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thedrifter
07-03-09, 08:24 AM
Friday, July 3, 2009
Goodbye, "Semper Fi Land"
The demilitarization of Orange County goes on 10 years after the closing of the El Toro and Tustin Marine Air Stations.
By GARY A. WARNER
The Orange County Register
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Mickey Conroy was looking for a place to crash land his plane and found his political base.

Don Southwell was looking for a record and found his wife and new home.

Quan X. Pham was looking to fly helicopters and found himself.

Conroy, Southwell and Pham are among the many thousands of Marines from around the country who were assigned to El Toro and Tustin Marine air stations between their opening during World War II and official decommissioning in July 1999.

Orange County shaped their lives and in turn, the generations of Marines wove themselves into the local social, economic and political fabric. They helped mold the rapidly growing county into what former Rep. Bob Dornan (an Air Force veteran) called "Semper Fi Land," after the Marine motto.

The "demilitarization" of Orange County

It's been 10 years since that flow of Marines into Orange County was abruptly turned off. With the Cold War over, the El Toro and Tustin bases were closed after one last big mission during the first Persian Gulf War. Today, the Marines are gone and with them, much of the influence they once held here.

Along with the widespread shutdown of defense industries, the departure of the Marines has led to a decade long "demilitarization" of Orange County. It's changed the way business and politics is conducted.

Pham, a former Tustin and El Toro Marine, is running as a Republican for the 47th District congressional seat held by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove. He's proud of his Marine service, but knows its no longer the automatic vote getter of the past.

"The days when you could get a job or win a political race in Orange County simply because you were a Marine are pretty much over," Pham said. "People want to know more about you and what you have done since your active duty."

Corps to the core

There was a time when the "Marine Mafia" was a major force in Orange County politics and business. Marine Gen. Thomas Riley was a county supervisor for 20 years, his office overflowing with plaques, sabers and photos from nearly three decades in the Marine Corps. The airport terminal and a county wilderness park are named for him. Up until his death in 1998, the man everyone called "The General" was the hub of a powerful group of retired Marines.

"There is a brotherhood in Orange County," Riley said in 1993. "Once a Marine, always a Marine. The only ex-Marine is Lee Harvey Oswald." (Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, served two stints at El Toro).

It's a brotherhood that has helped shape Orange County's image for 50 years — conservative, patriotic, entrepreneurial.

And interconnected.

Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren served under Riley at Camp Pendleton. Bren was a major supporter of a former Marine, San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson, when he ran for governor. When Wilson had to fill an open U.S. Senate seat, he tapped former Marine, John Seymour, a Republican state senator from Orange County.

Gil Ferguson spent 26 years in the Corps before launching a career in the state legislature. Huntington Beach Police Chief Ronald Lowenberg was a Marine. David Shuter commanded El Toro, then retired to head the Fixed Guideway Agency, looking into future county rail programs. Jack Wagner went from chief of staff at El Toro to being one of the Orange County Environmental Management Agency's lead planners on the future use of the base after it closed. L.E. Romaine became assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa after a 22-year Marine career that ended in 1963. Gen. Art Bloomer was the "mayor" of El Toro as base commander, then went on to be elected to the Irvine City Council. Judge David O. Carter is among the squad of retired Marines on the bench.

Lives saved, loves made, careers launched

No one had a more colorful introduction to Orange County than Conroy. He arrived, barely, in a sputtering EF-10B Bruno reconnaissance jet.

"I couldn't bail out and didn't have an ejector seat," Conroy said in 1999. "I crashed down by this little farmhouse where the golf course is today."

After his service was over, Conroy stayed and eventually was elected to the State Assembly. He died in 2005. Throughout his business and political career, his Marine connections served him well.

"If a Marine gives me his word and shakes my hand, I know he'll keep his promise," Conroy said in 1999. "It's a group that has its own language and rituals that often baffle outsiders."

Conroy and others could tap into a deep well of Orange County ex-Marines. In 1993, the county tabulated 232,000 veterans living in Orange County, about 10 percent of the population. By the number of "Semper Fi" bumper stickers (short for the Latin term "Semper Fidelis" – "Always Faithful) and gold and red logos on mailboxes, the most visable group were Marines.

Many were like Don Southwell, a Michigan native. Assigned to El Toro in 1955, the sergeant would go into Santa Ana to buy the classically tinged albums by Mantovani at the Blue Note record store. There he met a clerk named Annette.

"She said she went out with me because she wanted to see if I was really as square as I seemed," Southwell said. "When everyone else was buying Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and the Comets, I was buying Mantovani."

After returning to Michigan for college, Southwell moved permanently to Orange County. Now married to Annette, he got a job at Autonetics North American and settled in Anaheim. He was one of thousands of ex-Marines who found jobs at McDonnell Douglas, Raytheon, Hughes, Loral and other defense and aerospace firms hungry for disciplined, skilled employees.

"Getting assigned to El Toro is the best thing that ever happened in my life," he said.

Pat Buford grew up at legendary "crossroads" of Clarksdale, Miss., in the heart of Delta Blues country. The Marines took him around the world, including two stops in El Toro. The first time in 1953, he went to a base party and chatted up a girl named Barbara.

"I met her on Friday night, I asked her to marry me on Monday, we were married Thursday in the base chapel," Buford recalled. "It was love at first sight." Barbara died in 1981.

After a second tour in 1959-61, Buford left active duty at a lieutenant colonel, went to Cal State Long Beach, and got a good paying job with the City of Santa Ana.

"The first time I saw Orange County, I said this is where I want to put down my roots forever," Buford said. "I did. I retired in 1972 and spent the rest of my life on the golf course at El Toro. I couldn't have been happier. Going to the base you would see friends from 10, 20, 30 years ago. It was a community."

