Issue Date: October 11, 2004
Poignant ceremony marks deactivation of Reserve Hornet squadron in Maryland
By Robert F. Dorr
A fighter squadron went out of business last month.
On Sept. 11, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., just miles from Capitol Hill, where lawmakers made it happen, the men and women of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 321, nicknamed the “Hell’s Angels,” gathered to stand down their squadron.
The deactivation ceremony was a spectacle of precision military drill that included raised swords, lowered flags, poignant words and pointed opinions.
Guests were seated in a hangar beside the Reserve squadron’s last F/A-18A Hornet, which was painted in commemorative colors. At the front of the hangar, the squadron conducted its final drill while commanding officer Lt. Col. William D. “Beatem” Reavis recounted the achievements of VMFA-321.
The Marines’ pride in their outfit was palpable.
But VMFA-321’s deactivation ceremony was also a time of frustration, even anger.
“It doesn’t make sense to stand down a combat squadron in the middle of a war,” said one visitor, retired Marine Lt. Col. Frank Sturgeon, who was wounded in combat at Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, in 1968 and feels a kinship with VMFA-321’s Marines. “This is not an effective use of our tax dollars,” he said.
Three years earlier, when the nation came under terrorist attack, Marines of VMFA-321 arrived at Andrews but weren’t asked to service their Hornets or prepare them for battle. The squadron began flying combat air patrols over Washington within 24 hours of the Sept. 11 attacks.
But Reserve F/A-18As didn’t go to Afghanistan or Iraq. Eager to be in the middle of the action, leathernecks with VMFA-321 and three sister squadrons watched America go to war without them.
In a remarkably abrupt move, Congress earlier this year ordered the Marine Corps to deactivate one of its four Hornet squadrons.
“Trying to decide which squadron to deactivate was like having to choose one of your children,” said Lt. Gen. Dennis McCarthy, Marine Forces Reserve commander, who spoke with me briefly before his remarks at the deactivation ceremony.
Although his feelings aren’t on the record, one wonders how this ceremony affected the squadron’s executive officer, Lt. Col. Terrence J. Larkin. He had been selected to become the next commander of VMFA-321 in January 2005, a move that would be a high point in an aviator’s career.
Now, like Reavis and other Marines of the “Hell’s Angels,” Larkin will be assigned to other duties.
“I think sadness is probably the overwhelming emotion,” said Don Spering, a Pemberton, N.J., photographer who attended the event. “I don’t think anyone believed this could happen so quickly. When they folded the flag, that was when I lost it.”
The squadron’s history dates to 1943. As a fighter squadron called VMF-321, it flew F4U-1 Corsairs in battles against Japanese forces in the South Pacific. Flying from Vella Lavella, an island in the Solomons chain, the squadron shot down 39 Japanese warplanes, including four on a single day by 1st Lt. J.R. Norman.
The squadron concluded the war near Guam and was deactivated in January 1946. That same year, it was reborn as the first Marine Reserve fighter squadron, flying Corsairs and, soon afterward, F8F Bearcats.
In postwar years, the squadron operated AD-5 Skyraiders, F-8 Crusaders and F-4B, F-4N and F-4S Phantom II fighter-bombers before transitioning to the Hornet in 1991.
Now, its Marines must serve America as members of other units.
The writer, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. He is the author of numerous books, including “Air Force One.” His e-mail address is
[email protected].