The time I spent in the Marine Corps did provide me with many stories. The last couple of blogs and a conversation with my granddaughter reminded me of a couple more incidents. After boot camp I was assigned to duty at a company based at Camp Pendleton. Pendleton is a huge place, 125,000 acres or 9 square miles. It lies north of San Diego roughly between San Clemente and Oceanside. Pendleton has 17 miles of undeveloped ocean front that Marines use to practice ship to shore exercises.
Infantry training was conducted on the hills of the camp and that’s the setting for one of the stories. There was a lot of slang in the Marines. For example trucks selling soda, sweets, etc. that are seen by factories, would appear in the parking lot by the barracks on weekends. The slang for what they were selling was ‘geedunk’. “The geedunk truck is here!” Then there were those that civilians would call “know it alls.” In the Corps these Marines were called “sea lawyers.” They always were the fount of information about everything and were always wrong.
Out in the hills on maneuvers one of these ‘sea lawyers’ made a painful mistake. A six inch rattlesnake fell into his foxhole. This macho Marine whipped out his bayonet and pinned the snake’s head to the ground. So far so good. Then he took the snake by the tail and released its head. The snake immediately swung around and struck him on the hand. Evacuated to the Navy Hospital, our sea lawyer, spent a couple of weeks recovering.
On a Saturday a Marine went to the ocean beech. This very fair skinned guy fell asleep on the beach, in full sun, for eight hours. He too spent two weeks in the hospital recovering from third degree burns.
Takk for alt,
Al
The hills of Camp Pendleton.
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