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 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 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.
Your war is over. Thank you Colonel McMahon.
Today's edition of the Chronicle is filled with page after page of accolades
spewing forth about the greatness and complexity of Michael Jackson.
The other day, they had a couple of paragraphs on Ed McMahon's Hollywood
career and aptly noted he died a pauper.
Something is wrong with American journalism!
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 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 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.
Your war is over. Thank you Colonel McMahon.
Today's edition of the Chronicle is filled with page after page of accolades
spewing forth about the greatness and complexity of Michael Jackson.
The other day, they had a couple of paragraphs on Ed McMahon's Hollywood
career and aptly noted he died a pauper.
Something is wrong with American journalism!
