{"id":14504,"date":"2016-04-25T15:24:33","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T15:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2016\/04\/25\/for-four-marines-reunion-photo-after-50-years-means-getting-it-right\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T20:35:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:35:00","slug":"for-four-marines-reunion-photo-after-50-years-means-getting-it-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/veterans\/2016\/04\/25\/for-four-marines-reunion-photo-after-50-years-means-getting-it-right\/","title":{"rendered":"For four Marines, reunion photo after 50 years means getting it right"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Four U.S. Marine veterans gathered on the beach to take a photo around a surfboard. Each of the men wanted the photo to look as close as possible to the one taken 50 years ago in California.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

PALM COAST, Fla. \u2014 They wanted the picture to be just right, to look as close as possible to the one they’d\u00a0taken together 50 years ago, back when their memories hadn’t yet been clouded by the images of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Saturday morning, on the sun-drenched Atlantic shore of Cinnamon Beach on Florida’s northeast coast, four U.S. Marine veterans gathered around a yellow longboard turned upright, trying to re-create a moment from five decades earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob Falk, 71, wearing a mirror-image blue-and-white striped shirt, leaned against the longboard’s left side, resting his spare hand on his hip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dennis Puleo, 69, removed his shoes, revealing the feet scarred by shrapnel, and pulled off his shirt, flanking the longboard on the right, mugging a wide smile for the camera with his arms extended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Hanks\u00a0(not that one), 69, stepped in front of the board and took in a long, deep breath, flexing his still-thick upper chest and sucking in his now-paunchy belly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Bob DeVenezia, 70, crouched down in front of Hanks, resting his elbows on his knobby knees, feeling Hanks’ hands placed on his back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The picture couldn’t be a perfect copy. They had gray hair and wrinkled skin and undefined stomachs now. But it didn’t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time in five decades, they were together, trying to get it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Marine buddies Dennis Puleo, from left, Tom Hanks, Bob Falk and Bob DeVenezia view the photograph that was taken nearly 50 years earlier during weapons training in Oceanside, Calif., to memorize and re-create the scene on Cinnamon Beach April 23, 2016, in Palm Coast, Fla.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: Luke Franke, Naples (Fla.) Daily News<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeVenezia sat at the kitchen table in his East Naples condominium last week, trying to explain why it’d been 50 years since he’d been in the same room as three of his closest Marine Corps friends. He became quiet for a second, searching for the right words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We just broke up,” DeVenezia said. “Life is funny like that. I didn’t keep in touch with any of them. There was something about the\u00a0Vietnam War\u00a0and the negativity we kept hearing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1966, the four\u00a0U.S. Marines\u00a0were stationed together in\u00a0Camp Pendleton, outside San Diego. The Vietnam War was ramping up, and together, they were part of a weapons platoon \u2014 three machine gunners and one anti-tank man \u2014 getting ready to ship off to East Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Over the next two years, they’d train together and deploy together. Once in Vietnam, they’d separate, enduring many of the same horrendous conditions, if not the same action. Two of them would earn Purple Hearts. Each would experience the unexplainable fear of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We had the tools. We had the training,” DeVenezia said. “But nothing trains you for your first combat. Nothing. Zero.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, once their tours were over, each lasting no more than 13 months, they went their own ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They would all build successful careers \u2014 DeVenezia in construction in New Jersey; Falk in retail management in Florida; Hanks in investment banking in Atlanta; Puleo in home security, some in the Northeast and some in Florida. They would all marry \u2014 a couple of them twice \u2014 and raise six children among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WATCH: The group reunites again on\u00a0FOX News Channel’s FOX & Friends:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n