VMFP-3 80s Flashback

Home / Welcome Aboard

Disclaimer Alert
By Marc "Devil Dog Of The Web" Iseli / Updated Dec. 2025
Welcome aboard. Name’s Marc Iseli, and I did my time as a VMFP-3 plane captain from ’79 to ’83, back when the only thing more questionable than our haircuts was our sense of humor. In 1999, before Myspace and Facebook were a thing, I cobbled together the RF-4B Phantom II Society website to keep the squadron’s legends alive and drag a bunch of old recce dogs out of hiding, no social media required, just pure Marine stubbornness. For those non-veterans who just wandered in here thinking VMFP-3 was just another alphabet soup squadron, listen up. We were the misfit recon squadron flying the RF-4B Phantom, the only jet in the Corps that could snap your picture, steal your lunch money, and break the sound barrier before you finished your coffee. To make this site interesting and entertaining, it is loaded with enough twisted humor and sarcastic jokes to make the meanest Gunny smile, so if you’re allergic to sarcasm or your feelings bruise easier than a recruit’s ego, you might want to hit the lifeboats now. It is not meant to take away the proud history and achievements of this squadron for which we all served honorably. So if you Gyrenes are ready, dust off that powder-blue prom tux, and ladies, inflate those linebacker shoulder pads. Strap in, because we’re about to time-travel straight back to the glorious train wreck that was the 1980s.
Thru The Eyes Of The Corps

All We Are Is Dust In The Wind
All your money, not another minute will buy.
By Marc "Devil Dog Of The Web" Iseli / Updated Dec. 2025
You can throw all your cash at Father Time, but he still won't spot you an extra minute. On the left, that's VMFP-3 in the 80s, back when mullets were tactical and nobody had heard of gluten. On the right, that's our beloved flight line in the 2020s, just a few gray hairs and bad knees later. I'm one brick short of 70 now, and I swear the last few decades went by faster than a bootcamp buzz cut. My Marine Corps days feel like a different lifetime ago. Everything we did back then? Pretty much wiped off the map, except for the stories we keep recycling like old sea rations. All that's left is the memory reel, and maybe a little Dust In The Wind playing in the background.

Ghosts Of MCAS El Toro
My video of old MAG-11 Hangars before demo.

This site is my little digital foxhole, built for the VMFP-3 degenerates who survived the 1980s with most of their limbs and only minor brain damage. After a two-week vacation on life support (don’t ask, but it wasn’t from eating the midrats), I figured it was time to dredge up the stories from when I clawed my way from TME to plane captain, one WestPac, TAD, and CarQual at a time. Most of these sea stories are from 1980 to 1983, but I haven’t forgotten the rest of you Rat Packers who wore the patch. There’s a roll call for the legends and the lifers who served from 1979 to 1990, and I even set up a secret squirrel forum where you can confess your crimes without some civilian snowflake reporting you to Big Brother. If you’ve got a tale or just want to remind everyone who really broke the coffee maker, this is your spot. It was an honor to raise hell with you all. The guilty parties know who they are. See you all on the next flight line in the sky, devil dogs. Semper Fi.

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

Return To The Home Page