mld, May 14, 2002 at 5:20:00 AM CEST

Snake-A-Licious

One of my first summer training exercises with the Marine Corps was in late 1979, when my unit, (Alpha Co., 4th Recon Battalion) was sent to 29 Palms, California, for a few weeks.

29 Palms is the largest base the Marines have in the States, and we use it for combined arms training. There are bases that have artillery ranges, and tank gun ranges, and bombing ranges, but it's the only one big enough to conduct combined arms training, that is, to let entire Marine battalions play with all their toys in large-scale live fire exercises. It's a bigass base.

There's not a lot for recon Marines to do there when your only form of transportation is the LPC. (the Leather Personnel Carrier, i.e., the boot) It's so hot you're burdened down with loads of water to just make it through a few days, in addition to all your regular combat load. Strap on a 100-120 lbs of shit on your back and start walking around in temps well over 110 degrees in the heat of the day. (Did I mention this was August?)

So, our involvement in the operation was limited to having a helicopter drop us off on top of this high rocky ridge to the west of Delta Corridor, the main drag where the mechanized combat teams would come parading up from south to north shooting shit up.

The shit to be shot was mostly tire targets, that is, old tires stacked up in piles to represent tanks and such. Some of them would have telephone poles sticking up from them; they were to represent anti-aircraft guns and missiles.

Our job was to observe the area, call in the cordinates of the targets for the tanks and arty and tac air, and give the pilots/gunners/etc. reports on the bomb damage.

Sounds a lot more exciting than it was, as by far the largest portion of that time was just sitting around waiting for something to happen. We weren't supposed to move around much, as we were supposed to be snoopin' and poopin' so the Bad Guys wouldn't see us. Not that we wanted to move much anyway, in the heat.

And it was hot. And dusty. And rocky and uncomfortable. So we just hunkered down, spread our ponchos and parachute panels out for concealment and shade.

Problem was, the damn place was crawling with snakes. Big fat rattlesnakes. There was just about one under every rock, I kid you not. The evenings were when they came out in force. They mostly hid during the day.

We got sick of almost getting bitten seventy-six times a day. We also got sick of eating c-rats, which never took long. I suggested one morning that we vary our diet with some roasted snake. While we didn't have any wood, or means to make a fire other than our little heat tabs for heating coffee, not that we would have anyway since we were 'sposed to be invisible, I was sure that they'd cook just fine on any of the lovely flat rocks we were surrounded by. Nature's own solar griddle.

So the hunt was on. We had entrenching tools, and rifle butts. In short order we had a few dozen rattlesnakes skinned and broiling in the sun. They weren't bad either, though there's not a lot of meat on them, once you put a bit of hot sauce on them. (You learned real early in the Corps to toss some hot sauce and a few green onions in your pack, The added weight was negligible, and it made a world of difference when you were eating C's)

The CO and the company gunny did give us some strange looks when we got off the choppers back in the company area wirh snakeskin headbands wrapped around our helmets. Our squad leader, Sgt. Steele, (that really was his name) explained that he had used the down time up there at the observation post as a good time to conduct some training on field expedient survival techniques.

The CO looked at the gunny. The gunny looked at the CO.

"Carry on, sergeant."

As we say in the Corps, it's always easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. :-)

 

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mld, May 13, 2002 at 5:28:00 AM CEST

Mountain Man

"This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere: the dew is never all dried at once: a shower is forever falling, vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."

John Muir

While in the Corps, I spent time one summer on voluntary active duty at Bridgeport, California. I was an instructor at the Mountain Warfare Training Center. This base is high up in the Sierra Nevadas, northeast of Sacramento, waaaay out in the boonies. The base camp there, Pickel Meadows, is over six thousand feet, and the training areas has peaks that reach twelve thousand. Snow remains on them year round.

That's me in the middle... I taught Marines basic rock-climbing, which is completely different from sport climbing. There's no emphasis on climbing "clean" - when you're fighting a war, you just want to get from point to point as quickly and easily as possible, so assisted climbing using ropes is the order of the day.

On the weekends, when on liberty, most of the Jarheads would head for the fleshpots (the closest one was Reno) to soak up some beer and hookers. The company first sergeants would set up chartered buses for the trips. We called them the Poontang Express. :-)

Believe it or not, I never went. :-) Figured I could get enough of that when I got back to Houston.

Most of the time I'd just hike up to some mountain meadow, carrying next to nothing. Just a knife, some matches, a poncho and a blanket for the chilly nights.

The base is thousands of acres in the middle of a national forest, so there may not have been another human for miles.

Up Above The Snowline

I'd hang out, read a paperback or two, and nap naked in the sun. I'd catch little eight inch brook trout on a handline, and roast them on a stick with the little wild onions you could find up there. I drank from the natural springs that welled up from the hillsides, putting my lips right to the little hole in the earth where the water gushed out and sucking it down straight from Mother Earth like a baby hanging on his mother's nipple. Which, of course, in the largest sense, I was.

I took my camera a few times, an old Pentax Spotmatic. I set the delay and took a coupla pics of me up there. Once, on a lark, up above the line where the snow sits all year, I took some nekkid pics in the afternoon sun. Even so, that high up, it was chilly, so the "shrinkage" factor came into play. I've resisted the urge to ummm... retouch the photo. As I said the other day, in my discussion of being totally transparent online, once you're naked on the internet, what's left to hide? :-)

Those dozen or so days were some of the most tranquil in my life. I remember thinking, "Geez, I'm getting paid to do this."

All good things come to an end, though, and it was soon time to return to the real world.

After months of that outdoor life, living at altitude, hiking sometimes well above the treeline to ten and eleven thousand feet, when my plane landed back in Houston, the air felt so thick and full of oxygen it was like I had to remind myself to take a breath every minute or so.

Those days instilled in me a love of mountain country that has never left me all these long years later. Had I not such strong family ties here on the Gulf Coast, I think I would have left long ago to return to them.

 

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