Greetings again to our Association members. Buster Diggs here enthused with taking another turn at guiding our association for another two-year tour. I am hoping one of you members is looking forward to relieving me in the future. I would like to thank Rick Lewis for leading the Association as the interim President until the Directors made a decision about the next two years.

My goal is to turn over an association that is more inclined to associate with Sailors and Marines that have served in a Marine Corps tank battalion. This past October, I attended the Vietnam Tankers Association  mini-reunion in Dubois, Wyoming. The invitation was extended to our membership, and I accepted. The National Museum of Military Vehicles was one of the best I have ever visited in past reunions. It is unfortunate that the museum is very challenging to get to , located in the middle of Wyoming. I flew to Salt lake City and drove for over 4 hours to ensure that I arrived on time. A small commuter airport that’s still some distance from the museum had only one flight a day!

A significent accomplish for me was having time to discuss the direction of both associations with John Wear, the VTA president. From our conversations, we agreed in principle to invite each other’s memberships to our respective reunions. Additionally, due to COVID restrictions that caused us to postpone our 202 reunion to 2021, we are no longer having reunions on opposite years enabling duel members to attend both. We plan to rectify this by having a reunion in san Antonio this year (2023) and then another in 2024- probably on the west coast.

My final thought is continuing to serve our more senior members by having reunion locations that are easy to get to. We will continue to strive to connect junior tankers in the mediums they readily use like Facebook, email and other electronic information platforms. 

Always feel free to contact me or any of the directors with your thoughts and concerns. Only then, with no longer active-duty tank battalions to connect us can we continue to “foster, encourage, and perpetuate the memory, spirit, and comrade-ship-in-arms of marine Corps tankers.”

Diggs