2^nd Class Cruise finished off with an introduction to the Marine Corps. We proceeded across the bay from Coronado to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at San Diego California. Just as if we were recruits we arrived by bus. We were greeted by our Drill Instructor (DI) before we even left the bus. Had we not been exposed to DIs before, this would have been a truly frightening experience.

This imposing Marine jumps on the bus yelling and screaming, insulting us individually and as a group. We are ordered out of the bus and told to take our places on footprints painted on the pavement. This would be our fist introduction to a formation, had we actually been recruits. Then we are told that our next stop was to be the barbershop for a Marine Haircut.

Since we were not recruits we were not going to be subjected to the same treatment that actual recruits would have been. We were to be given the flavor of recruit training. When we proceeded to the barbershop we were given the option of having a haircut or not. Since we had been in training for several weeks at this point some of the Middies actually took them up on this offer. It was mainly those that had planned on going into the Marine Corps who chose to get the haircuts, this was 1965 after all. Although most of us had what was then considered extremely short haircuts the recruit haircut was a bit much for most of us when given an option.

Another advantage we were to have would be living conditions. Instead of living in the Quonset Huts that was the centerpiece of the Gomer Pyle Show we were to live on the other side of the GRINDER (the large paved drill field) from the recruits. We had been exposed to the recruit type living at Coronado and now were back to the more deluxe 6 and 8 man rooms we had become familiar with in Texas. We were, of course, subject to the guidance of our Drill Instructor in our life style.

We were given instruction in how the recruits were trained, rather than receiving the actual classes that they did. Our prior training had covered most of the same things that the recruits learn. We did, however, have a chance to practice our marching and calisthenics. We also had a chance to do some hand to hand combat training. This training was all about using both ends of your rifle in fighting and was based upon the old rifles and bayonets of WW II. While good exercise and good for building confidence in your ability to go one on one with an enemy if necessary. The M-16 (standard individual weapon) is not quite as suitable for hand to hand combat as it’s predecessor, however, modern combat is less likely to result in hand to hand.

After a week of instruction at MCRD we were ready to move on to the next level of Marine training ITR (Infantry Training Regiment). All Marines, regardless of Rank or specialty, are considered infantrymen and must be trained as such. This got us into some down and dirty training.

This training took place up the coast from San Diego. We traveled there by Cattle Car (an 18-wheeler with a lowered body and seats installed). Our first briefing at infantry school was by a Marine officer who, among other things, stated that the idea behind Marine training was to "… remove all that is inside a man and rebuild him the way the Marine Corps wants him".

This summer was showing us how they went about that procedure. Our dixie cup hats were replaced by combat helmets. These were the steel pots with helmet liners that separated our thin sculls from the rough, heavy outer covering. These were the World War II helmets, not the modern lightweight ones. Good for the neck muscles.

Our living accommodations at ITR were to be varied and interesting. We would live in Quonset Huts, tents, bare ground, foxholes, and transport ships on different nights. Our first couple of nights was in the Huts as we went to classes to learn a little about what we were to do for the remainder of the training period. We were taught a little about tactics at the platoon and squad level. We learned a bit a bit about the care and maintenance of our primary weapon. At this time the primary weapon was the M1, The M16 was being phased into service in Vietnam, but was plagued with problems with jamming at the time. The M1 fired a shell that was standardized throughout the NATO nations. This permitted us to exchange ammo with our allies. I was told, but I really never checked on it, that the Soviets used ammo that was just a little bit bigger, so we could not use their ammo, but they could theoretically use ours.

The next period consisted of a lot of marching through the scrub and hills to watch various demonstrations, including close air support. In this demonstration we sat in bleachers and watched a Marine platoon move towards a target with all kinds of sound effects of weapons including mortars. Then they called in an aircraft that dropped napalm on the target surprisingly close to the "good" guys.

