Videos

U.S. Marines and Sailors with 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) celebrate their 80th anniversary at Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan, July 7, 2021. 1st MAW was activated on July 7th 1941 at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, has since been located at MCAS Miramar, MCAS Iwakuni, and MCAS Futenma. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Lance Cpl. Dalton J. Payne)

Capt. Stan Solomon, who was a radio intercept operator for Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 323, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, shares his experience as a Marine during the Vietnam War. Solomon was invited by 1st MAW Commanding General Maj. Gen. Thomas D. Weidley, to be the 2018 1st MAW birthday ball guest of honor. Solomon is a native of New York. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Sgt. Natalie Dillon)

Maj. Stephen W. Pless commissioned in the United States Marine Corps as a second lieutenant in 1959. When he arrived in Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam as a captain, he would be given the chance to become the only Marine aviator of that conflict to receive the Medal of Honor. Pless, with the support of his crew, would disregard their own safety to save the lives of others--using their aircraft as a shield between an overwhelming Viet Cong force and four wounded U.S. Soldiers. During his tour in Vietnam, Pless was with Marine Observation Squadron 6, Marine Aircraft Group 36, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Sgt. Natalie Dillon)

Marine Aircraft Group 36, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, the first complete Marine air group to be transported by sea to a combat zone, launched from the USS Princeton to the shores of Vietnam, Sept. 1, 1965. Immediately, they began providing troop lifts, air strikes, medical evacuation, resupplies, and reconnaissance insertions and extractions in the southern area of operations. MAG-36 flew daily in support of Marines on the ground. Meanwhile, while many U.S. and South Vietnamese forces celebrated the Tet holiday, tens of thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers, Viet Cong guerrillas and local communist militants moved under the cover of night. Their objective was to simultaneously attack more than 100 U.S. and South Vietnamese occupied cities and bases. In the early hours of Jan. 31, 1968, the Communist-led Tet Offensive was in full force.