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1960's MARCAD info sought.

VMO4

Well-Known Member
My apologies in advance for a long story. I am the adopted son of a WWII/Korea era Naval Aviator. He was a CFI before the war and entered the Navy, earned his wings, and was sent to be an IP, then a ATL cruise on a CVE. He finished the war, served through 1953 and left and settled in Pensacola, where he adopted me in 1963. He also adopted two other siblings. Skip forward. By 2014 my adopted father, mother, and both siblings were all deceased. I knew my birth mother's last name and that was all. I started a year long researching of my DNA along with other sources and eventually was able to identify my birth mother, still alive, and my birth father, deceased in 1969 from cancer. I wrote a book about the process, available on Amazon, but I digress.

I also found a half sister, from my birth father's later marriage after my birth. She has his flight suit, logbooks, etc... I have pieced together as follows: My birth father entered the USMC under the MARCAD program in June 1961 , after two years at Univ. Alabama. and was sent to Pensacola. Hey worked his way through flight school, through the T-34B, T-28, T-2 (the briefly used single engine version, which I thought was cool), CARQUAL on the Antietam. He commissioned and earned his wings December 1962. (After meeting a girl and having a fling the week of the Cuban Missle Crisis, which is 40 weeks from my birth). He then went to the A-4 FRS at Cherry Point. He then managed to become an aid to a two star, whom I believe was the 2nd Marine Air Wing CO. He then got orders to VMA -124 in Memphis were he flew in the Reserves while finishing his degree in engineering. From what I have read about the early 60's MARCAD was they were almost exclusively meant to be helo pilots, yet he managed to get jet orders. Then while at the FRS, he managed to orders to be an aid, then back to the reserves, rather than another place in Asia at the time.

I believe this was possible because while at Cherry Point, he married the daughter of another squadron's CO, a Lt. Col. who was a highly decorated WWII Corsair South Pacific vet, who had at least three CO tours, two squadrons, and then a MCAS CO. I have become convinced the 2-star was likely a squadron mate from the "slot" who took care of his wing man's new son in law. Sadly, young Capt. Conrad Scarborough would be dead of cancer by 1969.

I would be interested in hearings other's perspective of what they know of 1960's MARCAD. Did he get MARCAD jet orders because he was a rock star?, Is there another way he got 2 star aid orders as a MARCAD at the FRS other than my assumption? Was it common to get orders to the reserves after the FRS? I think he was the coolest college kid on campus because he got to go to Memphis once a month and bore holes in the sky in an A-4....Thanks in advance.
 
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