thedrifter
09-20-05, 07:00 AM
Marines plan golf bash fundraiser
September 20, 2005
By John Andrew Prime
jprime@gannett.com
You might think you can run with the big dogs, but can you swing a club with the devil dogs?
That's the challenge being posed to area golfers by the battle-hardened veterans of Bravo Company, 1/23rd Marines, who returned from Iraq in late March and are already eager to jump back into the sand trap. Or the water hazard, since some of their peers actually guarded a dam on the Euphrates River.
The event is the first annual Devil Dog Golf Tournament, the name stemming from the nickname U.S. Marines earned during World War I. It will be Thursday at the Northwood Hills Golf Club in Blanchard, with registration at noon and four-player scrambles, with a shotgun start, at 1 p.m.
Scores will be kept, but it's for fun, and to raise money to help Bravo Company celebrate the Marine Corps' upcoming 230th birthday with a military ball.
"Sure I play golf," event spokesman Gunnery Sgt. Paul Hoffman said, setting the proper tactical tone. "I cuss, I throw clubs and I have fun."
The cost is $100 per player. Hooter's waitresses will staff the beer carts, and after 6 p.m. there will be barbecue and a fundraising auction that will include such prizes as a two-day offshore Florida fishing charter. There will also be prizes for first, second and third place finishes as well as for holes-in-one, the longest drive and closest to the pin, Hoffman said.
"Every par-three will win something," he said. "And a hole-in-one at the right par-three wins a loaded H3 Hummer."
Marines will be there to talk about their part in the battle for Fallujah, and to demonstrate Marine Corps equipment and weapons.
The nickname "Devil Dogs" was given to U.S. Marines by awed German soldiers after the June 1918 battle of Belleau Wood, which ended the last German offensive of World War I and prevented an Axis thrust toward Paris. At that battle, the Marine brigade suffered 55 percent casualties, with more than 1,000 killed and more than 3,600 wounded.
Ellie
September 20, 2005
By John Andrew Prime
jprime@gannett.com
You might think you can run with the big dogs, but can you swing a club with the devil dogs?
That's the challenge being posed to area golfers by the battle-hardened veterans of Bravo Company, 1/23rd Marines, who returned from Iraq in late March and are already eager to jump back into the sand trap. Or the water hazard, since some of their peers actually guarded a dam on the Euphrates River.
The event is the first annual Devil Dog Golf Tournament, the name stemming from the nickname U.S. Marines earned during World War I. It will be Thursday at the Northwood Hills Golf Club in Blanchard, with registration at noon and four-player scrambles, with a shotgun start, at 1 p.m.
Scores will be kept, but it's for fun, and to raise money to help Bravo Company celebrate the Marine Corps' upcoming 230th birthday with a military ball.
"Sure I play golf," event spokesman Gunnery Sgt. Paul Hoffman said, setting the proper tactical tone. "I cuss, I throw clubs and I have fun."
The cost is $100 per player. Hooter's waitresses will staff the beer carts, and after 6 p.m. there will be barbecue and a fundraising auction that will include such prizes as a two-day offshore Florida fishing charter. There will also be prizes for first, second and third place finishes as well as for holes-in-one, the longest drive and closest to the pin, Hoffman said.
"Every par-three will win something," he said. "And a hole-in-one at the right par-three wins a loaded H3 Hummer."
Marines will be there to talk about their part in the battle for Fallujah, and to demonstrate Marine Corps equipment and weapons.
The nickname "Devil Dogs" was given to U.S. Marines by awed German soldiers after the June 1918 battle of Belleau Wood, which ended the last German offensive of World War I and prevented an Axis thrust toward Paris. At that battle, the Marine brigade suffered 55 percent casualties, with more than 1,000 killed and more than 3,600 wounded.
Ellie