Once a Marine, always a Marine?

Ask any wizened leatherneck and you’ll get a swift and decisive answer, but it’s not merely a case of esprit de corps that is motivating Lewisburg winery owner Frank Tuckwiller to head for Beckley come May 23 to hear a speech by Marine Lt. Col. Ollie North.

Actually, it’s less a salute to one who shared the same branch of the military than it is a chance for a reunion with an old friend.

Back in the late 1960s, the two served as instructors at the Marine Corps School in Quantico, Va., a duty assignment that lasted some 3 1/2 years, ending in December 1972.

“He was an outstanding officer,” Tuckwiller said, recalling his association with the man who ultimately became a National Security Council member ensnared in the Iran-Contra scandal.

In their work at Quantico, the two trained second lieutenants on the basics of turning into Marine Corps officers. Tuckwiller arrived as a major and North, then a captain, was promoted to the same grade while there.

“He was one of those guys who believed in doing his homework, running his reconnaissance so to speak, and in learning the pros and cons, he could argue either point,” Tuckwiller said.

“He got his instructions from his commanding officer and then wheeled and dealed it. He was well respected by all the second lieutenant officers, the staff, everybody there. He was just a superior officer.”

North had just returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam, an engagement that found the young platoon leader earning two Purple Hearts, the Silver Star and Bronze Star.

Tuckwiller, himself, is no stranger to the field of combat, having put in two tours of duty in Vietnam, commanding a Marine rifle company in portions of each.

In his first tour, he served with the 8th Radio Research Unit, starting in mid-1966, at Phu Bai near Hue, and his second go-round placed the Marine leader up north hugging the DMZ.

“Ollie was just one of those guys who didn’t make a lot of noise,” Tuckwiller said.

“He wasn’t high-profile. But you knew Ollie was there all the time. He didn’t say much until he knew what he was talking about.”

North evolved into a national figure during the Reagan administration when he became mired in the clandestine sale of weapons to Iran in a two-fold mission: Prompt the release of American hostages and raise cash to buy firearms so anti-communist forces in Nicaragua could resist oppression.

Sharing a belief held by many, Tuckwiller says North became the fall guy for the administration once Congress began conducting hearings on the deal.

“He was doing what a good Marine Corps officer is supposed to do — carry out his orders,” he said.

Tuckwiller said he would take North’s word on the Iran-Contra issue and any others that have surfaced since.

“I believe him 100 percent,” he said.

“People don’t realize, if you get a set of instructions to go to China, you go to China. You don’t stop at Midway. You don’t stop in Taiwan. You go to China. That’s the way Ollie operated. He carried out his missions to the nth degree.”

North plugged for money to enhance the nation’s security at a time when Osama bin Laden wasn’t a household word, long before the hijacked jetliners smacked into the World Trade Center, but those in authority, among them a future vice president, Al Gore, simply paid no attention, Tuckwiller said.

“Nobody listened to him,” he said.

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Tuckwiller opened his tasting room at Watts Roost Vineyard in Lewisburg three years ago and now offers 13 varieties of bottled wine. His vineyard boasts seven varieties of grapes, spread over 9 acres.

“It’s the only way that you can even dream of a profit on a small farm in West Virginia,” he said the state’s burgeoning wine industry.

“Unless you’ve got 1,000 acres for cattle, planted mostly in grass or crops, you haven’t got a chance.”

Tuckwiller figures to have a backstage reunion with his former Marine comrade at A Memorial Celebration planned by Faith Baptist Church at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center. Advance tickets are $10 at Christian Bookstore, Mountaineer State Miniature Golf, Raleigh Tile and Marble, and By His Grace Book Shoppe. At the door, tickets are $12.

“I intend to say hello to him when I see him,” Tuckwiller said.

“Paths separate when you get out of the corps. Everyone goes his separate way. But you never lose those memories of the people you respect and think are doing an outstanding job.”

Once a Marine, always a Marine?

“Ollie is the personification of that,” he said.

“He’s going back to Afghanistan and back to Iraq, visiting the troops and finding out what’s going on. Every Congress respects him. They’re not hauling him up and hollering at him. They respect his ability to say the right words at the right time.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com