Ed is a 1966 graduate of Southeastern Oklahoma University and holds masters degrees from Pepperdine University and the University of Minnesota. He was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps in 1967. He has served as the Commanding General of Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, the Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, Virginia, and the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps. From 2004-2006 Ed served as the U.S. Military Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee at NATO headquarters in Brussels, representing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in deliberations and actions on the Military Committee, the highest military authority of NATO. He also worked closely with military representatives of NATO and Partnership for Peace member nations to develop policy recommendations for the political authorities of the Alliance. He retired as a Lieutenant General in 2007. His decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal with oak leaf, Legion of Merit with two gold stars, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat “V” and gold star, and the Combat Action Ribbon.

Janie is an internal medicine hospitalist at Hoag. A first-generation American, she immigrated to America from Taiwan with her family as a young girl. Education has always been important to Janie’s family. Her father wanted to come to America to earn a Ph.D., and her older brother David is also a physician. Even as a young girl, Janie knew she wanted to become a physician. David set a stellar path of education and service to her adopted country that inspired her, and which she ultimately followed. Janie received a Navy scholarship to New York Medical College and earned her Doctor of Medicine degree. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, received the Aequanimitas Award during her 3rd year of residency for humility, compassion, and excellent care of patients, and was assigned as Attending Staff, Internal Medicine, at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan where she was one of just four Internists providing comprehensive outpatient and inpatient care to 43,000 military personnel, Defense Department civilians, and their family members. Janie has received numerous honors and distinctions for her service, including the Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal. Janie is a full partner at Pacific Hospitalist Associates. Averaging up to 20 patient encounters daily, she provides care for hospitalized adult patients in ICU and in-house 24-hour Intensivist support. Janie resides in Newport Beach with her husband Dr. Coury Staadecker and daughter Hannah.

Upon graduation from Elmhurst College in Illinois, Ed enlisted in the Navy in 1965, reported to Officers Candidate School, received his commission as an Ensign, began flight training in 1966, and received his Wings of Gold in 1967. Over the next 20 years he accumulated 3,400 flight hours, 450 carrier landings, 220 combat missions over Vietnam, and one ejection over the Gulf of Tonkin. He also served as a flight instructor at Naval Air Station Kingsville, TX, and went through the Navy Fighter Weapons School known as TOPGUN twice, once as a fleet pilot and once as an adversary instructor pilot, where the Navy trained fleet fighter crews at the graduate level in aerial dogfight and airstrike tactics, techniques, procedures, and doctrine and all aspects of fighter weapons systems at the former Naval Air Station Miramar, nicknamed “Fightertown USA.” Ed’s duty stations included the USS Constellation and the USS Juneau as a Surface Warfare Officer. Ed was awarded 11 Air Medals “for extraordinary achievement and meritorious acts in aerial flight against the enemy,” the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V – 2, Naval and Armed Forces Expeditionary Medals, National Defense and Vietnam Service Medals, and the Vietnam Campaign Medal. Upon retiring from the Navy in 1987, Ed earned an MBA in Computer Management at National University in San Diego as his class of 1987 Valedictorian and ever since has worked at Hendrickson Appraisal Company in San Diego as a real estate appraiser. Ed has volunteered at PGA and PGA Champions Tour Golf Tournaments since 1995, including 23 years at the Hoag Classic as a walking scorer through 2020. Ed resides in San Diego with his wife of 50 years, Julie.

David is an internal medicine hospitalist at Hoag. Born in Taiwan, he immigrated with his family to America as a young boy. At an early age, he developed an admiration for the men and women of our nation’s military and the determination to someday serve his adopted country. After receiving his bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley, David received a Navy scholarship to New York Medical College, where he earned his Doctor of Medicine degree. He completed his internship at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego and was assigned as a Battalion Surgeon for the Combat Assault Battalion, 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa, Japan, providing general and acute care to more than 800 Marines and serving as Medical Advisor to the base Commanding Officer. He later served as Senior Medical Officer for the 1st Medical Battalion, 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, overseeing clinics providing medical care to 6,000 Marines. For his service, David was awarded the Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal. At Hoag, he has had many leadership roles, including as a member of the Medical Executive Committee and as vice-chairman of the Department of Hospital Medicine providing expert leadership and operational management for 15 full-time hospitalists at Hoag Irvine and Hoag Orthopedic Institute helping guide most activities of the hospitalist team, from recruiting new physicians, providing mentorship, and collaborating with nursing staff to seeking new ways to enhance the transition of care for patients. David resides in Irvine with his wife Amy and daughters Caitlyn and Cara.

Walter was a U.S. Army Air Corp pilot with the 434th Fighter Squadron and flew cover for Allied troops in the P-51 Mustang fighter during the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Normandy along the English Channel coast of Northern France. For his first 34 World War II combat missions, Walter flew Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft named the “fork-tailed devil” by the Luftwaffe. In aerial combat in his P-38, he shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 German fighter aircraft, the backbone of the Luftwaffe’s fighter force. He also destroyed 3 of the Bf 109 aircraft on the ground. By midsummer 1944 Walter’s squadron had switched to the P-51, an American-made long-range single-seat fighter aircraft that was able to reach Berlin from the French coast. In their P-51s, the 434th pilots did high altitude work escorting Allied bombers, and also engaged in dive bombing and strafing activity on the Rhine River in Germany. The pilots liked the P-51s, as “They were more maneuverable than the P-38s and had a longer range — eight hours,” Walter recalls. “Everything was smaller, closer at hand. When you got in one you felt like you were part of it.” Danger was always lurking. During a mission on October 30, 1944, three of the four planes in Walter’s flight group went down in a storm. Walter was the only one who got back. One of the downed pilots survived and was taken prisoner of war by the Germans. Walter returned home in December 1944 and left active duty with the rank of First Lieutenant but remained in the Air Force reserves for 25 years before retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. For his combat flight service Walter earned 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 6 Air Medals. Walter had a 30-year career at Republic Federal Savings in Southern California and served as President for 10 years and on the Board of Directors. Walter is 99 and resides in Newport Beach.

