Service members, family, and friends attend the funeral service of the late U.S. Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sgt. Juan Jose Valdez at the Miramar National Cemetery, California, March 4, 2026. Valdez who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1955 and served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967, was the last Marine to board the final helicopter leaving the U.S. Embassy before Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Lance Cpl. Alexander Vaughn)
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION MIRAMAR, Calif. -- Lieutenant Colonel Wilbur S. Oles IV concluded 22 years of honorable service in the Marine Corps during his retirement ceremony on the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar flightline on May 8, 2026. The crowd of Marines who gathered to bid farewell and congratulate him was a testament not just to his decorated career, but to the personal impact he had on each of them. While a decorated aviator, it was his leadership, rooted in his philosophy of "leading with love," that left an indelible mark on the Marine Corps.
Preceded by generations of service members, it was no surprise that Lt. Col. Oles was drawn to swear the oath and don the nation’s cloth. Through his great-grandfather’s service as an...
