When I was growing up, it was all just there for the taking. Then I was drafted into the Marines, and my life was too busy to be looking around much.
Then we came to anchor just offshore of Qua Viet right before dawn, and we started going down into the boats. Whew, it just hit ma all over again. Jeez!
The smell of wood burning and that indescribable sandalwood essence...
We came ashore and I was injured when our "U Boat" hit a sandbar full tilt. I was on crutches for several weeks, but nothing really major, just a real piss-on to be held back.
But I got to see the Civs for over a year, what they lived in the middle of, how little they had, not to mention the RVN oppression, and the Viet Cong terror tactics. It was actually mind blowing, to borrow a term from back then.
I've never been blase about freedom since then; when you have to give it all up and try to stay alive with your Brothers in a very strange land. Three months later I was an E-4 and had a squad of Green Teen Killers on my hands. We all got home in one piece.
The 2nd has been deeply embedded in my life since then, and especially since the 90's when I started up and ran the MCL Dept of NJ Competitive Shooting Program.
Some of you may have heard of the Carlos Hathcock Sniper Match. I was one of the four guys who started that quite a few years back before there even was a 'Hide. Me, Billy Miller, Bucky Malson, and Louie Caro. Billy and Bucky have been gone for a long time now, and I haven't been in touch with Louie since I shot my last one back around 2002.
Bucky and Jim Land worked the Sniper guys in at Hill 55 in Da Nang (Bucky was also known as Col. Donald "Bucky" Malson, USMC), had Olympic Shooting Medals and was on overnight call for the President of S. Africa as his hunting Guide. Bucky hunted dangerous African game with a muzzleloader and wrote a book about it. His autographed copy is one of my most prized possessions.
Billy was a Marine wounded in the Delta in '63 and med discharged, went back into the Naval Reserves as a Seabees Carpenter, became the National Rapid Fire Champion with the .45 at Camp Perry, transferred into the Army Reserves and kept winning at Camp Perry, than finally took his retirement as a CWO3 with 33 years in the three services. I blued a 45 for him, than glassbedded and refinished his Beretta Garand.
He started one of the first MCL NJ Detachment Pistol Teams. I took over from him, and then was invited by the Department Commandant to do the same thing for the other MCL Detachments in NJ. When I left for NY to be with my new Grandchildren, we had 26 teams. When I got to NY, I took turns (with Les "1st Sgt" Goehner) as President of a shooting club (Community Conservation Club, inc, Odessa, NY), and my Wife and I ran a youth marksmanship program for six of those years.
These people called me "friend". Some of you call me something else. I know who better to listen to.
Doubt me, ask Frank; he was there, too.
I shot a perfect score in the first one with a .222 at 300yd. Bucky said I cheated by shooting 40 rounds instead of the 20 (which I did, the rules didn't cover that the first time. There was just this one ragged 2" hole there in the middle of the bull way back down there at 300yd on the Cherry Ridge Highpower Range. What a gas.), and bumped me for first. We were just a dozen or so good Marine friends having fun on a Sunday afternoon, and trying to see if the idea could be made to work as an actual match.
There are people here on this site jumping in my shit these days who never met me, never knew me, or even bothered to find out anything about me.
To Hell with them; they're just another pack of self-enthralled morons. What did those assholes ever actually do for the 2nd?
Just stop and look at the way they're crapping all over Frank's site.
Carry on, sorry for the Hijack...
Greg