico for TBS and Communications School. Near the end of Comm school and test time for the memorized in-use and in-reserve codes, North Koreans seized the USS Pueblo with those codes on board. Without knowing which or how many codes were compromised, the new Communications Officers were forced to start all over on the next set of codes.

George left Quantico for deployment to Vietnam on the same day in 1968 that Marines from Quantico were called up to guard Washington, D.C. against riots and fires, following MLK’s assassination. Even the possibility of serious violence erupting within the United States didn’t change immediate orders for Vietnam.

Letters home from Vietnam reported Communications duties in Da Nang, Khe Sahn, and Phu Bi (that are remembered).

Weeks in a vault studying secret codes must have been a foreshadowing of his future assignments in and out of the Marines. From Vietnam he went—with wife and baby daughter #1—to a “secret” Naval Communications Station in Morocco where uniforms were worn only on base. In spite of heavy security restrictions, it was quiet duty—until the final Saturday before his rotation back to the States. Moroccan dissidents attempted a coup against the King. Driving near the King’s palace in Rabat, George and his wife met a convoy that George noted was carrying live ammo (and that turned out to be the perpetrators). The soldiers allowed them to pass and turn in a different direction. George’s colonel happened to be at the palace and was caught in the fracas but released unharmed. The Pfeiffer’s farewell dinner at the Colonel’s home, scheduled for that evening, was necessarily cancelled.

Their family of four—a second daughter was born in Morocco—returned to the states the next week, July 1971, and George resigned from the Marine Corps. He had decided the civilian world offered the “pure science” that he declared early in his college studies was his goal.

With engineers “a dime a dozen” at that time, he grabbed the only position available. Then in July 1972 a letter arrived from Dallas’s Texas Instruments; it had been mailed a year earlier. Postmarks indicated at least 2 trips across the Atlantic and postings to several countries in Europe and Africa before it reached him. The company wanted an ex-Marine design engineer in their Defense Systems. George jumped at the offer. During his 26 years at TI and TI Raytheon, he earned the coveted designation, Member, Group Technical Staff. His work included the “terrain-following radar” for F-111’s and the Stealth’s anti-detection system. The only way his family learned the nature of his projects was from after-the-fact news reports of TI’s role when it became public information.

As much as George loved “guy things,” he was a devoted husband and father. Mary’s large extended family took him in as their own, giving him the family he missed growing up. He located in Plano, TX, where Mary taught school and he avoided talking about his job by listening to his house full of women. He was uninhibited about emergency runs to stores for whatever “personal item” one of his daughters might require. One prom night found him replacing ruined pantyhose at the same Park Lane franchise where Marine Colonel Oliver North (infamously) picked up ballet tights for his daughter. George lived to see both daughters married and two granddaughters born. His legacy: each of his, now three, granddaughters is a talented runner.

USMC Resume:
MCRD, Paris Island, June 1962
BS in Electrical Engineering, University of Missouri, June 1967, 1st in NESEP class;
Commissioned a 2nd LT USMC
TBS Class 1-68 Alpha Company 4th Platoon
Basic Communications Officers Course 3-68, Quantico, April 1967, Class Honorman
Vietnam, 7th Comm. Bn FMF and Sub Unit #1 (CEO) Service Co., Hdqt 1st MarDiv, FMF, 1968-June 1969
Sidi Yahia, Morocco, Naval Communications Station, July 1968-July 1971
Resigned August 1971 with rank of Captain

Personal Reflections about George Pfeiffer:

From Robert Newlin, 13 Apr 2015: I recall that he had a wonderful sense of humor and a 1000-watt smile.

 

Piper, Travis (TLP), 4th Platoon

Piper, Travis (TLP), 4th Platoon

My dad’s mother moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900’s with her parents and two young sons. My dad used to ride his bicycle over rolling meadows where I would later attend UCLA in the 60’s. I was born in Los Angeles, California in April, 1945

My mom and her brother, my uncle, were both performers. My uncle came from Oregon to Hollywood in the big band era and started an orchestra while working in the furniture business. My mom followed him as a dancer – both tap and ballet and took a job in a flower shop frequented by a man who would become my dad. He was a salesman in the stationery business in Hollywood.

