Dan Burton
"A Hollywood Marine in the Delta"
Dan Burton is a solid example of someone who migrated to the Delta after their service. In Dan’s case, it was the ideal place to retire. Dan was born in 1948 and was raised in San Diego a few years after the end of WWII. By 1967, the Vietnam War was in full swing, fueling Dan’s desire to enlist in the Marine Corps. Dan did his abridged (shortened) basic training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) in San Diego. Due to the high number of casualties being sustained in Vietnam, it was quite common to shorten training cycles to backfill the dead and wounded coming out of the war zone. To the uninitiated, Marines who train at MCRD are known as ‘Hollywood Marines,’ and Dan Burton fits the bill to a ‘T’. In his book, Loon: A Marine Story, author Jack McLean (USMC), describes Burton: “Dan was California. He had a surfer's body and an easy going manner…”. By November of the same year, Private First Class (PFC) Burton was deployed to Vietnam with 1st battalion 4th Marines, supporting Operation Robin North at a place called Landing Zone (LZ) Loon. Over the course of three days, his unit lost forty-four Marines to combat action. On the last day, his unit engaged the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in a sustained firefight from 0430 until 1700 (4:30 am to 5:00 pm), when their position was overrun by the enemy and his unit was subsequently extracted from LZ Loon via helicopter. By December of 1968, Dan rotated out of Vietnam, and by his own account, doesn't remember much of the immediate aftermath of LZ Loon due to being caught in the fog of war. Dan left the service shortly after his combat rotation.
Having completed his life with the Marines, Burton slowly migrated his family north, settling in San Jose for several years. By 2009, he found himself ready to retire and was looking for the ideal place to do so. He eventually decided that the California Delta was the place for him and his family. They eventually settled in Mountain House, a new commuter town springing up from the former agricultural fields of Tracy and Byron. Formerly known as “Zimmerman’s Mountain House,” it was once a trading stop between the gold claims of the El Dorado hills and San Francisco.
Due to his love for all things nautical, Burton felt as though one of the prerequisites of settling near the Delta entailed owning a boat of his very own. One of the things that drew him to the Delta was the access to a body of water combined with the diverse, laid-back nature that seemed to perpetuate there. “The Bay Area is so fast-paced and competitive. I was looking for an oasis to retire to and we found it here.” Presently, Burton still enjoys boating along the Delta waterways and taking advantage of the island resorts, ample fishing, and water skiing.