With the radical weather change on this Veteran’s Day, perhaps a weather related story from the Marines would be appropriate. When I checked the weather app the recorded symmetry of 22 degrees and 22 mph wind was striking.
While stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California we were shipped to two weeks of cold weather training. The cold weather station was in Sierra Nevada Mountains not far from Lake Tahoe. The accommodations were not resort quality but were squad tents heated with an oil burning stove. The last town we passed on the way to the camp was Bridgeport.
“The Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, (MCMWTC) is one of the Corps’ most remote and isolated posts. The MCMWTC conducts formal schools for individuals and battalion training in summer and winter mountain operations. The training emphasizes development of both individual and unit mountain skills with primary emphasis on enhancing overall combat capability.” National Geographic
It quickly became apparent the difference between Marines who’d lived in the north with ice and snow and those who hadn't. At Bridgeport we left the buses which had brought us from Camp Pendleton. Deuce and half trucks transported us up the twisting mountain road to MCMWTC. Arriving in camp the trucks stopped in the icy parking lot. First off the truck was a Marine who spent his life in Southern California. He jumped from the truck to the icy parking lot and fell flat. It was his first experience of icy ground.
Takk for alt,
Al
Today the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal noted Trump’s perfect record of electoral defeat and said: “Trump is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.” Heather Cox-Richardson
Two Marine corporals, Camp Hansen, Okinawa 1962.
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