Just before I turned five, the family moved from Los Angeles to Ventura, California when my dad became part owner of a stationery store. My mom died when I was five. My dad remarried an employee who had known me since birth. She did volunteer work with the Red Cross.

My first summer job was with the City of Ventura Highway department (mainly hoeing weeds along the roads). On weekends I worked at the launching ramp at the new Ventura Marina.

I attended UCLA where I also signed up for Navy ROTC which helped with books and tuition in exchange for 3 years of my life. At the end of my sophomore year I switched to the Marine option and went to Marine boot camp at Quantico the summer following my Junior year (1966). During camp I really appreciated my weed hoeing experience as many of the activities involved upper body strength.

I graduated from UCLA in 1967 with a degree in Speech Communications. Within a few days I was married to my first wife Kathy and we drove cross-country to Quantico for TBS. Being asthmatic as a kid, I was always short-winded. Thanks to Dave Peake and Rob Winn for several pushes “over the hill”. As TBS concluded, I put in for Engineering and Language School, expecting 6 weeks of Vietnamese.

Upon graduating from TBS, I first served two months as an assistant Personnel Officer at Quantico while I waited for Engineer School to start at Camp Lejeune. We were there for six weeks while I learned to drive bulldozers and blow up things, then we had six weeks to report to the Presidio at Monterey where I was to spend a full year learning Thai. By the time Thai language school finished, I had completed 2 of my 3 years military commitment.

During Thai school, I devised a system for teaching the Thai alphabet in half the time. I applied to the Commandant to stay on at the Presidio for my last year to perfect the system. The response was “you can stay for a year, but you need to extend for another year so you can go to Vietnam”. I declined and arrived in Vietnam as a 1st Lieutenant in March, 1969 – when most TBS A1-68 graduates were already home.

Vietnam was relatively uneventful for me. We spent most of our time policing our own troops, dealing with racial issues and drugs. After 8 months, I was about to leave on R&R and my mother-in-law at the time suffered a stroke, so I came home on emergency leave (thanks to my stepmother’s Red Cross connections).

After making care facility arrangements, I only had two months remaining of my three year hitch, so I was stationed at Camp Pendleton to finish up. While there, I attended a job fair for officers getting out of the service. The company reps spoke in alphabetic order so the Xerox rep was last. Everyone was looking for sales reps but as he was sitting down, he said something about an administrative management position in the Santa Ana Regional office. I got the job. I was at the Region about a year and a half before they sent me to the Anaheim Branch for another year and a half. In those jobs I was learning the company’s “paper-based” system for processing orders for renting Xerox copiers.

In 1974 I was asked to be part of a Task Force being assembled in Rochester, NY to determine how to use Xerox’s new mini-computers to automate the paper-based system throughout the seventy-some branches across the country. My role in that task force led to a job offer in Rochester.

We completed the implementation of the new system in all branches ahead of schedule largely due to the use of computer-based training, or CBT. We would mail out large training disk packs ahead of time so the branch personnel could “practice” on their own equipment. When our trainer arrived onsite the employees would start inputting live data. We were onsite to deal with the “future shock” as processed reports would print out the next morning instead of being mailed back several days later.

Once the launch of the new system was rolling smoothly, I was tapped to become be part of a new computer-based training department at Xerox. By 1982 we were logging over 52,000 connect hours of online training each year. That use of CBT was largely responsible for the company not having to add an entire new wing on the Leesburg Training Facility, not to mention saving millions of dollars in airfare.

After being in Rochester for a couple of years, I found myself a “born-again bachelor” as my wife moved to Dogpatch Arkansas with our two sons, Brett and Brian.

I bought a fixer-upper house that kept me busy for about 3 years. One day I noticed an audition notice for “The Mind With A Dirty Man”. I tried out and was cast as the Priest on the Pornographic Film Review Board. The Producer of that show would become the second Kathy Piper. She also had two sons — Brian and David, so I only had one new name to learn.