A last call to duty

It lasted until the end of the Cold War. Tustin and El Toro survived early rounds of base closures, but finally fell victim to the need to downsize military infrastructure.

Pham was among the last to follow the familiar Marine path to Orange County – and he was involved in the last big military event in Orange County, Operation Desert Storm. A CH-46 Sea Knight pilot, Pham was part of the air armada of jets, helicopters, cargo planes and tankers that left Orange County in 1991. The jumbo jets loaded with supplies and troops could be seen taking off and landing at all hours of the day, as tearful goodbyes and later happy homecomings played out on the tarmacs. The war had a visible impact on Orange County.

For Pham, his service at Tustin and later as a general's aide at El Toro reintroduced him to his Vietnamese heritage. The son of a South Vietnamese air force officer, he had fled the country as a small child and been brought up in Oxnard. After attending UCLA, he joined the Marines and was sent to Tustin.

"Somebody in my squadron said, 'Hey, there's a lot of your people up in Westminster,' meaning Vietnamese in Little Saigon," he said. "I went up there and saw all these Vietnamese signs in neon. A whole community. It was like nothing I had ever seen."

Pham left the Marines as a major, but didn't go back to Ventura County. He became active in local business and political affairs, making Orange County his new home. As he follows the well worn path of Marine-businessman-politician in Orange County, he knows his military service iis no longer a slam dunk support builder. In most districts, ethnic and economic politics play a larger role.

"Being a Marine is just a conversation starter," Pham said.

A changed county

The Marine experience is becoming rarer. With El Toro and Tustin closed, Orange County has only two military bases left — the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station and the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Center. Both have small contingents of full-time uniformed personnel.

The aerospace giants that once hired all the servicemen have also contracted or closed in the post-Cold War world. While giant Camp Pendleton still sits just across the county line to the south, the Navy base and shipyard in Long Beach have closed, while Air Force bases in Riverside and San Bernardino County have shut or downsized.

In many ways, Orange County is becoming more like the rest of the nation. Less than a third of the current Congress has military experience. As late as 1978, more than three out of four members of Congress were veterans, according to the Retired Officers Association.

Preserving the past

The military experience in Orange County is so endangered that California State University, Fullerton has launched an oral history project to harvest the recollections of the servicemen and women who called El Toro their military home.

"We're still looking for more," said Dr. Natalie M. Fousekis, Director of the Center for Oral and Public History at the university.

It started with a $100,000 grant from the Great Park Association and the recordings, along with other Marine memorabilia, will be part of a planned military museum.

Many Marine veterans think closing the El Toro and Tustin bases was a mistake.

Retired Col. Roger Sanders of Newport Beach served at El Toro in stints that ranged from the years just after World War II to the dawn of Vietnam. He was disappointed that the aviation potential of the closed bases was cast aside.

"They did a great disservice to the people of Orange County," Sanders said.

Buford is more optimistic, hoping that the massive project will do justice to the place where hundreds of thousands of Marines served their country and some went to war never to return.

"I have great hopes for the great park," Buford said.

When the last tarmacs are torn up, the old barracks demolished and the remaining massive blimp hangar turned into a museum, little will be left of a time when the Marines were as much a part of Orange County as oranges, Disneyland and a summer day at the beach.

"I feel sorry for all the Marines today," Don Southwell said. "They'll never get a chance to serve in Orange County and find out what a great place it is to live."
Register intern Vivian S. Yan and staff photographer Cindy Yamanaka contributed to this story.

Contact the writer: If you were stationed at or have memories of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and would like to participate in the Oral History Project, please call (657) 278-8415 or send your contact information to coph-eltoro@fullerton.edu. Information is also available online at http://coph.fullerton.edu/Gary A. Warner is the Register's travel editor. He was the Register's military writer from 1989 to 1994. He can be reached at gettingaway@ocregister.com

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http://www.ocregister.com/articles/military-history-orange-2482071-county-el

http://www.ocregister.com/photos/county-orange-marine-2481926-toro-marines

Tustin air station timeline

1942: Base is commissioned as Santa Ana Naval Air Station during World War II

Nov. 1942: First blimp arrives in Orange County, taking off the next day to begin searching for Japanese submarines off the Pacific Coast.

1949: The base was decommissioned and used as "Hangar City" civilian airfield until the Korean War.

1951: The base became a Marine Corps air facility and the country's first base devoted solely to helicopters.

1957: The hangars, now housing helicopter squadrons, were re-roofed using gray corrugated aluminum panels.

June 1978: Tustin annexes the land.

1965-1973: Squadrons serve in the Vietnam War

1978: The hangars are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Spring 1991: Squadrons take part in Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait

July 1991: Marine Corps announces it will close the Tustin base.

Summer 1996: The Navy no longer uses the hangars.

July 1999: The last Marines depart. The base is decommissioned.

1999: Navy, state Tustin enter agreement about future use of south hangar.

Jan. 16, 2001: Tustin City Council unanimously approves a general plan amendment clearing the way to develop homes, schools, a homeless shelter, a golf course and businesses at the old base.

May 2002: The U.S. Navy deeds the Marine base to Tustin.

Jan. 2005: Tustin accepts proposals for south hangar's future.

Dec. 2006: The county approves a sports complex at the county-owned north hangar

Feb. 20, 2007: Tustin council rejects all proposals; south hangar set up for demolition
Fullerton exhibit on OC Marines
"Farmers to Flyers: MCAS El Toro and Mid-Century Orange County” tells the story of the early years of the air station. The exhibition opens April 18 and runs through Dec. 10 at the Orange County Agricultural and Nikkei Heritage Museum at the Fullerton Arboretum. Call 657-278-3407 for more details.

Ellie