At age 90, Fred Davis stood at attention, straight as a rifle barrel when the Marine Corps hymn was played last week in Westbrook.

A Marine during World War II, Davis enlisted in 1943 and served three years with the 3rd Air Wing, training combat pilots.

“I thought it was the best,” he said explaining why he joined the Marines.

He was one of the local Marines who celebrated the corps’s 230th birthday with a ceremony and cake on Thursday, Nov. 10, at Westbrook’s Public Safety Building.

Davis tells his kids that he was proud to be a Marine. He has a grandson in the Marines at Camp Pendleton, Calif. That pride binds Marines together, even though they might have served in different days.

Fred Monson, who organized last week’s celebration, served from 1987 to 1997 with the Marines. A sergeant, he was in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War in 1991. Monson, now a Westbrook police officer, looked over the large crowd and was happy to see Marines turn out from so many different generations.

United by challenge, adventure

Monson saw Marines like Davis chatting with Sgt. Ian McConnell, a Marine recruiter in South Portland who has served seven years. He donned his full dress uniform for the birthday party. McConnell, who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he joined for “one simple reason.”

“It was the hardest,” he said, noting that he respected other military branches.

McConnell likes to attend events like the one last week. “It just makes me feel proud to be able to wear this uniform to know that these men have all done the same thing I’ve done,” he said. “They’ve left their footprints in history and I’m privileged and honored to be able to have the same title that these men had.”

Roger Arsenault of Westbrook, who joined the Marines in 1948, agreed that pride was a bond that unites Marines.

Monson said over the years the basic spirit of the Marines has stayed the same. “This is what it’s all about,” said Monson, who joined the Marines at 17.

Another Westbrook police officer, Steve Pulsoni, served with the Marine Reserves for eight years through 1982. He said he went for the Marines “because it was the best.”

“They have a reputation for being the best,” said Pulsoni, who was a Marine sergeant.

Family concerns prevented Pulsoni from making the Marines his career. “I would have stayed,” he said. “I really enjoyed what I was doing and met a great bunch of folks.”

Feelings for the corps runs strong also for Pat Larrabee, childrens librarian at Walker Memorial Library. She was looking for adventure when she signed up. “I never regretted it,” said Larrabee, who was a lance corporal.

She served in 1960 and 1961 with the Marines and worked as a Teletype operator at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Even after 40 years, the bond holds for Larrabee.

“You’re never an ex-Marine,” she said. “You’re a former Marine.”

Bond begins with a boot

For many Marines like Larrabee, the bond began in boot camp. Larrabee went to basic training at Parris Island in South Carolina. “It was pretty tough,” she said.

Davis, who went to boot camp at age 28, agreed that training at Parris Island was rigorous. “Tough. I’m just going to say tough. They tried to break you,” Davis said. “It makes a man out of you, that’s for sure.”

The bond among Marines carried onto the battlefield in World War II for Fred Collins. He picked the Marines after being drafted for service as a sophomore at Windham High School in 1944.

The Marines let him finish that year of school before being activated. “I was just a kid. Kids look up to symbols,” Collins said about going with the Marines.

Collins became a machine gunner and landed with the first wave at the battle of Iwo Jima. “They had us zeroed in,” he said about enemy fire.

He wasn’t wounded, although he “felt a lot of heat.” Collins helped fellow Marines who were wounded, using first aid that he learned in Boy Scouts. “I sewed up one with safety pins from a bandoleer,” he said and later heard the man survived.

Collins said he learned a lot about living in the Marine Corps. He appreciates “life and liberty” and now writes poetry about the war.

Besides pride, Calvin Hamblen, a Gorham town councilor, said “comradeship” is a bond for Marines. In the heat of battle, that bond welded survivors together.

In the winter, Hamblen, who served in Korea with a heavy artillery unit, and his Marine buddies slept on a cot under a tent with snow on the ground.

But earlier that year his welcome to Korea was a hot one. Hamblen joined his unit in Korea in July of 1951. Two days later, enemy forces shelled Hamblen’s unit with 250 artillery rounds. “A direct hit would have killed the whole bunch of us,” Hamblen said.

Monson said that the faces of Marines have changed, as has some of the technology, but the uniform has stayed the same and so has the spirit of those wearing the uniform.

Marines cake Using a traditional Marine sword, Westbrook Police Officer Fred Monson (left) cuts a cake celebraating the Marine Corps 230th birthday at the Public Safety Building on Thursday. Looking on are Phil Armstrong of Damariscotta Mills (center), the oldest Marine at the ceremony. He is joined by Sgt. Ian McConnell (right), a Marine Corps recruiter who was the youngest Marine at the ceremony.