In 1983 I left Xerox and started Creative Approaches, Inc. (CAI). We were the first custom CBT company in the entire world. Early on, most of our projects were mainframe-based. We were developing and sending courses to many of the country’s Fortune 500 companies.

Being in the middle of societal computerization, CAI was constantly “chasing technology”; from Mainframe to AS/400 to DOS to OS/2 to Windows and to the Internet. During the OS/2 days, IBM kept sending project after project, then one day we learned that IBM was canceling OS/2 – Microsoft’s Windows had WON!

In 1995 the firm developed its first Web site. By 2007, Web site and Web Application development revenues had become half of our total revenue. At the time of selling the company, three years ago, the CBT-to Web Development ratio was more like 40:60.

Three of our four sons (and all eight grandchildren) now live within 20 minutes of our house. My wife and I started a Community Theatre troupe that just finished our 34th year of performances – whew!

I am very thankful for and proud of my Marine Corps experience. It definitely gave me confidence in myself as I did things I never thought I could. I feel strongly that everyone should serve in the military.

Powers, Jack (JCP), 4th Platoon

Powers, Jack (JCP), 4th Platoon
POWERS: Augusta National Golf 2014

POWERS: Augusta National Golf 2014

Pearl Creek, NY, a small, farming community of less than 25 homes near Buffalo is where I was raised. Most neighbors were relatives and nearly every male was a WWII veteran. This included a Marine who, along with his twin brother, earned the Navy Cross for action at Cape Gloucester. Another Marine veteran and close friend of my parents would regularly win bets pounding out 50 push-ups at gatherings years after active duty. They, along with actors like John Wayne and James Whitmore, movies like Guadalcanal Diary and Sands of Iwo Jima, shaped my attitude toward the military and the Marine Corps.

After graduating from Pavilion Central HS I attended Canisius College, a small Jesuit school in Buffalo. I completed Platoon Leaders Class between junior and senior year. I recall the vice Chair of the College, a Jesuit Priest, providing his office for the PLC candidates to meet. He was that supportive of soon-to-be Marine Officers and this was 1967.

PLC provided indelible memories – two unforgettable Sergeant Instructors, the Hill Trail, pugil stick competition, close order drill and thirty-six fellow platoon members who made it. At college graduation, there was a sharp contrast between dress whites and the drab, green uniforms of dozens of Army ROTC candidates who shared the stage.

Immediately upon graduation, Barbara and I were married and drove to Quantico for our honeymoon. At my first double running of the obstacle course at TBS, Captain Len Eaton chided me for being slow on the ropes saying he too was just married. It impressed the heck out of me that he knew my name and that I was recently married. It served as a life-long lesson on the importance of knowing who you command or manage.

Upon graduating from TBS, I reported to MCAS New River, NC for training as an air traffic control officer. After two years at New River, I transferred to Futenma, Okinawa and returned to New River at the end of my overseas tour.

In December 1971, I left active duty and took a position with the VA Office of Construction. While working there, I served with Marine Air Control Squadron-24, a reserve unit located in Quantico, VA. Our reserve duty consisted of running ground controlled air intercepts with F-8’s based at Andrews Airbase. Doing this in airspace abutting the Capital is quite a contrast to what is permitted in the post-911 era.

After a short assignment in Durham, NH, we transferred to New Hampshire where we have lived since 1975. While in NH, I continued with the USMCR joining Marine Air Support Squadron-6 in South Weymouth, MA. MASS-6 duty involved many Combined Arms Exercises at 29 Palms. After a two year tour as the unit’s Commanding Officer, I retired from the Marine Reserve in 1993 at the rank of Colonel.

Thanks to the GI Bill, I was able to complete my MBA. In 1989 I joined New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston and served as Chief Information Officer. After merging with Beth Israel in 1996, I stayed as VP, Information Systems. Beth Israel Deaconess is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and official hospital for the Boston Red Sox. After retiring in February 2015, I continue to do part time consulting work for the medical center.

