From the Garand to the Sand

The Marine Corps has a unique system of placing the right people in he right jobs------"You, you, you, you and YOU!"

Upon graduation from San Diego, I found myself slated to be a supplyman initially. I was deeply disappointed, because I enlisted in this outfit to pack a weapon and go "kill a commie for mommie", not shove crates around in a warehouse.

But after you were in for a year, you could apply for the infantry, if that's what you really wanted to do, so I'd have to put up with 12 months of supply first.

No matter WHERE you were going, you went to Camp Pendleton first. Our D.I.'s made sure we got on the "cattle cars" with all of our gear (except rifles), and they took us 35 miles north to Camp Pendleton.

Camp Pendleton is a HUGE base! Has to be, because of the artillery ranges, tank tracks, landing beaches at Del Mar and such. It is made up of a network of smaller camps. We were sent to Camp San Onofre, for what they called ITR (Infantry Training Regiment). Confusing at first-------about 70% of us were being assigned to various infantry units, but the OTHER 30% were going somewhere else-------so why we we ALL going to ITR?

Oh well........."ours is not to reason why" as they say........

It is at Pendleton, where you learn why the physical training was so hard at San Diego. Some of the hills you're going to hike are almost straight up!, and the rolling hills go on for miles! As far as I was concerned, it was just another 6 weeks of "P.T.". I still thought it was a waste of time for me, because I wasn't going to use "squad tactics" in a supply warehouse. The sooner I could get to supply school, the sooner that "year" would be OVER, and I'd be able to cross train, where the Pendleton training WOULD be of use!

Th most "dreaded climb", was that trek up "Old Smokey", whenever our Platoon Sergeant got the urge. It was almost straight up in places, and was called "Old Smokey" because of the early morning fog off the pacific coast that would sometimes swirl around at the top of the mountain and appear to be smoke from a forest fire or something.

Every 5 to 8 years, I still manage to get to Pendleton, to re-stock on Marine logo T-shirts, hats, etc. Part of each visit, is a drive back to San Onofre and a climb up "smokey" again, but the last time I climbed it was in 2003 at the age of 55. Dressed in just a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, it took me 44 minutes to make the top, and I thought I was gonna die by the time I made the summit. I've not done it again since. Brought back a quartz rock from the top and it's sitting in my display case today, (because I have no intentions of ever climbing that hill again.

In 1966, we double-timed it in formation----full gear----packs, rifles, everything-----------to the top-------18 minutes. That was THEN.

The 6 weeks at San Onofre DID have its "perks", though. We were issued the older M-1 Garands for our training, and I'd finally got to handle the fabled old World War II/Korea "warhorse" that had become the basis for the M-14, years later.

THESE particular M-1's had been around since Korea, but old as they were, they still shot like new. You could clearly see why the Marines & Army didn't want anything else touched but what they asked for-----when the M-14 was being designed.

I LOVED the old Garand. It was already a part of history, and every time you touched a round off, the added recoil from the old 30.06 cartridge reminded you of what you had in your hands. The rifle impressed me to the point that I have one of my own today, and still shoot it occasionally.

I was in Yankee ("Y" Company) at San Onofre, and after graduation, we all got to go home on leave for the first time since we'd left home. From our homes, we'd all be reporting back to wherever we were being sent. Most of the guys would be going back to Pendleton. As a "supplyman" (I still hated that term), I'd be going straight to supply school, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

North Carolina? All the way to the EAST COAST? THAT didn't make a bit of sense------------(must have been a "government operation")........SURELY a camp as big as Pendleton would have had a "supply school of SOME sort there!

I left San Jose, after a nice visit home with the homefolks, but had to cut the leave short because there was a nationwide airline strike going on. I would have to take a GREYHOUND now, all the way from California to North Carolina, and it would be at LEAST a 4-5 day trip, so I had to cut my leavetime a little short, to be able to get to LeJeune on time. Long bus ride in the late summer.

After my oourse at "Humidville USA", I was being assigned to the Marine Corps Supply Center in Barstow, California------------out in the Mojave Desert! (This was yet ANOTHER reason I couldn't figure out why they had sent me all the way back east for school, just to bring me back out to California again!).

THAT was interesting......... shortly after I was assigned to a barracks, I WAS issued an M-14. No ammo for it, nor a range to shoot it on..........but I HAD one! That was SOMETHING anyway!

It wasn't all that bad, though. I worked in pickup & delivery, made a few friends, pulled KP duty from time to time. I remember a particular trip to Nebo one morning. The Barstow base complex was split up into two sectors...........YERMO, where most of the base was, and NEBO, where most of the warehouses were, with about a 3-mile stretch of road between them. Along this 2-lane lonely stretch of road, was a phone booth, right out in the middle of nowhere.

Ron Patrick & I were headed for Nebo one morning in the supply pickup, when he forgot one of the places we were supposed to stop. So we pulled up to that phone booth, and he called back to the shop, got the info, hung up, and started laughing on his way back to the truck.

"What's so funny?" I asked him. "Go take a look at the little sign over the top of that phone!" he says.

Now the base had its very own phone system and the base is so small, every phone only has a 3-digit number. All of the "base-only" phones were FREE of course, including THIS one.

I got out of the truck, stepped into that phone booth, and just above the phone, there was a neatly printed, framed sign that read "IF OUT OF ORDER-------CALL EXT 398"

This phone was out in the middle of NOWHERE. If you were broke down out there, steam coming out of your radiator or something, and that phone wasn't working------HOW were you gonna call "398"?---------there were no cell phones around in 1967!.............and there wasn't a whole lot of traffic on that road either!

The "richest" Lance Corporal at Barstow was a friend of mine, Jim Cheek. I made $88.00 a month as a Buck Private. When I had left Pendleton as a PFC (Private First Class----1 stripe), I think the pay was around $103 a month then. Cheek was making a little more than THAT as a Lance Corporal, but not much more.

But his Dad owned a big trucking company up north in Redding, California, and was independently wealthy. So wealthy, he gave Jim a really NEAT birthday present. Cheek had a very nice little '63 Ford Falcon 2-door Sprint with the small block "260" in it.

Unknowingly to HIM, his dad had purchased a fully-built "ready-to-drop-in" "289" Cobra powerplant, DIRECTLY from Shelby-American, and had it waiting on the hoist, the very next time Jim drove home on leave! It was the same engine that went into the little Cobra roadsters that had been blowing the Corvettes off the road.

It was a very different little car when he reported back in to Barstow for duty. He'd left the "260" badging on the front fenders, but it was all "Carroll Shelby" under the hood, and it came as a very nasty surprise to some of the local guys with "bigger iron!"

The car had ALWAYS had dual exhaust and glass-packs to give it that throaty sound, and the mag wheels to make it "LOOK" the part------but it was no longer "all show & no-go!"

I've often wondered if he still has it, or if it's wrapped around a tree someplace.

ANYHOW. Time rolled around, and I guess by this time, we'd lost enough guys in "Nam to where they needed some more, so it was no problem at all getting out of Barstow NOW, and into the INFANTRY, where I would stay for the rest of my enlistment.

I've always been a pretty "black & white" individual. 1-track minded sometimes, and as far as I was concerned back then, if you're gonna be in the Marines, it needs to be with a daily supply of ammo, and bad guys to eliminate. Sure, we needed supply people to PROVIDE that ammo & other stuff, but I didn't want to be one of them, and now I was finally getting what I wanted.