Breakfast with the Romeo Boys

Waitress Joyce Ketchie serves the breakfast table of the Romeo Boys, who meet every Friday morning at The Farmhouse restaurant. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

Waitress Wendy Yates kids with Romeo Boy Ralph Sturkey, who was a Marine at iwo Jima in World War II. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

Rodney Cress, left, stopped by the breakfast table and received some intoductions from Perry Hood. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

The Romeo Boys always leave a good tip. Photo by Mark Wineka, Salisbury Post

They call themselves the Romeo Boys."Romeo" serves as acronym for Retired Old Marines Eat Out, something these guys do every Friday morning at the Farmhouse restaurant in Salisbury.

Last Friday, the Boys allowed me to share in their weekly breakfast, where most any topic of conversation might crop up. I tried to be a fly on the wall, regretting I would be missing out on a whole morning's worth of discussion at the other end of the table.

I had my scrambled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and coffee between Monroe Goodman and Bob Bruce and across from Mark Beymer and Doug Black.

The rest of the core group of Romeo Boys includes Perry Hood, Richard "Doc" Wagner, Lee Dufresne and Ralph Sturkey.

Their stints as Marines ranged from three to 30 years, but once a leatherneck, always a leatherneck. Doc Wagner emphasizes that he was a Navy Corpsman but always considered himself a Marine.

The men's duties covered a wide spectrum of air, ground, logistical and medical services as enlisted men, Mustang officers or "OCS guys."

Black, for example, retired as a colonel whose last assignment was at the Pentagon.

Goodman, a captain, served in both Korea and Vietnam. Sturkey, 92, saw action at Iwo Jima, Okinawa and China during World War II.

Beymer flew a helicopter in Vietnam. Bruce was in aviation radar support. Hood worked with the presidential helicopter squadron out of Quantico, Va.

And I'm just scratching the surface here of what these guys did.

Talking over breakfast through the years, the men frequently discovered they have Marine connections that go way back. They realized, for example, that Goodman was a senior drill instructor at Parris Island, S.C., when Hood went through there in 1961.

The Boys come from all parts of the country: Bruce, upstate New York; Black, Idaho; Beymer, Oregon; Wagner, Staten Island; Dufresne, Santa Cruz, Calif.

"You were born and raised here?" Goodman asked Sturkey. "Where have you been all my life?"

Goodman, 79, also grew up in Rowan County.

Several of the Romeo Boys are master gardeners. Black said he has noticed that one thing, besides the Marines, is a common thread among them: They all have terrific wives.

"And it wasn't always the uniform," he said.

Goodman reminded his fellow leathernecks that each time he reenlisted he received a bonus and got himself a new car and a new wife. Goodman's wife these days is the beautiful Lucille, Black noted.

The Boys like to give each other — and the waitresses — a hard time.

"I wouldn't call it a hard time, because I give them a hard time," waitress Wendy Yates said.

The Romeo Boys have been meeting for five or six years. Joe Cody, who died about 18 months ago, was an original founder with Hood and Black, followed soon by Wagner, Bruce and Beymer.

Cody was a war games facillitator and, in retirement, a novelist who wrote about the Marine Corps.

The breakfast usually draws five or six Romeo Boys, but the turnout doubled this particular morning with several guests, including Jim Murphy, Don Hesprich and Don Eiss, Doc's brother-in-law who was visiting from Washington, D.C., where he works in international trade regulation.

Hesprich, whose father made a career as a Marine drill instructor, tries to attend the breakfast whenever he can. Murphy also served on a presidential lift squadron.

The men have their favorite corner of the restaurant, and other customers often ask their waitresses who these guys are. Many times, after learning of the Marine Corps connection, they make sure to visit the Romeo Boys before leaving.

Dean Graham, wearing a Marines ballcap, stopped by the table last Friday and was introduced to everyone.

"Semper Fi," Graham said as he left.

Rodney Cress was the next customer to walk over and pay his respects.

As we ate, Black updated the table on his Rowan Museum research in putting together a map of Salisbury from its Civil War days.

"It looks hopeful," he said, guessing that the research he and others are doing could take at least another year. Finding information, he added, has been like an Easter egg hunt, but many locations on the map are being documented with binders full of information.

The conversation veered toward Civil War books and how the Northern and Southern perspectives on the war were completely different, even in naming things.

While Northerners called it the Battle of Bull Run, Southerners called it the Battle of Manassas.

"You know, there were two Bull Runs," Goodman said.

The Romeo Boys share or recommend books all the time. Hood reminded Goodman that he still has a book Goodman loaned to him about Abraham Lincoln.

Black encouraged the men around him to investigate the Jefferson Davis treatise on secession, two copies of which belong to the Rowan Museum.

"That document is just a joy to look at,"' Black said.

Somehow the talk turned to Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, the most decorated Marine in the Corps' history. Puller fought in some of the bloodiest battles in World War II and Korea and is credited with saving three of his companies from annihilation when they were surrounded by Japanese forces at Guadacanal.

He famously said, "All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us. They can't get away this time."

"Chesty," which the Romeos say with great affection, also said once, "Our country won't go on forever, if we stay as soft as we are now. There won't be any America because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race."

"I'm reading a book on him right now," Hood reported.

"I have two books on him," said Goodman, who served under Chesty in Korea.

The Romeo Boys also get together annually around Nov. 10 for a dinner at the Wrenn House, to celebrate the birthday of the Corps.

On Fridays, just as quickly as the men sit down, order breakfast and start trading stories, they're up and gone. Sometimes they linger in the parking lot.

The breakfast usually lasts about an hour. They always leave a healthy tip in the middle of the table and get on with their lives.

Hood left me with three Marine magazines and, without saying a word, someone paid for my breakfast.

Semper Fi, Romeo Boys.

Read Mark Wineka's blog, "Wineka's World," at www.salisburypost.com.