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| Laura Johnston/The Journal Gazette |
Members of the Leatherneck Coffee Club enjoy breakfast Dec. 5. The informal fraternity reminisces about the service and engages in activities to assist current troops overseas and citizens at home. |
12/13/04
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COLUMBIA CITY – They stand side-by-side in silence as a chaplain offers a prayer. Then they sit down and the clang of a small bell rings in remembrance of two fallen comrades.
After a series of announcements about thank-you cards and charitable endeavors, the 27 men – some young, but a mostly older crowd – line up behind the group’s senior member for a hot morning buffet of sausage, biscuits and gravy, potatoes, eggs and pancakes in the city’s Eagles Lodge.
Over breakfast, members break into conversations and laugh often as they reminisce about past deployments and talk about one another’s current lives in a relaxed environment.
Nearly two hours later, the tables have been cleared, jackets put on and conversations ended.
As the sun rises over Columbia City, the Leatherneck Coffee Club, a loose fraternity of former area Marines who meet early on the first Saturday of every month, has completed another successful gathering. Leatherneck is a moniker for a Marine that comes from the leather strip in the neck of the Marine uniform.
The group, a brainchild of Gerald Boyd and Barry Yeakle, formed 18 months ago as a way to bring Marine veterans together without any dues or other affiliations. Honorably discharged men and women who are authorized to wear the eagle, globe and anchor are welcomed.
At first, eight men showed up early one Saturday at a local diner. Then through word-of-mouth as well as a few newspaper announcements, the club’s roster steadily grew to 47 members.
Talk to members, and they stress the friendly, low-key atmosphere surrounding the club in which to talk about the past.
“Here, we don’t have a rank-and-file,” said Boyd, 74, a tall, balding man from Columbia City with glasses and quick wit who served in the Korean War.
“Like I say, it’s just guys sitting together and we have something in common.”
Tom Fahl, a 62-year-old retired disabled veteran from Larwill who served on both coasts as well as in Cuba and Vietnam before working at Harvester for 20 years and then doing odd jobs, began attending meetings in July.
“I wasn’t sure what I’d think about it, but I just enjoy being with my old buddies,” he said, a traditional Santa Claus hat atop his head for the holidays.
Boyd, a retired design engineer from Magnavox, said the club gives members a safe zone in which to discuss their military lives, something some veterans are reluctant to do with people who have always been civilians.
“I have found that a veteran, when in a veteran’s group, will start to loosen up,” he said.
In addition to the conversation, signs of the Marines abound in the Eagles Lodge where they congregate, currently peppered with Christmas decorations. Red and yellow baseball caps and black caps with white trim and Marine insignias, sit on the tables.
A Marines bumper sticker featuring the familiar white-gloved hand clutching an intricate silver sword are on a table in front of a white poster board featuring press clippings of the club and local Marines. An American flag draped overtop a black chair is inside the U-shaped dining area.
Although vestiges of the past litter the room, signs of the members’ present lives also are evident.
Faces bear the sign of age and balding heads are prevalent. The Marine uniforms are replaced with well-worn denim and sweatshirts and long-sleeved, button down shirts. Some members sport short-sleeved, hunter green polo shirts with “Leatherneck Coffee Club” emblazoned in white over the sketch of a rifle and “Whitley County, Indiana,” printed underneath.
The guns the soldiers once carried have been replaced in some instances by canes.
Despite the decades that have passed and the informal nature of the group, some seriousness and military structure prevails.
Yeakle is the club’s skipper this year. Four squad leaders, a chaplain and a sergeant-at-arms are also included in the structure.
Charity work is an integral part of the organization.
The club partnered with Coldwell Banker for the popular “Toys for Tots” holiday program, a U.S. Marine Corps initiative. This spring, it sponsored a golf tournament to benefit a scholarship from the Whitley County Korean Veteran’s Memorial Association.
“We’re doing good, and it feels good,” said Dave Reed, a 34-year-old truck driver from Sidney who served in a Marine Corps reserve unit in Fort Wayne from 1990 to 1995 with a Marines flag behind him.
His father, Rob Reed, 63, of Sidney who served from 1963 to 1968 in Okinawa, Japan, the Philippines and in Vietnam sat next to him as he spoke. Fahl is Dave Reed’s uncle.
Familial relationships are not uncommon within the club. Also in attendance were Anthony Treece, 74, of Columbia City and his younger brother, Roger Treece, 67, of Churubusco. Anthony Treece was sent into service in 1948 and Roger Treece was deployed 10 years later.
The group is also sending aid overseas to current military personnel. Thus far, the club’s collection for troops overseas includes more than five miles of dental floss, 39 pounds of pancake mix, 178 containers of laundry detergent, 6,012 hot sauce packets and 161 tubes of toothpaste. It is distributed by Operation Interdependence, a civilian-to-military delivery system.
Some of the items, such as the pancake mix, were specifically requested by the troops who go without many of the amenities they are accustomed. As they listened to the inventory list, club members passed around a Christmas card for a Marine serving overseas and two other supporters, signing their name and one affixing “Santa Claus” in the card.
To the men, the encouragement is just an extension of being a Marine.
“That’s just supporting them,” Boyd said. “We’re fighting for the country, too. You can’t stop fighting just because you’re discharged.”
Through all the activities it comes with the reminder that the men sacrificed for their country.
“I can look around this room and I can see a lot of guys who have been through a tremendous amount for their country, and I’m very proud of it,” Reed said.
In the future, there will be more meetings, charitable initiatives and breakfast buffets, but the club’s presence might also extend beyond northeast Indiana.
Members unanimously supported organizing a dinner and inviting Gov.-elect Mitch Daniels to attend. Members tried to arrange for him to come to this month’s meeting, but he was unable to attend amid his work to assemble his Cabinet and acclimate to his new role.
Fahl said the group plans to charter a tour bus to go to Washington and see the tributes to veterans, including the Vietnam Wall, the Korean War Memorial and the recently opened World War II Memorial.
But at its heart, the core of the group is the camaraderie and retelling shared experiences few others can relate to.
“It’s kind of a kick to be with the old group,” Rob Reed said, a smile on his face.