Welcome!

​Dear Marine,
     My name is Mike McVicar. I’m Commandant of Miguel Keith Detachment #609 of the Marine Corps League in the Omaha area. I invite you to consider membership in the Marine Corps League, a Marine veteran service organization established in 1922 and congressionally chartered in 1937.
     Here’s a little about my twenty-one year active and reserve Marine Corps career:- Service Period: Boot camp early 1980s, MCRD San Diego; 13 years active duty, 7.5 years reserves; retired, Gunnery Sergeant, mid-2000s- MOS: Active duty, 2500 (later 0600) tactical communications field/reserves, Civil Affairs Specialist- Assignments: Active Duty – MOS school Twentynine Palms, CA; two Western Pacific deploymentsout of Camp Pendleton, CA; four years, Camp Lejeune, NC; three years Camp Schwab, Okinawa; and2.5 year special duty, U.S. Embassy Guard, Turkey and Israel/Reserve Duty – Civil Affairs,Washington, DC- Combat Zones: Desert Shield/Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
     I joined the Marine Corps League in 2021. Prior to that, I wasn’t really aware of the League despite its long existence. Since joining I became a member of the Detachment #609 color/honor guard, which marches in several annual parades and is called upon by the Marine Corps to render honors during Marine funerals. In May this year I was elected detachment Commandant.
     Our detachment name honors the memory of Lance Corporal Miguel Keith, an Omaha North High School student who joined the Marine Corps in 1969 at age 17. A little more than a year later, at age 18, he was killed in Vietnam during an extraordinary act of combat gallantry for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
In addition to parades and funerals, Detachment #609 annually participates in a number of veteran and community service events throughout the greater Omaha-Council Bluffs area and hosts a formal Marine Corps Birthday cake cutting ceremony and dinner each November. A complete list of 2025 Detachment #609 events can be viewed here.
     Our member base spans generations and conflict periods and occupied both the officer and enlisted ranks. For example, this past January we lost our oldest Marine, a combat wounded Iwo Jima veteran who died six days before his 99th birthday. Our current oldest members, in their early nineties, served during the Korean War period. Several other members in the 60-80 age range served during the Vietnam era through the late Cold War period. Still others, like me, served from the 1980s to the mid-2000s. We even have three members in their early to late 20s, still in uniform, assigned to the local Marine Corps Reserve unit. Finally, one of our members, a Woman Marine, is currently a Colonel (06) reserve officer.
     Getting to know and hear the experiences of League members, regardless of when they served, has been one of the best experiences for me. For example, members of the color guard detail pride themselves in ensuring their uniforms are squared away, and when marching in parades are in-step, their movements executed with precision. Ensuring this requires periods of practice involving flag and rifle handling and close order drill. Remarkable to me is how quickly these drills come back to each color guard member, a testament to the lasting muscle memory burned-in during boot camp! Also remarkable is hearing their boot camp stories which, regardless of when their time was on the Depot grinder, sound just like mine!
     All this is to say your fellow Marines welcome you checking us out and consider joining our detachment. We meet at 1830 the first Wednesday of every month at VFW Post 2503, 8904 Military Rd., Omaha, NE 68134. The Primary eligibility requirement involves possessing an honorable discharge or general discharge under honorable conditions. We’ll need to see a copy of your DD-214 to validate your service. An annual membership fee is $40. Other costs are minimal associated with our annual Detachment Officer Installment dinner (May/June timeframe) and Marine Corps Birthday dinner (November); attendance of either is not mandatory but encouraged.

 

     Bottom line, the League experience is what you make it! Once a Marine, always a Marine! We appreciate your consideration of this invitation to join our ranks. If interested please contact me directly for more information, telephone: (402) 278-8532 / email: commandantmcl609@gmail.com.

Semper Fidelis, 

Mike McVicar

CommandantMarine Corps LeagueDetachment #609

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MCLOmaha

Once a Marine, Always a Marine!