Countywide : Anaheim Will Host Navy League Session

The 89th national convention of the Navy League of the United States will open in Anaheim on Monday and feature talks by U.S. Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.) and Lt. Gen. Carl E. Mundy, President Bush’s choice to be the next commandant of the Marine Corps.

The convention will conclude Wednesday night with a dinner-dance and a speech by Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III.

Other special guests at the convention will include Lt. Gen. Walter E. Boomer, commander of the 90,000 Marines who served in the Persian Gulf--36,000 of them from Orange County and nearby Camp Pendleton--and retired Gen. Louis H. Wilson, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner and former commandant of the Marine Corps.

Wilson, 71, received the nation’s highest award for bravery for his World War II actions as a company commander during a two-day assault on the island of Guam in 1944. According to the commendation, Wilson and his company “repelled and destroyed a numerically superior enemy force.” He was wounded and evacuated to San Diego, where he remained hospitalized for three months. Wilson was Marine Corps commandant from 1975 to 1979.

Seymour, a former Marine, completed basic training at Parris Island, S.C., and was stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. A sergeant when he left the Marine Corps in 1959 after a four-year stint, Seymour will be the featured speaker at a Monday night dinner honoring Marine Corps commandants.

Bush selected Mundy last month to be the next Marine Corps commandant. He is the commanding general of the Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, the Second Marine Expeditionary Force and the Fleet Marine Force Europe. He has been a deputy chief of staff at the Pentagon for plans, policies and operations and the Marine Corps operations deputy to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mundy, who will receive a fourth star, will succeed Gen. Alfred M. Gray on July 1.

Navy League members will begin arriving at the Anaheim Marriott hotel Saturday for committee meetings followed by a gathering of the board of directors Sunday and a “Welcome Aboard and Las Vegas Night” that evening.

Convention Chairman John M. Rau of Orange said 750 to 1,000 people are expected to attend the convention. He said that it is not restricted to members and that the public is invited.

The league, with about 75,000 members, is an educational organization that supports the Marine Corps, Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine, Rau said. It was founded in 1902.