Friday, April 25, 2008

Memories

I was reading about an unlucky gent whose last earthly vision was of something a little higher up the food chain than he was, in the waters off Solana Beach, California. Sorry, Dude...

Anyway, I haven't thought much about Solana Beach in the last forty years, and not an awful lot before that.

Solana Beach was kinda notorious among Marines. It was a very small town, located right on Hwy. 101 which was the main north-south route in those days before I-5. There was a gas station there that was the transfer point for prisoners between the San Diego and Camp Pendleton MPs. Nothing fancy, just out of the back of one camper-capped pickup into another. I got to go along for the ride once.

Just for those whose enquiring minds want to know, no, I was not the transferee. I served for a few weeks in the MP & Guard Battalion whilst in a brief casual status between electronics schools at MCRDSD.

The main things I remember from that brief tour of duty were a) how to operate a floor polisher, and b) how to rapid-fire a 12-ga. pump gun so in case of a brig riot I could fire into my fellow Marines.

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