Typhoons and Memories

 

1961 The Jungles of SouthEast Asia

Just a walk in the jungle

Ahh, the good ole days in French Indo-China.  Wading through rice paddies, fording rivers thick with leeches the size of banana slugs, feet so wet they begin to peel away the calluses earned in boot camp.  Backpack shoulder straps digging into your shoulders, canteens banging against your butt, weapons getting heavier the more the rain come down.  Boots sink into the mud and make sucking sound as they are wrenched out and into the next spot of mud.  Utilities so wet that sweat stains wash away. What isn't wet is dripping. 

In those days I smoked and kept my cigarettes in a two part plastic case.  They would still get damp so packs of matches were useless.  Only the Zippo lighter would work in the rain under a canopy of palm trees and bamboo.  Would have made a great commercial...huddled under a poncho, trying to keep the cigarette from being put out by the rain dripping off of everything, but the Zippo works.

BLU LIGHT

Not me.

After years of wandering around on our planet in the direct rays of our star called Sol, the accumulated affects of sunlight have finally had their way with me.  This is known as Actinic Keratoses.

If one lives beyond the age of 40 years and have one or more of the risk factors such as fair skin, blond or red hair particularly if combined with blue, hazel or green eyes, then you are eligible for AK.

October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

The train station in Oceanside California is very near the beach so as I alit from the Coast Starlight, I walked over to the beach and sat on a 4 foot tall pipeline that runs parallel along the beach.  I was returning from a few days annual leave having been visiting my parents up the coast in San Jose for a week. 

           

The early fall weather in southern California is almost always warm and balmy so I took advantage of not having to report in until the next day and sat down in front of the pipe, looking out at the setting sun rays... then I slept there through the night.

GUNS AND SWORDS

  -->

My first cap pistols

I have always been fascinated with guns.  As a child I was allowed to have play cap guns and eventually (around age 10) was allowed to have a BB gun long after I thought I was ready for one. With cap guns it was the action of loading a Cap pistol with a roll of cap material that was a ritual that simulated arming a real live gun.  Some of my young rich pals had cap guns that you could put a cap into a cartridge and then insert it into a cylinder that would make that definite bang/snap and surround us with the smell of burnt gunpowder.  I truly envied them.

Mess Hall Memory

 

Back in the days of the "old Corps" of the 1960's, SOP was the E-1's and E-2's were allowed to report to the Mess hall for a maximum of 30 days mess duty once in a year.

As a Boot buck private, I did not escaped mess duty at Camp Matthews the first week of rifle training and spent a week scrubbing out pots and pans and garbage cans.  I thought my mess duty time was over, wrong.

Memorial Day Civil War Reenactment

 

           The Civil War Reenactment at Roaring Camp.  Memorial Day 2012

It has been awhile since I've attended a reenactment of a battle between the states at the Roaring Camp facility in Scotts Valley, CA., so today was the day I had the time to see it again.

The site is a 15 minute drive from my house so there is not much of an excuse to not go due to distance but Memorial Day is not the easiest day to drive around a town that is a tourist Mecca beginning about this time of year.  But I bit the bullet and drove up to it expecting the worse of traffic.  Surprise, easy sailing.  Even the line to check in at the gate and pay to park was short.

DRUMMED OUT OF THE CORPS

  -->

It is no longer authorized to drum some one out of the Marine Corps and has not been for over 75 years.  So how does the Corps emphasize the dishonor of being kicked out?  The following is a true story, which can be attested to by my former Fire Team Leader.