Barbara and I will celebrate our golden anniversary in two years and have four children and seven grandchildren with whom to share the occasion. We are both avid golfers and have the privilege of splitting our winter months between Arizona and Florida.

In closing, there is never a day that I forget that I am a Marine Officer and what it represents. The legacy that past and present Marines have built is awesome and something everyone who carries the title of “Marine” respects.

Semper Fi, John Powers

Purvis, Dave (DLP), 4th Platoon

Purvis, Dave (DLP), 4th Platoon

PURVIS: Lt Purvis Da Nang orphanage

I arrived at the University of Missouri in September of 1962 fully intending to be a career Navy officer.  I had enlisted in the Naval Reserve as soon as I turned seventeen and promptly was investigated by the NIS because I had somehow gotten a perfect score on the GCT, the test they used to determine intelligence and career specialties for new recruits.  They finally determined that I hadn’t conspired to somehow steal the test out of the unit’s safe and I was off to Great Lakes for boot camp.  I became a quartermaster “striker” and a helmsman on the unit’s PCS and I did a week long cruise on a guppy submarine.  My efforts apparently made no difference to my congressman when I applied for an appointment to the Naval Academy, but I had hedged my bets and also applied for an NROTC scholarship.  I was selected for the NROTC program and applied to Missouri thinking I would have a plausible post-retirement career as a journalist. 

PURVIS: Lt Purvis S-2 staff Amtrak Bn

Things went well for me at Missouri.  I topped my midshipman class all four years, served as commander of the Battalion in my senior year, and was elected first as a senator, then as vice-president and finally as president of the Missouri Students Association, the University’s student government.  It was on my Fourth Class cruise following freshman year aboard the DLG-14 that I had my first doubts about remaining in the Navy.  I was dismayed by the lack of knowledge and leadership among the junior officers and the elitist culture of the wardroom.  But it wasn’t enough to push me into applying for the Marine Corps Option.  It was the next summer at Corpus Christi and Coronado that convinced me that this had been a mistake.  Fifteen hours in a T-34 trainer with a Marine Corps 1st Lt and the amphibious training in California led me to request the option even though the deadline for making the request had long passed.  The Major who headed up the Marine Corps contingent at Corpus led me on a wild goose chase in 100+ heat just to make sure I was serious and somehow wrangled a slot that had gone unused at Harvard for me.  OCS came the following summer and I was certain I’d made the right choice.  I was granted permission to stay at Missouri for an additional year to complete my Master’s Degree and then we were off to Quantico for TBS.

PURVIS: MSgt Brown Lt Whiteside

After Basic School Ann and I went to Delmar for Amtrac School.  I had wanted Armor but I wasn’t too disappointed by the assignment.  I knew that WestPac awaited and that would be a new ballgame anyway.  When I got to Phu Bai I was briefed by the ADC who gave me the option of going to 3rd Tanks or 1st Amtracs.  He said that tanks weren’t doing a lot in I Corps and that Tracs had been dismounted and were holding down a regimental sized AO along the Cua Viet River.  So I asked to be sent to Tracs where I felt fairly competent concerning their AmGrunt role.  When I arrived in Cua Viet I was assigned as commander of 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company.  The Company took turns with A Company operating out of C-4 and manning the platoon outpost at Oceanview, 2,500 m South of the Ben Hai River.  After a stint as platoon commander I went back to Cua Viet as Battalion S-2 and earned a secondary MOS in Intelligence.  Then I was moved to H&S Company as CO and returned to the COC bunker as S-3A to finish up my tour.  I also picked up another secondary MOS as Battalion Embarkation Officer. 

