SEMPER FI; MARINE VETERAN GETS ATTENTION ON TURNING 105.

Byline: Donna Huffaker Staff Writer

He's been honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps for nearly 80 years and still, Arpiar Missakian's wave swirls into a salute when he says goodbye to a crowd.

Missakian, who at age 105 is among the world's oldest living former Marines, received his own salute Wednesday with a letter of commendation from the commandant of the Marine Corps, who wished the Glendale resident a belated happy birthday.

The framed letter, presented by a member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association, was supposed to be presented to Missakian at a celebration of the Marine Corps' 224th birthday last month. Missakian, however, suffered a heart attack, underwent a successful and record-breaking angioplasty at Glendale Adventist Medical Center and has been hospitalized ever since.

Flanked by family members and doctors, Missakian smiled from his wheelchair as camera flashes popped and said only, ``Thank you a lot'' and ``a thousand welcomes.'' Missakian's son, Andy, said his centenarian father is no stranger to media attention.

Earlier this month, a heart attack plunged the 105-year-old into the limelight when Dr. Jivan Melikian successfully performed an angioplasty, a balloon procedure that clears clogged arteries to the heart. The surgery proved to Melikian that age alone should not be a factor as to whether a doctor should operate.

``He's in excellent condition. He has the heart of an 80-year-old,'' Melikian said. Missakian, he said, was going to be discharged from the hospital Wednesday afternoon and moved to Autumn Hills Health Care Center in Glendale for rehabilitation.

On Nov. 10, the Marine Corps' birthday and the day of his surgery, was the day he was supposed to receive the commandant's letter wishing him a happy birthday. Missakian's birthday was Sept. 10.

In the letter, Commandant James Jones thanks Missakian for his service, his sacrifices and for helping uphold his country's traditions.

Missakian, who in 30 days will have touched three centuries, joined the Marines in June 1921 after he lost his job at a steel mill in Pittsburgh to returning World War I veterans. He served as a rifle instructor in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, and Quantico, Va., before illness forced him to be discharged in 1924.

He then returned to his native Syria, where he had studied dentistry before emigrating to the United States in 1920. In Syria, he worked the fields and ran a winery until he and his wife traveled to America in 1946. They moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a metal plater until his retirement in 1965.

Smiling widely at the his centenarian dad, Andy marveled at the family's genes - Arpiar Missakian's father lived to be more than 100 years old and died only after falling off a camel - and the fact that at 105 years old, Missakian's mind and heart still belong to the Marine Corps.

Waving goodbye to doctors and reporters, Missakian's right hand rose to a salute.

``Once a Marine, always a Marine,'' Andy Missakian said.

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Photo: A U.S. Marine from 1921 to 1924, Arpiar Missakian salutes after being praised by the Corps.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer