1st Lt Sam Winegardner, USMCR

Sam and I became friends when we attended basic school together in 1963. After basic school, both of us were assigned the 0801 MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), and in early 1964 we attended the U.S. Army Artillery and Missile School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. We both went from there to our first duty station with the 11th Marines at Camp Pendleton, California.

We were friends, and neither of us had any desire to live on base at the BOQ. So we found a decent semi-furnished apartment in Oceanside. We were assigned to different artillery batteries, and our schedules often diverged. But just as often, we would spend the nights touring the bars and pool halls of Oceanside. Brand new second lieutenants in the real Marine Corps. Not a care in the world.

When it came time for us to leave Camp Pendleton for Okinawa, then Vietnam, I had the good and bad fortune to be a Forward Observer for India Battery, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines. "I" 3/11 supported the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, and they were the "ready battalion" at the time when the call came to start deploying overseas. When the ready battalion shipped out, so did its supporting artillery, and me with it. Sam was in another battery and I left him in Oceanside.

When I left Vietnam, I was transferred to the Marine Barracks at Barbers Point, Hawaii. Somehow I discovered that Sam had also been transferred to a duty station in Hawaii, and we had him over for dinner. Unfortunately, we didn't maintain contact. I resigned my commission after a little over four years of service, and Sam, as I much later discovered, stayed in the Corps.

When I knew him, Sam was the epitome of the gung-ho Marine. He was from Texas (and proud of it), a little crazy, very boisterous, and a loyal friend.

I didn't find Sam. Sam's daughter found me. We exchanged e-mail, and one of the things she sent me was the photo shown here. Apparently Sam had made the Marine Corps his career. In 1980, after retiring from the Marine Corps, he died in an automobile accident.