We slept in tents during this period and kept marching for miles to see and do other things. One of the things we did was a "live fire crawl". This was a bit like the crawling under barbed wire we did on obstacle courses. There were a few rather significant differences. This course was up and down small bumps, and around or over logs and other obstacles and was about 100 feet long. One other detail, there were machineguns firing live rounds over the course. It was a pretty good incentive to keep your head and butt down. Long afterwards we learned that the machineguns were fixed so that they could not fire lower than 3 feet above the highest point in the course, a quite reasonable safety margin. If someone were stupid enough to stand up, of course, they would stop firing.

Another event we had was to experience firing every weapon available to the marines. This was quite a bit of fun and a unique experience. The only trouble I ran into was when I was firing the M60 machine gun. We were taking turns firing short bursts of 5 or 10 rounds at a time from the prone position (lying on your stomach). When it was my turn the first burst went well, the second time I let up on the trigger, however, it continued to fire. Before I even had time to think about it a DI had jumped on my back to insure the weapon didn’t move and broke the ammo belt to stop the weapon.

Our next adventure was in the land of booby traps. This was the height of the Vietnam War and we needed to be shown how dangerous souvenir hunting could be. They had a typical Vietnamese home set up as if it had been recently abandoned. It was, of course, completely wired. No matter what you moved or touched there was bound to be a boom. It was however quite enlightening in the range of triggering devices that they had rigged. We were then treated to a lesson in how explosive devices could be made from the litter of a battlefield and demonstrations of the effects of various explosives. Lots of flying dirt and smoke cemented our appreciation of explosions of everything from home made black powder to C4 plastic and detonating chord.

Next we were to be introduced an amphibious landing. We were ferried out to various types of ships off the coast for the nigh and do a landing in the morning. I was assigned to an APA, and Attack Transport. Basically, this is a cargo ship that was converted to carry up to 1500 Marines and their equipment. It also carried a supply of landing craft that we would be using to land on the beach.

We spent the night in the cramped quarters that the marines would spend many nights in before a real landing. When we were awakened at what we called 0-dark-30, a generalized indication of too damn early, we got dressed, put on our helmets and big bulky Kopeck lifejackets and grabbed our riffles. We managed to wolf down our breakfast and proceeded to our assigned station on the main deck and waited. We waited while we were checked for readiness, we waited while the boats were lowered into the water, we waited while the boats were prepared, we waited forever.

Then it was time to board our boat. Our physical conditioning would now be put to use. We had slung our rifles to our back. The helmet and the bulky lifejacket through our center of gravity off a bit and we had to go down the side of the ship on a cargo net. The worst part was at the bottom of the net. The boat we were to board was a "MIKE" boat. This is the type of boat you often see in WWII movies with the front that opens and everyone runs out. Unfortunately, these boats were built to get people as close to possible to land and were not very good in the waves. The flat bottom tended to make them bounce a lot on the waves. You had to make sure that you didn’t get your legs below the highest point the boat rose to. If you did get to low you risk getting your legs crushed. If you don’t get low enough your jump may end in a rapid collision with the deck of the boat.

Once you manage to get your feet on the boat you have to clear the area as fast as possible and get down into the troop area before the next guy tries to jump aboard. As you load the troop area you move as far forward as possible to permit new arrivals to get in. Once the boat was loaded it pulled away from the ship and instead of making a run for the beach goes into a large circle of other boats until all the boats are loaded. These boats are pure function, you stand the entire time you are aboard. From the troop area you can see nothing but the door ahead of you which will fall away and serve as a ramp out of the boat. The boat really bounces and slams. The circling seems to be going on forever, guys are getting seasick and smells are building up. You keep hoping for a wave to splash over the side to cool you down. This is the way over a million men went into battle. This was really hard to believe I guess just getting out of the boat was a relief.

