VMFP-3 80s Flashback

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1980 Thru The Eyes Of The Corps.
By Marc "Devil Dog Of The Web" Iseli / Updated Dec. 2025
First day as a plane captain trainee, and they throw me straight into a WestPac rotation. VMFP-3 had been rotating detachments since 1975: five aircrews, a handful of officers, and 100 Marines shipped off for 6 months in the Western Pacific. The rest of the squadron, plus seven RF-4Bs, had just bailed out as Det Reno for Shaw AFB, South Carolina. That left us with three lonely birds on the line. I still remember one, green tail, golden fox, like it was daring us to forget it. The place was a ghost town, just a skeleton crew and Sgt. Hutchenson and Gunny Furr are making sure nobody screwed up too badly.

The three F-4 Phantom squadrons next door? VMFA-323 and VMFA-531 had already packed up for the USS CORAL SEA, so Phantom County was dead quiet. The F-4s just sat there, like bingo night at the retirement home, waiting to get replaced by the shiny new kids on the block, the F-18A Hornets. It was the kind of silence that says, 'Don’t get comfortable.' Honestly, I showed up at the perfect time, right as the 80s kicked off, Reagan about to take the wheel, and everyone pretending the bad years were behind us. Supposedly, we were on the edge of something big. Things were about to take off.

By January 1980, the flight line was back to chaos. The birds from Shaw AFB rolled in, Project SURE dumped a few more on us, and suddenly every spot was packed with RF-4Bs. We kicked things off with a safety stand-down, because nothing says 'welcome back' like being grounded. The old salty plane captains, NCOIC Sgt. Hotchkiss and Sgt. Francis showed up from overseas, ready to remind us how it’s supposed to be done. I got thrown in with the other remaining motley crew, Matelski / Grower / Franco / Akkerman / Melthratter / Scharen / Hurtle. Just when we thought this FUBAR couldn’t get any weirder, in walks Fred Wingo, fresh off embassy duty and so squared away he made the rest of us look like we slept in are cammies all weekend. Only the Marine Corps would think it’s a good idea to drop a Jr. Olympic champ into the Rat Pack, but hey, we weren’t complaining. Fred’s first week was like dropping a goldfish into a shark tank, but he caught on quick. Pretty soon, we were hustling other squadrons, betting Fred could pin their best guy in under five minutes. With Wingo in the mix, boredom officially went AWOL.The squadron was officially locked and loaded for a year that promised to be anything but boring.

We kicked off the year with CARQUALs on the USS Constellation, 7 to 14 January. Right after that, one crew was sent TAD to Hill AFB for some Joint Service fun, and another to MCAS Yuma for WTI. The rest of us were stuck grinding through training, launching jets, and trying not to screw up on the way to earning our plane captain stripes. 11 February stands out, pouring rain, last fuel cell class, and we finally graduated at 0900. My orders were soaked by the time I hit the line shack, just to be told to take the day off because, apparently, rain is a showstopper, and my schwanz shrinks in cold rain.

1980 VMFP-3 Timeline
Shipboard Firefighting Course
0730 12 March, 1980 - 1600 13 March, 1980
Group Guard Duty
24 March, 1980- 28 April, 1980
Homestead AFB, Florida
0200 04 May, 1980- 24 May, 1980
RF-4B Texas Crash, PDF
25 May, 1980 Lt. Col. Burton P Sperry III, Capt. Michael S Fagen Eject.
Meritorious Mast, PDF
28 May, 1980 For Homestead Deployment.
Rank Promotion, PDF
01 June, 1980 Lance Corporal
Rifle Marksmanship Training
24 November 1980 - 25 November 1980

FlashBack Trivia
American Hostage Rescue Fails
25 April 1980, Eight US servicemen are killed and five are injured as helicopter and
cargo plane collide in abortive desert raid to rescue American hostages in Teheran.
John Lennon Is Assassinated
08 December, 1980

Alright, you glorious Rat Phixers and Phlyers, if we ever survived a TAD, a Det, or a BOHICA, who haven't, and you didn’t think I was the biggest gaff off in the squadron. Got a sea story, or some grainy photos your ex didn’t set on fire, and they’re only slightly illegal? Send ‘em by email, snail mail, or safety wire it to a carrier pigeon. I collect ‘em all, just nothing that would incriminate me.
80svmfp3@gmail.com

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