Robert J. Fawcett Col. USMC (Ret)

Profile Updated: February 14, 2019
Class Year: 1965
Residing In: Virginia Beach, VA USA
Wife/Significant Other: Linda
Occupation: Chief Academic Officer
Children: Michael (Jill), David (Amber), Carolyn (Hoss), Laura, Daniel
Military Service: U.S. Marine Corps (1969-1999) U.S. Naval Academy  
Parish Grade School:

Corpus Christi

Employer:

Marine Corps University, Expeditionary Warfare School

Grand Children:

Five grandsons

Comments:

Bob Fawcett. McBride ’65, US Naval Academy ’69, US Marine 69-99

I had the privilege of serving my country for thirty years as a United States Marine. That is was I intended to do when I left McBride in 1965, and that is was I did.

In June 1965 went off to the U.S. Naval Academy. While there I was a varsity boxer, enjoyed intramural sports, learned to parachute and SCUBA dive, and, oh yeah, I got an education too.

On 4 June 1969 I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps and then attended the Marine Officers Basic School at Quantico, Virginia. While there we learned to shoot, blow things up, and lead Marines in combat. While there I got the idea that I might actually be cut out to be a Marine. I was the academic, leadership, and overall honor graduate out of 250 lieutenants in Basic Class 2-70. (I was somewhat better student than I had been at McBride.)

After attending Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia, I went to Vietnam in May 1970 where I served as a Rifle Platoon Commander in E Company, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines and participated in a lot of patrolling action in the vicinity of DaNang. I transferred to 1st Recon Battalion as a Platoon Commander in October 1970 where I led a number of long range reconnaissance patrols.

Returning to the World in 1971, I served at the Marine Barracks at Yorktown, Virginia. While there, I met my wife Linda (maid of honor in my brother’s wedding) in May of 1972. I was transferred to Quantico, Virginia, where I served as an instructor at The Basic School. Linda and I were married on 29 December 1973 in her home town, Bismarck, North Dakota. (20 degrees below zero.)

In 1974, I was essentially a professional athlete for the Marine Corps in a sport you never heard of. I was a member of the All-Marine Orienteering Team. (Think of orienteering as a long distance land navigation race.) In 1975 I served as the first U.S. Marine Officer to serve with the Royal Swedish Coast Artillery assigned primarily with their Ranger Training School near Stockholm. On the way home from Sweden Linda and I toured Europe with back packs and a EURAIL Pass.

In 1976, I attended Amphibious Warfare School, the Marine school for Captains. Following a summer tour at Officer Candidates School, I reported to the 3d Marine Division in Okinawa, Japan, where I served as a staff officer in the 9th Marine Regiment before assuming command of 200 Marines in Company G, 2d Battalion, 9th Marines in July 1978. We traveled and trained in Japan and Korea. Returning to Camp Pendleton, California, with Company G in February 1979, we attended summer and winter mountain warfare training, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and did amphibious landings from Navy ships and other Marine-like things. In January 1980 when was reassigned as S-4, 5th Marine Regiment. The S4 is the guy in charge of logistics: transportation, supply, medical, mess halls, maintenance, and most everything else that can go wrong.

In 1980 we adopted our son, Michael, and nine months later, Linda delivered our second son David.

In 1981, I attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College where, with a lot of tutoring help from my Soldier friends, I was the class honor graduate in a class of 900. From 1982 to 1985, I served as the Marine Officer Instructor at the Navy-Marine Corps ROTC Unit and was designated an assistant professor at Texas A&M University. In 1983, our twin daughters Carolyn and Laura were born.
While at A & M, I earned a Masters Degree in Educational Administration. In 1985, I was promoted to lieutenant colonel, we moved from Texas to Virginia, and son, Daniel, was born. I was assigned as the Special Operations Officer at Headquarters Marine Corps. In 1986, we moved again to Newport, Rhode Island where I attended the Naval War College.

In 1987 we moved for the third time in three years, and I reported to the 2d Marine Division in North Carolina where I had the privilege of commanding 1st Battalion, 2d Marines. Me and about 800 of my closest Marine comrades traveled to Okinawa, Korea, Philippines, and also to the Sierra Nevada Mountains for cold weather training in January 1990. Joy is the sound of your sleeping bag zipping closed after a long day of humping a 70 pound rucksack and cross country skiing for miles in sub-freezing temperatures.

From February to May 1990 I was the operations officer of Marine Forces, Panama. In July 1990, I was transferred back to Quantico and on 1 June 1991 was promoted to colonel and took command of The Basic School, the institution where we educate and train every newly commissioned Marine Officer. That was the job of a lifetime for me--tactics, training, leadership, and education every day. I describe The Basic School it as some of the best Captains in the Marine Corps teaching some of the finest young Americans in the country to be the greatest warrior leaders in the world to defend their country. It was a great tour.

In 1993, we moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where I was assigned to U.S. Atlantic Command. After two years there I changed jobs and finished out my active duty tour as the Director of the Navy and Marine Corps Training Department of Expeditionary Warfare Training Group, Atlantic.

I retired from active duty on 4 June 1999, exactly 30 years to the day from when I raised my right hand as a brand new second lieutenant and an swore to “support and defend the constitution of the United States of America...So help me, God”

After retiring from active duty, we stayed in Virginia Beach, and I went to work as a military research analyst. I had to read a lot, think some, and write some, mostly about future warfare and how the US Armed Forces will try to prevent wars if we can and win them when we have to.

In January 2013, instead of retiring, we moved from Virginia Beach to Quantico, VA, and I took a position as the Chief Academic Officer at the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Warfare School where we educate some of our best Marine captains in a 41 week curriculum each year. (I went to school here in 1976-77.) What a great job it has turned out to be. I am back with the Marine Corps (this time as a Civilian Marine), I am dealing with training and education (something I have always enjoyed), we are closer to where four of our five children live, and I work in a building with a locker room and weight room in the basement, and running trails through the woods in almost every direction.

Along the way a have been a T-Ball coach, a scoutmaster, a Venture Crew leader, and spent a lot of time on the sidelines of soccer, baseball, football, and field hockey fields, swimming pools, gymnastic meets, basketball courts, track meets, wrestling matches, and orchestra concerts. I have been to the top of Half Dome at Yosemite four times; to the top of Mt Whitney and the bottom of the Grand Canyon three times each; all over Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, and once I hiked across the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range by myself, covering 76 miles in four days. But I was a younger man then. I still run about 30-40 miles a month, all much slower than the miles we put in with the track team on the that old cinder track in Sherman Park.

I have a wonderful wife, and five great and successful children and five wonderful grandchildren.

It has been a pretty good run so far. If I wanted to have any more fun, I would have time travel back and start over again.

School Story:

Running that old cinder track in Sherman Park and being on the team that won the 2 mile relay in the 1965 District Track Championships.

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May 05, 2018 at 8:18 AM

Bob, I hope your birthday is a fun day!

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Sep 18, 2015 at 9:31 AM

Bob it was great to see you again last Friday at the reunion. Be well and hope to see you again soon.

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