MCITTA E-Bulletin Number 05-10

MCITTA E-Bulletin Number 05-10

The MCITTA E-Bulletin

An Email message for members of the

Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Assn

Board of Officers

Chairman

Harry J. Todd, Jr.

flsfrtrs@comcast.net





Vice Chairman

Vince Burdelski

vburdelski@gmail.com





Member

Howie Kahn

  hkahn@ec.rr.com



Member

Mike Bianchino

  topusmcret@yahoo.com



Administrative Chief

Felix Conde

FCondejr@aol.com

  Chief Financial Officer

Jack Parker

  parker2293@roadrunner.com



Informational Manager

Joe Burroughs

jburr01369@yahoo.com





Website

www.mcitta.org

(a year end review)

I take this opportunity to offer each and everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Joyous New Year. This is also the year end review. The year has been one of mixed emotions and events. We, MCITTA, were forced by necessity to cancel the Tampa Gathering leaving the fate of MCITTA in the balance. There appeared to be a complete lack of concern and involvement of our members in our survivability. MCITTA came within a week of modified dissolution and placement in receivership. I am very pleased to say you, the members, rallied and let yourselves be heard. There is overwhelming support for a Gathering in 2011 as well as in the future. The Gathering is, as are all meetings, important to organizational cohesion. They maintain a constant connection to times shared in the past with old friends and allows our community to remain alive.

San Antonio, Texas will be the designated place for the 2011 Gathering to be held tentatively the third week of April 2011. Activities during this time frame are many and varied. Everyone may expect a wonderful time. The Gathering is tentatively scheduled to be held at the Tropicana Hotel located on the new improved Riverwalk. Given that the third week date is firmed the bye date for registration will be NLT 15 March 2011. Start planning now. Details will be published as they are firmed. May I suggest that once you have decided to attend please register with Jack Parker vice holding off to see who else may sign up. You never know but it might just be your registration that someone is waiting to see. As always you, the members, will determine the success or failure of this venue.

We welcomed aboard Joe Burroughs as our new Informational Manager. His acceptance of these duties is greatly appreciated. Our thanks to Mitch Paradis for a job well done and a richly deserved rest from these many years labor on keeping the folks informed.

We were also forced to modify plans for the placement of our dedicatory monument at Quantico. Plan B was enacted and is on track for late 2011 or early 2012 at Camp LeJune, North Carolina.

Taking a serious look back at MCITTA there is much to consider. MCITTA is an important organizational niche within the Intelligence Community and in USMC history. We should make all haste and effort to ensure our unity and continuation. I thank all those who responded to my request for input, you actually saved MCITTA. The overwhelming request was continuation without pause. I heard from many I have worked with and know, some I know by name only and from several I know only as members on our roster but I did not hear from a single respondent it was time to fold the tent. I thank you all. Continuation may well mean a major overhaul in the entire organization and the way the Gatherings are conducted.

Initially we were established to require a basic majority vote of a quorum of members present at the Gathering. This became slow and cumbersome as the membership grew. You all know the difficulties of getting any three ITTers to agree on anything. Another problem of efficient management became the ravages of time on our collective health and on those we love, economics and worst of all an apparent creep towards something I refused to believe. I considered at this stage of life we were adults and the old East Coast/West Coast division was no longer an issue. I discovered it was and apparently is still an issue with some. For that reason the Gathering site for 2011 is established more or less on neutral ground. I do not know the answer to resolve this but any future leadership needs to address this issue for organizational survival.

The founding members agreed that as a last ditch effort in finding a venue MCITTA would utilize Las Vegas as a fallback position. Excellent idea and thankfully we have not been required but once to fallback. The other two times were for founding and once by choice. Any usage of a single venue on a regular basis or a single alternate East Coast/West Coast venue would ultimately destroy the Gathering for lack of continued interest. I suggest this idea be eliminated and the Gathering recurrence be extended to a minimum of eighteen months between meetings, they be general in nature, and no more than four days in total length (check in day with evening fellowship, one day of all hands activity with a hospitality evening, one day to include the Jim Reimer Golf Classic and optional activities for all others, and a closing day with semi-formal banquet with departure the next day). I also suggest and su pport the idea that the Gatherings continue to be varied in location.

Once MCITTA realized the initial governing body was not effective a Board of Directors was promulgated. Personally I’m not pleased with this style albeit is efficient and continue to seek input in order to make decisions. Thinking back seriously I now believe that perhaps the entire organization needs to be restructured from the mission statement, the purpose, the Constitution, to membership requirements, to the very name and perhaps a new logo. In other words recreated in a whole new image; one that may be able to appeal to a far broader spectrum of members within our field.

As for me I was very pleased to be included as a founding member and more surprised than ever to be called upon to lead this bold new venture. My overzealous leadership caused the establishment of SOPs , rituals and criteria that ultimately seemed to suspend MCITTA’s mandate of fellowship and camaraderie. It is time to get back to basics. Let us gather in the future with a new leadership as an organization of and for ourselves. Experience has shown us that any sort of mutually associated Gathering will only hurt one or both organizations attending. In general a joint or in conjunction with Gathering will result in elimination of one entity or the other in the name of efficiency just as a set venue will ultimately destroy that which it was set to preserve.

Our mandate to collect and record our individual and unit history has rested without advancement this year and without fault of our Historian, Warren Smith. This cannot be accomplished nor succeed if you, the members, do not provide. Constant pleas for data have fallen upon deaf ears. I ask you all to do it now before it is denied by time. I advise you that our Marine Corps has not done this for us. It is our responsibility to make known our contribution.

