Before departing for Iwoto, Japan, in March, very few on Camp Pendleton knew who he was. But thanks to a story on the front page of Stars and Stripes and a lieutenant whose father happened to fly Joe Caminiti and Post Historian Neal Supranovich on one of the legs to Iwoto, they would soon learn of Joe's painting in the Amphibious Mechanized Museum.
When Joe and Neal got home, they had a message to call a colonel on Pendleton - important. It turned out that officers from the Amphibious Training School had gone to the museum and try to remove the painting for their school. Since it was donated to the museum, they were unable to do it.
Thus, they asked for a copy. American Legion Post 2 stepped in and arranged for a copy for the unit. The artist, Don Scott, once it was ready hand-carried it from upper New York State where he lives to Connecticut for Joe to sign. Due to a mix-up on the mailing address, it had not been sent.
A call arrived by Dwight Hanson, a friend of the school's commander. It turned out that that Thursday the commander was stepping down and a new commander was taking command. They wanted to know where the copy was, wondering if it was possible to have it there for the change of command.
Here it was Monday. Dwight arranged a next-day pick-up of the unframed copy on Tuesday morning. Due to bad weather the copy did not arrive in Dwight's hands until Thursday morning. He rushed out and had it framed. He hand-carried the framed, signed copy to the Change of Command Ceremony on Camp Pendleton, arriving on time. The painting was donated to the United States Marine Corps for the Amphibious Training School. Now there are two copies of American Legion member Joseph Caminiti, World War II Iwo Jima survivor and Guam liberator.
There are now six known copies of Joe paintings throughout America.