The most significant thing about my time in RVN was our adoption of eleven month old Amy Linh from the Catholic Orphanage in DaNang. This was a monumental task, and 3rd Division Legal and the G-2 helped with all the paper work in country while Ann petitioned Congressmen in Missouri and Florida to help with the INS. When I rotated I went down to IIIMAF and picked up Amy. General Cushman sent his staff car to pick us up and take us to the 15th Aerial Port, keeping us cool in an air conditioned office to avoid the 104 degree heat. We flew to Okinawa and were meet by a contingent of SNCO’S and their wives who had new clothes for Amy and tended her while I got a haircut, had my Summer Service C uniform pressed, got my shoes spit shined . Then they put us back on a new plane and we took off for El Toro. When we landed we were met by four Captains who took my orders for processing and put us in another staff car that took us to LAX. We landed in Kansas City that night in a swirling snow storm and I drove back to Columbia, Missouri. All this happened in one very long day and the Marine Corps never publicized the first adoption by a Marine in RVN. My only regret is that I never had the opportunity to thank whoever made all these plans that brought us home as soon as possible.

We had orders to report to the U.S. Naval Academy as an instructor in Political Science in the English, History and Government Department.  While at Annapolis I also served as the OIC for the 4th Class rifle range qualification,  Officer Representative to the Small Bore Varsity Rifle Team, Leader of the Military Ethics Class for Midshipmen who had opted out of chapel attendance under a class action suit filed by Cadets and Midshipmen against the DOD (which included weekly meetings with the Superintendent, Vice-Admiral James Calvert), and was appointed Deputy Political Science Department Chairman when the Academy was reorganized on a university model.  I continued to teach and had the opportunity to write a new curriculum for the Department.

I left Active Duty to return to graduate school at the University of Michigan.  I started in Political Science and then shifted into the emerging field of Gerontology.  Ann had our son, Adam, and my savings were wiped out.  The Institute of Gerontology recommended me to direct the Area-wide Model Project on Aging, a planning project mandated for Michigan and all the other states under the Older Americans Act.  I interviewed in Lansing, was hired, and set up my office and staff under the City of Lansing’s Planning Department.  We finished the project a month early and I was preparing to return to Ann Arbor when the Planning Director offered me a job as a Division Head, directing all social planning for the City.  The money was better than the salary of an Assistant Professor so I decided to see where it would lead.  The next year I was promoted to Assistant Planning Director and I stayed in that position until I was promoted to Director of Administrative Services under a reorganization made under a new City Charter.  I served in that position until I took an early retirement in 1993.

When I arrived in Michigan I joined the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines and H&S Company Commander in Detroit.  I subsequently served as C Company Commander in Lansing and then returned to Detroit as the S-3A, S-4 and S-3.  I resigned from the Reserves in 1981 after serving for 17 years in the Naval Reserve, Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve. 

My life had taken a different turn and I had joined the Secular Franciscan Order.  I had converted to Catholicism while at Cua Viet and had become fascinated by the life of St. Francis of Assisi.  I served the Order first as our fraternity minister, then as Provincial Minister for Our Lady of Consolation Province, and finally as National Coordinator for Peace and Justice Ministry.  After three years of training I was ordained as a Deacon in 1987 and also served in that capacity at Lansing’s Holy Cross Parish for the next decade.  In 1997 I left that position for a period of reflection and discernment and in 1999 I converted once more and became a Jew.  During this period I served in several volunteer capacities including Chairman of the Salvation Army Board in Lansing, Secretary and Treasurer of the area’s Food Bank Board, a founding member of the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and Chairman of the Board for Advent House Ministries, a local provider of hot meals and job training for the poor and unemployed.

Ann and I divorced in 1976 and I married Mary later that year.  In 1978 we were blessed with Allison, Kate followed in 1980 and Jacob in 1985.  So, I have five children and ten grandchildren who are the focus of our lives today.  In 1998 I returned to the University of Michigan and earned a Master’s Degree as a Clinical Social Worker.  On graduation I worked as a therapist on the University of Michigan Hospital’s Psychiatric Unit and later as Team Therapist on the Tri-County Community Mental Health’s Assertive Community Treatment Team, working with individuals with diagnoses that included psychosis.  I retired again in 2008 and now see a small number of geriatric clients privately.

