Happy Birthday, Marines!

[E4 No More]

246 years young. Happy birthday to my fellow Marines. Semper Fi!

[Darrell]

OO RAH!      Semper Fi!    This is an RF4-B sitting on the catapult of the USS Midway in the South China see in 1976. Sorry for the poor quality, scanned from an old slide.

 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Darrell

[Darrell]

[Sleep profit]

Happy Birthday  and goodnight Chesty

[Darrell]

2 hours ago, Sleep profit said:

Happy Birthday  and goodnight Chesty

I've got to admit that I'd forgotten that one!

[E4 No More]

5 minutes ago, Darrell said:

I've got to admit that I'd forgotten that one!

Yes, one of my DI's would say, "Good night, Chesty Puller, wherever you are" every time he had the night shift with my training platoon in boot camp.

[E4 No More]

https://nara.getarchive.net/media/general-william-r-etnyre-right-commanding-general-of-the-combat-center-and-9f8152

The link above is to the gun that I worked on in 1983. In the picture of us firing off the last 175mm gun round fired by active duty Marine units, I am the A-gunner sitting on the right side of the gun, (you can only see my helmet as I am looking down and braced for the recoil). Sergeant Stillwell, (who was a Staff Sergeant select at the time of this picture), is seen standing up and wearing a headset on the left side of the gun. IIRC, LCpl Terriault was the loader sitting on the loader's arms with his back to the camera on the left of the gun. We had decided beforehand that all 4 of the guns that were actually firing the last 175mm rounds would fire a full charge 3 for their last round. That was 99 lbs of powder behind 146 lbs of projectile that caused the whole gun to rock like you were on an angry bronco when fired off. It was common for us to draw an "X" in the sand behind the gun where we guessed that a virgin plugger would land after pulling the lanyard on a charge 3 for the first time, and a general was no different. Gunnery Sergeant Hangslaben, (the platoon sergeant for the HQ platoon), drew an "X" on the ground where he guessed that the general would land. I believe that it was LCpl Pennington that was assigned as the plugger on the gun that day. You can see his helmet and arm behind Brigadier General Etnyre who's pulling the lanyard with the gun barrel in just about full rearward travel. He was warned by Sergeant Stillwell to not let the general fall off.

He failed.

Shortly after this picture was snapped, the general rocked forward, (towards the back of the gun), then back, and then forward again where he did a flip off the back of the gun, (with LCpl Pennington failing to grab the general's waist), and landed exactly on the "X" with his ass first. He was lucky to miss the top loop of the spade because he'd have been seriously hurt otherwise. The general was a mustang, (prior enlisted), and true to the form of a mustang, the general got up, brushed his self off, then exclaimed "The sum-bitch kicks, don't it!" answered with the chuckles of all that were standing around. My CO, Major Schmaltz, came up and teased Sergeant Stillwell calling him soon to be Private Stillwell. Somewhere in the archives is the video of the incident, (unless the general had it destroyed).

It's amazing the memories that military service can give you; both good and bad. That was a good one.

EDIT: The general was extended the honor of firing the 1st 8" projectile out of gun number 5 but passed. He didn't want to have anything to do with it after his experience with the 175mm gun.

Edited November 11, 2021 by E4 No More