We finally had all of the boats full and the signal to head for the beach finally arrived. We ran a final check of our rifles and made sure we had our blank magazines loaded. At least the motion of the boat was a bit more uniform. Before too long the word was passed to standby to hit the beach. When the bow door dropped down we were to run out and spread across the beach in a prone position to start fighting. It didn’t quite work that way. For some reason our boat did not get quite as close to the shore as desired. As we dashed of the bow ramp we didn’t land on sand, instead we appeared to be in water that was over our heads. In reality it wasn’t quite that deep, but the combination of the big lifejacket and heavy helmet pushed us over onto our backs and prevented our feet from touching bottom. After a bit of a struggle I managed to find the bottom and managed to help a few of the other guys get their bearings. We proceeded to slog our way onto the beach and take up a firing position just behind a rise in the sand that would give us some protection from incoming fire. Once you establish a position and get a bit of control you have to get out of the lifejacket without getting shot. The obvious way is to roll yourself out of it, but you have been tied into the thing for hours, you are soaking wet, and the straps that tie it on you are knots by this time and filled with sand.

You struggle to untie the jacket while keeping control of you weapon and firing as necessary. Eventually you manage to free yourself from the jacket and find that you have almost completely covered yourself in gritty wet sand from head to toe. Then the word comes to move forward. Is this any way to fight a war?

I gained a lot from that day’s training and can only imagine how absolutely terrorizing it must be when combined with real incoming fire and seeing people around you getting killed or injured. For the sake of time our entire amphibious assault took only 24 hours and was on a nice Southern California beach. Not quite the same as a real operation, but we sure got an idea of what it is like to be involved at that level.

After we got dried off and had a decent night’s sleep under the stars we were put into the next phase of war for an infantryman. We were to hold fixed positions against enemy assaults. Again we were cut some slack, the foxholes we were to fight from were already dug. They were lovely two man holes in the earth that could even allow one of the two to get a bit of sleep if he curled up just right. And the tarantulas were no extra charge.

It seemed that the scrub hills of Southern California are filled with these four-inch critters, at least the part we were in was. They provided a lot of entertainment during the hours of sitting in that hole in the ground waiting for the next attack. Evidently the idea was to see how quickly we responded to the bad guys sneaking up on us. The first 8 hours or so we just fired wildly, more or less constantly until we realized we were just wasting ammo. Ammo, by the way, was essentially endless for our M1’s and one Middy was constantly busy running supplies of blanks to each foxhole. Once we realized we need not fire for the sake of firing things got very boring and quiet for long periods of time. That’s when it was discovered that if you moved two male spiders close enough to see each other they would fight for a while. Yes, this was before animal rights awareness and it was more ritual than actual fighting. We were bored until there was some movement in the scrub or someone started firing somewhere on the line.

Learning firing discipline took a while but we had a much better idea after 24 hours in the field. The futility of firing all the time was followed rather quickly by realizing that firing just because others did was equally useless. Eventually we discovered that it was best to at least feel you had a target. We were hit by legitimate only about 50% of the times we thought we were, and those were mostly at night, which made sense too. If you were trying to sneak up on someone would you choose the daylight or the cover of night.

That pretty well wound up our summer of ‘introductions to options’. We had been exposed to a lot of information on a lot of different subjects. Even for the majority, who would chose surface Navy, the lessons we learned would be invaluable. We had learned the importance of physical fitness, we never would have made it through our last few weeks of training without the preceding weeks of physical preparation. We learned how quickly and effectively a person placed in charge can take control of a group of people. We learned how much more effective we could be when working as a team than working as individuals. We learned how much more our bodies and minds could take than we ever though possible. We learned the joy of flight and the misery of being a soldier assigned to an amphibious landing. We learned to appreciate what it is like not to know what was going on around you. We learned what it was to be tired, cold and scared. We learned a lot about weapons and how to use them. It was a very good experience.

I confirmed my feeling that I wanted to be a pilot and reaffirmed my feelings that I didn’t wish to exercises my option of becoming a Marine Officer. It was a good summer that I happily finished up by returning to the Cape for the remainder of the time before classes resumed.