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Shipmate Glenn Harris, is Commander for a new USSVI Base: the Carolina Piedmont Base, located in Monroe NC. The Base got started with 19 members.

The Post Reunion Issue FamilyGram can be downloaded by clicking here. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in order to read the FamilyGram. If you did not receive the FamilyGram via email please contact Al. Your email address is bouncing!

We continue to have a VERY LARGE NUMBER of bounced emails. If you are reading this here and did not receive an email from me then your email is bouncing. Active paid members of the Alumni Association have the ability to login to the site, update their email addresses as well as look up shipmate contact information. Alumni membership is currently set at $175/lifetime and $20/year if you prefer to pay by the year. If you are not a current paid member of the association won’t you please consider joining (or renewing)? Membership information is available on our Website. If all else fails shoot me an email or give me a call and I’ll walk you through it. Your dues go to cover the cost of the site including Web hosting services as well as partially offset reunion costs. For example, we had to pay a $500/deposit last year when we signed a contract with the hotel.

April 4, 2005 - ships coin: Late last month I forwarded a note to the crew regarding a ships coin commemorating the John Marshall. I've received a photo of the coin and I am posting it here for you to see. Click on the above thumbnail to open a larger version of the picture. If you're interested in obtaining one (they're in limited supply) contact Shelly Saxton. She only had 100 coins of each boat made so they will be a "Limited Edition" if you would like to purchase one please email her at shellwe@grm.net with "USS John Marshall" in the subject area. She is selling them outright for $20.00 each s/h included in the price (MO residents add 5.725%) or you can take your chance on eBay. I am posting this information here as a courtesy to Shelly. The association has no other involvement in this endeavor.

march 24, 2005 - i must be getting old: I've looked and looked in response to any email I received from Skip Wurz regarding the following photo (click it to enlarge it):

According to Skip, this photo is in the photo gallery but I went through it three times and found nada. If you find the gallery number, can you please let me know? Anyway, not all of our memories are failing as shown in Skip's description of this photo as follows:

Greetings shipmates,

On one of the Big John’s web sites there is a long thumbnail collection of photos. In one photo, a group of twelve M-Div Gold shipmates are gathered between the LiBr machine and the port surge tank. The photo, taken in ‘71 or ’72, identified several members of the guys in the photo, but not all. So I am here to identify them.

The guy closest on the right hand side of the photo is me, Richard (Skip) Wurtz. I came on board Nov. 64 as an MM3 (SS) and left in Aug. 72 as a WO1. I was the ALPO when the photo was taken. As far as I know I was on board longer than any other crew member. Over my left shoulder is Chuck Bailey, an ELT. The last time I saw him he was an LDO Lt. Tucked in between my cheek and right shoulder is Randy Tomcalla. Next to “Tomcat” on top is “Duck” McCann, can’t remember his first name but he always talked like Donald Duck, hence the nickname. Below Duck’s eyes is Lee Heideman.

The guy in the porkpie hat is Bill Lang. He works at INPO in Atlanta and we visit often. To Bill’s right is Mike Dorman, the leading ELT. His nickname was “Ceekus Maximus”, or “Dudley”, plus several others. A great musician who now has his master’s degree in sociology or something like that, and teaches high school in Orlando. Some day ask him about MS-56. He ended his navy career as COB on a boomer. Right below Dudley is Mike Andreas, “Shag”, because he had such long hair. Don’t know where he is now. To the right of Shag and Dudley is Rick Schmid, an artist par excellence. He is a graphics illustrator for Overhead Door company in Ohio. The guy wearing the beret and cigarette dangling in his mouth is Steve Michael, “Angel”, a big Harley Hog rider. He is a wilderness guide in Montana or some other western state. Tucked high on the left side of the photo is Mike Taylor, “Suzie Sightglass”, as he cracked about five surge tank sight glasses when he was replacing the glasses. The big blurry guy close in on the left is Joe Kucinski, “Ski” of course. He quit the Navy, joined the Coast Guard, had an active career, was VP in a small shipyard, and is now retired.

Don’t remember who took the photo or where the rest of the Div are, probably in the “kip”. I would hope that whoever posted the picture would add the remaining names to identify those guys.

Best regards,
Skip Wurtz

That would be me Skip and I guess I have you covered. Al

March 22, 2005 - Gone are the days: Where your only choice (or option) was a "gray one or a black one". Oh to be young and stupid once again. If you're curious about what this is all about; sit down, take a stiff drink, and click here.

USS JOHN MARSHALL PIPING TAB! Special thanks go out to Mike Piazza for his hard work. The much talked about and admired piping tab from our San Diego reunion has been scanned and is available on the site. WARNING...This file is 189MB (that's right -- MEGABYTES!). When you get it you will realize why it is so large. The quality is outstanding! Thanks again Mike!!

Unless you are on a high speed connection you want to think a very long time before you attempt to download. It will probably take hours to download on a dialup connection. On a high speed cable connection I'vegotten reports that download is a bit under 30 minutes on average. The file is optimized for the Internet and begins to display as soon as the first couple of pages are downloaded. The entire tab consists of 156 pages in full color. Okay, everybody's been warned -- you want it -- click HERE. Enjoy!

USS JOHN MARSHALL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BYLAWS. Click here to read the JMAI Bylaws. Please send any comments, thoughts, or concerns to me and I'll take care of incorporating them or responding back with reasons why they can't be. I'll get Dave and Doug onboard with any changes.