On December 5, 2000, a USMC Birthday celebration was held at the Brooklyn Museum, to gather support and to lay the foundation of a fraternal organization of former Marines.  After a few meetings and with only a handful of resources, …John Newman, Lieutenant Engine 280, along with Brian Charles, Firefighter Ladder 108 started the necessary requests to headquarters to make this an official line organization in the FDNY.
 
For obvious reasons, the annual birthday celebration was not held the following year (2001), but on November 23, 2001, the Office of the Fire Commissioner, granted approval to form a new fraternal veterans organization, known as the FDNY / USMC Association.The following spring, on April 24th 2002, a meeting was held at the UFA office on West 23rd Street and the formal organizational structure was drawn up.
 
Since that day, an official patch was designed and adopted by the organization.  The year of 2001 was chosen to symbolize the magnitude of that year in the FDNY’s history…the loss of 343 members at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
 
In 2003, the organization went to Washington DC, to watch the Silent Drill at the Marine Barracks at Eight and “I” streets. The second trip was to Parris Island in 2005 and this year, 2007, we plan to return to DC and attend the sunset parade at Eight and “I” on Friday night, June 1st, the following day, June 2nd, get a tour of the new Marine Corps museum at Quantico Virginia.
 
In November 1775, a few good men created the United States Marine Corps.  Now the FDNY Marine Corps Association is looking for a few good men to make this organization a viable line organization within the FDNY. In 2000 we started with a “fire team, now we are close to company strength.  We need you to get the word out.