Marine Mess Night
...the Seelbach until 1975 with the closing of that hotel. The 1976 Mess Night was held at Souffer’s Louisville Inn at 2nd and Broadway and continued each year at this location until the Mess Night of 1983. In 1977 an honored guest of the Mess was Lieutenant Colonel David Weston, a Royal Marine representative at Quantico, Virginia. Lieutenant Colonel Weston briefed the candidates as to the history, operation, and structure of the British Royal Marines. Captain David Breen became the OSO in 1982 and held his first Mess Night in 1983 at Masterson’s Restaurant. That event saw the return of then Lieutenant Colonel Higgins back to the Mess Night he started some 12 years previously. The 1984 Mess Night was held at the Faculty Dining Room at the University of Louisville. With the 1985 Mess Night, we returned to the new Holiday Inn at 2nd and Broadway which has been the site of the Mess Night ever since. An honored guest of the Mess in 1990 was Joe Rosenthal, the AP photographer who took the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising picture in 1945. Mr. Rosenthal had been a guest of the Marines in Louisville previously in 1975 and 1985 to commemorate the Iwo Jima flag-raising anniversaries. Mr. Rosenthal briefed the Mess on the circumstances surrounding the flag raising and his part in covering it. Down through the years, the OSO, Louisville, has presented a series of awards consisting of a Marine Officer’s Sword, a 2nd Lieutenant’s jewelry box, and certain professional books. These awards have been named after then 2nd Lieutenant Terry Graves, a Basic School roommate of the founder of the Mess, Colonel Higgins. Colonel Higgins named these awards in Grave’s honor at the first Mess Nights and that tradition has continued ever since. 2nd Lieutenant Graves was killed in Vietnam and ...