Sorry...I have difficulty reading text that's not in crayon.
I missed it too at first. Didn't read the entire first paragraph because I couldn't wait to get to Greg Derr's photos! And as I scrolled down and saw the front sight photo, I was like "wow, what's that?"
It's a beautiful pistol—much better than probably any other USMC firearm I've seen—but once I was done admiring the photos, I'd have moved on... except the post right before yours also caught my attention:
The Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal is very rarely awarded these days.
I said to myself, "Hey, I have one of those, and I didn't know it was particularly special." I looked at the Marine Corps display of my ribbons/medals here in my home and also at my DD-214 just to be sure. Then I had to do a little research, and now I know why I have it even though I didn't do anything heroic to earn it.
Anyway, I guess I'm a crayon-eater too (we never used that term), but that's why I stayed in this thread long enough to finally read all of the OP, and then I could answer your question.
I'd love to have a pistol like that, and as Paul Harvey would have said, "Now you know the rest of the story."