Local & State Headlines

Guard changes at MCLB

• The senior enlisted leader at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany steps down from his post.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Sgt. Maj. Randall D. Kennedy’s 30-year Marine Corps career began and ends in Albany, where he stepped down Friday as the senior enlisted officer at Marine Corps Logistics Base.

Kennedy thanked base commander Col. Christian Haliday and civilian and Marine Corps personnel that staff the various components of the base, as well as his family, during an elaborate relief and appointment ceremony at the base.

“Thank you for buying into the notion of one team, one fight,” he said. “It is... our combined effort that made this installation what it is.”

He expressed gratitude to family members, including his grandmother, who was living when Kennedy was assigned to MCLB in 2006, but died in February at age 87.

“She was a strong, proud woman, responsible for much of the upbringing that I have. A lot of these foundations that are a part of me were embedded by her,” he said.

An Albany native, Kennedy joined the Marine Corps in 1978. He served in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, Quantico, Va. and Okinawa, Japan, and participated in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm from August 1990 to March 1991 as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Kennedy thanked his sister, “for being here and doing all those things I was unable to do because I was traveling around the world being a Marine,” his uncle for returning home from Vietnam, another uncle, his brothers, cousins, and his wife Jewel.

His sons, ages 16 and 13, could not attend the ceremony because they were at summer programs at George Washington and Johns Hopkins universities.

“Two fine young men,” Kennedy said. “It has nothing to do so much with bloodline, but has everything to do with what my beautiful bride does in my absence.”

Troops marched and performed demonstrations with their weapons at the start of the ceremony, before Kennedy would ceremonially pass a sword to his replacement, Sgt. Maj. Scott C. Mykoo.

“From this day to the ending of the world, we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy, we band of brothers. For he today, that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother,” said Haliday, quoting Shakespeare’s Henry V.

Kennedy served as an adviser and mentor to Marines, Haliday said.

“A few of us will not forget his thundering attitude adjustment sessions,” he said.

Most of all, Kennedy was a leader, Haliday said.

“That is probably the best title a Marine can be given,” he said. “He did it by example. He walked the walk... Sgt. Maj. Kennedy was the enlisted leader that every young Marine should strive for throughout their career.”

Kennedy will officially retire Aug. 8.

More Headlines>>