26th Marines Association

26th Marines Association - Our Origins...

Our reunion was a lifelong dream of Ted Nichols, a member of Echo Company, 3rd Platoon in country in 1969. He was basically the only one Harvey Lang had stayed in contact with over the years, with the exception of occasional contact with others in 3rd Platoon. He wanted this to happen years ago, and then in the spring of 2001, Ted died of cancer.

The death of Ted was devastating; this loss brought home once again the brotherhood of being a Marine. The facts are we all made it home, not because of our individual skills or luck, but because we all had each other, and we took care of each other. Harvey Lang (known as Fang) and Mike Townes (known as Nashville Cat deceased in early 2014), had also been in contact with others off and on since we had returned back to the world in the mid to late 60's and 1970. We met in September of 2001 and decided to start work on the first reunion.

Sonny Hollub was the first contact, who had been in contact with several 2/26'ers, Paul Tribus, Doc Charlie Klotz, Rudy Fonseca, Bruce Killen, Ron Barrett, Lee Martin and others over the years... and it mushroomed from there.

The 26th Marines Association’s website www.26thMarines.com was created by Sonny Hollub. This site has all the up to date information regarding, our organizations history, origins, current officers, past and next reunion information, contact information for members on a voluntary basis, and other information related to our ongoing 26th Marines Association.

All photos of past reunions are posted on our Face Book page "26th Marines Association" now, with plans of transferring them to our website www.26thMarines.com. If any of you have pictures you took and want them made available to everyone, please send those pictures to Sonny for inclusion until further notice.

Quinn Harry found us early on and created his website www.26thMarines.org. His site has been a repository for Nam photos and a compendium of other historical pictures and information related to our past. This site is appropriately linked to the 26th Marines Association’s website, as well as the association's website appropriately linked to Quinn’s. Quinn has recently offered to transfer all the pics from his site to ours.

While we were not for sure how successful we would be in starting this association, we started preparations for the association's first reunion. In May of 2002, this lifelong dream became a reality, and we were together again for the first time in 30 years.

We have completed 18 annual reunions since and will have our 19th annual reunion 2021 in San Diego, California. We all owe ourselves a pat on the back for continuing this legacy.

Over the years, we have expanded our membership availability to all battallions, WWII, Vietnam and anyone whom has served with the 26th MEU.

In doing this, we hoped to obtain members from the 26th in WWII, offering to do the work for those old guys. We do have two Iwo Vets whom served with the 26th Marine Regiment during WWII.

Two years ago, at the Vegas Reunion, one of those Iwo Vets, George Bernstein 2/26 HQ, attended and was our key note speaker at the Las Vegas Reunion... and what a treat it was ! Being from Ocala, Florida, he drove with the assistance of his younger brother, all the way to Las Vegas. He had planned to attend our Savannah, Georgia reunion. His brother had passed away and his son was going to bring him. I am also sad to report that his son, just notified me Mr. Bernstein had passed away. It was such a treat to have him as our keynote speaker at the Vegas Reunion.

Now you know the background of the start of our 26th Marines Association and how it has evolved over the years, which is the intention of this posting including the introduction to the our new officers and board members along with our goals, and our intentions to keep the association as an ongoing succesfull association.

The goal of this association is to preserve our brotherhood, reflect on our past and present for the benefit of all. Our intent as officers and board members of this association is to not only make this possible, but to improve the next reunion and strength of our organization.

In closing, we would like to tell you, 2019's 26th Marines Association reunion will be held in the New Orleans, Louisiana, at the Four Points Hotel in the French Quarter on Bourbon Street (and as decided at this 2018’s membership meeting)…the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, San Francisco, California, and the Washington DC, area will be voted on at this years annual 2019 meeting for 2020.

Information related to these 3 cities selected to choose from for 2020, at the 2019 Annual Meeting, will be been posted under "Scuttlebutt" on our website. It will also be emailed to our email list and posted on the 26th Marines Association website, www.26thMarines.com, under "Reunions" and as mentioned above, presented at the 2019 reunion annual meeting, as well for a vote.

Please check our Association's website www.26thMarine.com often for updates.

Semper Fi,