The Vanguard made its first trip to the East Coast in 1969. At their first VFW Nationals in Philadelphia, the corps finished in thirteenth place of the sixty-three corps, just missing Finals. The members then visited Washington, D.C., where the corps played their musical program on the steps of the Capitol Building, and New York City. In the corps' second "major" show of the season, SCV placed ninth of the forty-one corps in Class A at the U.S. Open in Lynn, Massachusetts. Santa Clara closed out the Sixties by beating every other major corps in the country in 1970; they lost to several corps, but repaid those losses with wins. Finances prevented the corps from attending VFW Nationals in Miami, but the corps traveled in their own automobiles to Portland, Oregon for the American Legion Nationals, where they defeated 21 mostly West Coast corps to win the 1970 American Legion Junior National Championship.