Ted enlisted in the Air Force after the attack on Pearl Harbor, serving as an aviator in the Pacific, including Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines. One-third of his fellow pilots were lost due to accidents, weather and enemy fire. Ted preferred single pilot P-40 fighters to bombers, but also flew A-20 Havoc light bombers in New Guinea against Japanese military assets in the region. In six P-40 missions, he never saw the enemy, describing it as “duck hunting without the ducks.” His 72 missions in the A-20 included photography flights using a camera mount he invented to capture combat events to show to the American public. Ted’s photo of a plane getting shot down over water was featured in several books on WWII aerial warfare. His photos were also used to sell war bonds. He served in the USAF Reserve until 1972. Ted’s decorations include a Distinguished Flying Cross, 2 Air Medals, a Bronze Star (for photography), and American Campaign, Asiatic-Pacific, World War II Victory, Philippine Liberation and National Defense Medals. Ted is 98 and resides in Newport Beach.

The day after John’s 19th birthday Pearl Harbor was attacked. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942 to train as a pilot, but due to a shortage of candidates in basic training he transitioned to navigation and received his wings as an Army Air Corp Navigation officer. Stationed in Tezpur, India from 1944 to 1946, John navigated 35 missions in B-24 Liberator bombers converted to fly gasoline “over the hump” to China and Burma, guiding his pilot using the stars, maps, a sexton, a compass, and Loran (Long range navigation, a hyperbolic radio navigation system developed during World War II) as their guide. The Army Air Corps separated from the Army in 1947 as the U.S. Air Force, John transitioned to the USAF reserves, and via the GI Bill earned a B.S. in Engineering at USC. In 1950 his reserve unit was called up for the Korean War. Stationed in Japan and Korea, John flew 73 missions in the Douglas B-26 Invader including on several hit by ground fire that sustained no major damage. Returning home, he served as a Radar Flight Instructor for the B-25 Mitchell bomber and re-entered the reserves to fly cargo transports on supply and training missions. John retired from the Air Force in 1975, remembers those who did not return from war as the “truest of heroes,” and meets regularly with veterans with whom he served who only ask that we “Always Remember” the sacrifices made. John’s medals include the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and Republic of Korea War Service Medal. John resides in Villa Park, at age 99 plays golf twice per week, frequently “shoots his age,” and is an exemplary member of the “The Greatest Generation.”

Dore graduated from UCSB (’71) and USC Keck School of Medicine (‘75), completed his Surgery Internship at LAC-USC Medical Center and residency at LAC-Harbor UCLA Medical Center, is an Associate Professor at UCI, served 12 years as Chief of Dermatology at Hoag, and since 1979 has practiced in Newport Beach including currently as Medical Director of Newport Dermatology & Laser Associates. He served 29 years on the Saddleback Unified School District board. In 2009 Dore enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 60 and requested a battlefield assignment in Afghanistan. In 2011 he put his practice on hold and his life at risk when deployed to a combat theater outside Kabul as a Brigade Surgeon responsible administratively at Camp Phoenix and 10 more-forward bases for the health of 10,000 troops, all health-care personnel, physician assignments, and setting up walk-in blood banks and clinically for training combat medics in the latest battlefield first-aid, particularly the use of tourniquets, as the most common cause of death in combat is bleed-out from wounds that might be stanched with better tourniquets or better instruction in their use. His decorations include the Afghan Campaign Medal with Campaign Bronze Star Device, and Joint Service Commendation, National Defense Service, Army Achievement (2), Army Service, Armed Forces Reserve, ISAF NATO, and Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medals, and an Army Overseas Ribbon.

On December 7, 1941 Lauren was a 21-year old fire controlman aboard the USS Arizona when Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor. He scrambled to the crow’s nest of Gun Turret No. 2 and began shooting back. The Arizona took a direct hit from a bomb killing most of its crew, the fire trapping Lauren and 5 gunnery mates. A sailor on the USS Vestal, also bombed and sinking, heaved a line that Lauren and mates secured. Dangling above the rising flames, all 6 crossed hand by hand to the Vestal, escaping death as the Arizona sank to her watery grave. After 7 months recovering from burns, Lauren was assigned to the destroyer USS Coghlan seeing action from the Aleutian Islands to the Philippines, including observing the return of General MacArthur to the Philippines. Lauren’s decorations include a Purple Heart, American Defense Service, China Service, Navy Occupation Service – Asia, World War II Victory, Navy Good Conduct, Asia Pacific Campaign and American Campaign Medals, and Combat Action and Philippine Liberation Ribbons. Of the Arizona’s 1,511 crewmen, 1,177 died in the explosion and fires. Of the 334 survivors of the attack, Lauren is 1 of 5 alive today and forever grateful he survived Pearl Harbor to live a full life. Lauren is 98 and resides in La Mirada.