Somewhat the same fate has fallen upon our efforts to memorialize our existence and the memory of our brothers fallen in combat. Plans for the proposed memorial at the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico had to be revised. Primarily the cost goal/time frame limitation appeared prohibitive, donations have ceased. A secondary effort with a new design utilizing funding on hand without additional donations is being pursued. A new committee is in place, a new cost acceptable design approved, and placement is projected for late 2011 early 2012 at the birthplace of ITT, Camp LeJune. Placement will be in conjunction with and compliment the Museum of Carolina Marines near the entrance of Montfort Point. I have accepted the chair of this committee and with the capable on scene help of Howie Khan will see this project to its completion.

The sitting Board members have agreed to remain in their respective positions with the exception of myself and Vince Burdelski. Para-phrasing some great soul “one must know one’s limitations” I will be stepping down as Chairman of the Board on January 31st to make room for new ideas, new directions, new ambitions and a new future for MCITTA. The enthusiasm, cooperation, volunteerism and help I have had these many past years has been without parallel. I am eternally grateful however, it is time to move over and pass the future to Vince Burdelski. I know Vince to be pragmatic and capable and he will serve MCITTA in the best interest of all hands. I ask one and all to assist him in this effort. He cannot manage in a vacuum nor can we survive without a continued member support of operational largess managed by our Treasure, Jack Parker. To see what MCITTA’s financial status is please g o to our website and sign in with your password.

The mandate I accepted was a great experiment and while it was not completely successful it was neither a complete failure. What remains for the future still depends on you, the members, and a fresh leadership. Many of you have great ideas and I ask you to not only express those sentiments but offer to help your leadership put into practice these ideas. Do not allow MCITTA to run in a vacuum.

This year we have had an opportunity to serve the public in general and we continue to serve the NMITC MAGTAF graduations. At present two of our members, Fred Grant and Bill Curry, are translating a Japanese Battle Flag for a Ms. Karyn Mayes. Thanks go out to Jeff Smith for maintaining an attractive and informative website where she found us. She received this flag from her grandfather who made the landing at Guadalcanal and personally captured it. She intends to present it along with translation credit to one or the other of the Marine Museums. This year we have presented approximately 30 Baum Awards for Teamwork at NMITC. I want to extend a thank you to all the members who volunteered to make these presentations and ask you to continue supporting our efforts for the graduates.

I am unable to express my gratitude for the opportunity you all provided me. It has been a wild ride with equal amounts of success and failure. For the failures I accept complete responsibility, for the successes I credit all of you for saving my hide before things went the wrong way. Make MCITTA equally successful for the new governing body and do not allow complacency to take root. Assist your new leadership in molding a new organization that embraces the fellowship and camaraderie visions of the founders. Like I indicated earlier-----back to basics is the best chance of future success.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Gentlemen,

I don’t understand if suggestions were made to dissolve the MCITTA because the ‘Gathering’ was canceled or there were reasons that I am not aware of at this time. I would like to share my feelings and hopefully get some other opinions about what the organization is really all about.

First of all, I have never been to a Gathering and may or may not be able to attend in the future. But that is not my reason for being a member. I understand that the original seven got this outfit going by having a Gathering and essentially forming the MCITTA from there. And I also understand that there are members that would not miss a Gathering for anything and certainly feel disappointed because one was not held this year. I know the camaraderie and partying are a lot of fun and sure bring a feeling of belonging and brotherhood.

But to me the MCITTA has a larger purpose than the annual gathering. As I said above, the Gathering is important, but it is not everything. What is really important to me is to create a memory, whether the old war stories that are told at the Gatherings or copies of old documents related to ITT missions of long ago, or even photos of various team members or personal narratives and remembrances. We all are finite in our capacity to keep anything going and as surely as the last living MCITTA member is laid to rest, the outfit will cease to exist. However, it is up to us to write the history and record all the deeds, actions, photos, documents that we have collectively among us. That is the reason that I joined this association.

Let me share a personal experience. My Dad is a WWII Navy veteran. He served on a small ‘gunboat’ (156ft long) that provided direct fire onto the beaches in the South Pacific Island landings. There were approximately 500 of these gunboats during the War and each had around 65 officers and crew. These WWII Veterans formed an organization to gather annually and also to perpetuate the memory of their deeds by writing and documenting their history. Most of those men have passed on into eternity and the remaining survivors are at least 85 or older. But they have done a fantastic job of writing their history as they lived it and remembered it and not as a researcher put together from 60 years after the War. They have archived thousands of photos, articles, letters, deck logs, action reports, muster rolls, newspaper articles and their quarterly newsletter.

Now what has MCITTA documented and published? There is quite a bit and some very well written histories and remembrances. I have copies of all the great Spot Reports. But the story is not complete. There is a lot of work to be done yet. Warren Smith has tried to get members to contribute and has what I consider limited success. His efforts have been frustrated by members not owning up to their responsibility to submit narratives. Those narratives will have names and dates and stories. There are stories that need to be told. There are members that have tucked away in their closets photos and documents that need to be compiled into a written history that will remain after we are all gone. Let’s get on with it and leave that as a legacy and history. I would like to see a renewed push to get the history moving and providing Warren with so much info that he says ‘enough already, we have everything we need’. I will do whatever I can to assist Warren in compiling and writing the history.

Chip Reid

15Th ITT 68-69 (Quang-Tri Province)