Radcliffe, Harry Quinten (Harry), 4th Platoon

Radcliffe, Harry Quinten (Harry), 4th Platoon

22 May 1945 – 8 June 2013
Beachwood Cemetery, MI 49653

Harry Quentin Radcliffe is the beloved husband of Nancy (Dozier) devoted father of Amy Byerle (Lee) and Laurel Schwartz (Michael), loving grandfather of six grandchildren and brother of Robert and Thomas. Harry was born in Norfolk, VA on May 22, 1945 and lived all over the world as his father was a Chaplain in the Navy for 32 years. He graduated from Vanderbilt University on a US Navy scholarship. He received school honors in academic achievement in engineering and a prestigious award in military performance while learning how to fly a private plane. Harry met Nancy at university and they were married December 30, 1968. After a few years of marriage, Nancy and Harry had daughter Amy and four years later, daughter Laurel.

After flying A-4 jets in the Marine Corps for 6 years, Harry became a test pilot with Lockheed Aircraft International, later known as Lockheed Martin Corporation. Lockheed soon realized that Harry had other talents besides flying that involved technical support, contract writing and management skills. The family followed him as his successful career developed, living all over the world. He was manager/president of companies in Singapore (6 years), California (4 years), Malaysia (7 years) and Argentina (3 years). The family moved to Washington DC in 1997 and Harry retired from Lockheed after 25 years. Too restless to settle down, he soon found work with two other companies, finally retired and moved to Philadelphia in 2010. Harry often volunteered to support his church, friends, family and communities. In Philadelphia, he continued flying patients needing medical support with Angel Flight East, as flying and helping others were a lifelong joy. Harry made a positive impact on countless people all over the world with his willing attitude to help others “fix” anything that needed to be done. He loved solving problems and was often seen holding a shovel or hammer in order to “make the world a better place.”

USMC Resume:
The Basic School Class 1-68 Alpha Company, 4th Platoon, Jun-Nov 1967
Flight School, Pensacola, FL.

Personal Reflections about Harry Radcliffe:

Ranstead, James Terrance (Terry), 4th Platoon

Ranstead, James Terrance (Terry), 4th Platoon

29 January 1943 – 22 January 1968
Fairview Cemetery, Vinita, OK 74301

Terry Ranstead was from Miami, Oklahoma. He had one older sister, Jerry Ann Ranstead Caddell. During high school, Terry played trombone in a dance band and was the Senior Drum Major. He was also a cadet colonel in Civil Air Patrol. He attended Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Miami (pronounced Myamuh) and transferred to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business in 1967. In college he was a drum major in the OSU band and a cadet in Army ROTC. He also worked full time at the Continental Can Company in Miami and then in the mechanical engineering lab at OSU.

Terry married his high school sweetheart, Dalma “Jean” Lanam, Sept 9, 1961. They had 2 children: son Terry Lee born July 29, 1962 and daughter Cheri Linn born June 16, 1964.

He joined the U.S. Marine Corps through the PLC program and received a regular commission in May of 1967 with a date of rank of June 7. Terry’s father, James Terry Ranstead, Sr. was killed in World War II. As a sole surviving son, Terry did not have to go into combat, but he volunteered. Both Terry and his father died within 15 days of their respective 25th birthdays. Terry’s and Jean’s grandson James Terry Ranstead was in Afghanistan at age 25, but returned safely.

At TBS Terry was in the 4th Platoon. He was known for his plain spoken “Will Rogers” style when expressing an opinion. He was serious and diligent in learning all he could and performing to his best ability.

After TBS he was sent to Vietnam and given the command of a platoon. He arrived in Vietnam 31 December 1967 and was assigned to Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment,3rd Marine Division. On 22 January 1968 Terry was on a combat patrol at Quang Nam 5 kilometers south southeast of Tuy Loan Bridge when a mine was tripped killing him.

Terry was laid to rest in Fairview Cemetery – Vinita, Oklahoma. Jean Ranstead now lives in Carlsbad, CA; son-Terry Ranstead in Carson City, NV; daughter-Cheri Clemmons in Panama City, FL; and sister – Jerry Ann Caddell, Kansas City, MO.

USMC Resume:
The Basic School Class 1-68 Alpha Company, 4th Platoon, Jun-Nov 1967
Vietnam: G Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, 3rd Marine Division; January 1968

Personal Reflections about Terry Ranstead: