"The only time we again used the [Amtracs] was during the First Independence Day Celebration of Liberia, when we landed with much fanfare, the firing of blanks, the pretense of blood curdling screams and ... 300 yards off the scheduled mark. The Liberian President, his entourage and numerous American representatives stared in awe at the military might of America arrayed before them, as we flung ourselves from the rear of the Amtracs and learned that we had to run south along the beach and then flank left before proceeding, in line, to "attack" the onlookers. We were devastating!"

Those above comments from the Home Page remind me, I am not sure who else will recall, of an incident on Viegues when we had a similar misfortune.
Yes, Sir. Yes Ma'am. Our elders of the Pacific Campaigns during the Big WWII sure would have been proud of us that day.
The landing craft we were in somehow lost its bearings; and while the "war" raged elsewhere on the Island, we hit the wrong beach. Frustrated, we scrambled through the tall grass and ever rambling hills trying to link up with friendly units.
About that time, we were accosted by some brass bearing officer ranting, "Hey! What are you doing all the way over here?"
To which some panic stricken soul yelled, "Sir, we're running a surprise envelopment behind the aggressor forces."
"Great thinking Marine.....Carry on."
"Aye, Aye, Sir !" and boy, did we ever haul butt!

The 3rd Squad of our 3rd Platoon may have the distinction of being the only Squad in the History of the Marine Corps to make an amphibious landing....by helicopter. Too bad camcorders weren't around then. Or, maybe, good thing. During our visit to Cape Town, South Africa a demonstration landing was planned for. Those that recall it remember that the landing came off super. Demolition charges set off at the beach right on-time. While the Navy ships were firing off blanks, the UDT personnel swam in to clear the landing beach areas, the amphibious tractors [amtracs] rolled in with troops assaulting. There were copters overhead, smoke and weapons firing everywhere. John Wayne productions couldn't have done it better.
How do I know. I was a member of the 3rd Squad. We were selected to be a Demonstration Squad that before everything commenced, we would be flown off of the ship to land on the beach in front of the spectator stands filled with civilians and political dignitaries. We were to jump from the helicopter, run in front of the stands and then have the basic squad and fire team concepts explained to the multitudes, while we were displayed in full combat attire.
So, after months of shipboard living, without practicing much of anything approaching the "spit and polish" mode commonly expected of MARINES, the eve before the scheduled landing, we stayed up most of the night to get truly squared away for the event. Ordered we were to starch and press our nearly wash and wear utilities retrieved from the ships laundry, shine our brass, clean our web equipment like belts and packs, spit shine boots, starch and press our utility covers and...clean our weapons.
I had a Browning Automatic Rifle [ BAR ] that had no bluing on it, being old and worn. But, it was a great weapon. Leaf sights down, I was always in the black with it. Totally "silver"....in the salt air, you can watch it rust before your eyes. Touched it; watch it rust!
Yep, we got real SPIT and POLISHED. Think photo spreads. Boy, we were going to make real good impressions.
Wrong. Anybody ever recall that copter pilot that thought he was flying a jet??? How he would bounce off of the deck every time he either would land or lift off? Darn! Did any fool before boarding his craft have breakfast?
Guess what? That morning, aboard we go. Bounce..., then up in the air. There's the beach...people in the stands...pilot's coming down and a voice yells out, "Okay Marines, bail out!"
"Hey, wait-a-minute," I think to myself, "we're 50 yards from the sand!" Plus, the exit hatch was facing America! Now the troops have to scramble further out to sea to avoid the front dip of the copter's blades. Whoa! What's up with this...? Who is this pilot? What is HIS problem???
Jumping into the water, I find my self chest deep, everything soaked, silver BAR in the Atlantic. All Weapons need that, right? So much for starched uniforms, spit shined boots and staying up most of the night to prep.
Like soaking wet kittens, we "hit the beach," eventually reached the viewing stand and, while air drying, got to watch the super-demonstration-landing.
Civilians stared in awe, dumbstruck at the power amassed before them, absolutely thrilled were they... as my rusting BAR got redder...and redder...and redder.

The interior of an old troop transport ship was an incredible sight. The dimly lit, hot, crowded and poorly ventilated compartments would tax the mind of Dante for a truly accurate description.
They varied in size but generally measured approximately fifty feet square with overheads or ceilings as high as fifteen feet. And, although such an area seems large when looking at the written figures, when actually seen an entirely different impression was gotten, for each cubic foot of space was more than adequately and very uncomfortably made use of.
Every ten feet or so, a steel "I" beam, riveted to the overhead, traversed a compartment's width. Each such beam was supported by numerous lally columns. And attached to thin poles, running adjacent and parallel to these columns, were beds more appropriately called "racks" by the the Marines that used them.

There were no mattresses, no sheets, no pillows. In tiers several high, the racks were nothing more than metal frames, little more than six feet long and two and one half feet wide, with canvas strips tied to them in a fashion not unlike that used by trappers to stretch and dry animal pelts.
Eight inch ventilation ducts extended across the overheads and branched off at numerous points into still more ducts that were suspended downward to an open end, situated only inches from the deck.
Shortly after being assigned accommodations for the next three to six months, the experienced trooper climbed into his rack, punched a hole in the duct with his bayonet and shoved a rolled piece of paper or a playing card into the gaping hole to direct a stream of air through his all too masculine "boudoir." By days end virtually no air reached duct bottoms. It was all being redistributed via scraps of paper and hundreds of playing cards.
The experienced trooper also knew to get a top rack. There, they'd suffer no injury to exposed body parts by Marines climbing to their own racks OR, still worse, the spewing vomit of one who'd had too much to drink.
To the uninitiated, these compartments with inadequate aisle space and otherwise claustrophobic conditions appeared uninhabitable. Yet, somehow, into each was poured well over two hundred men, their temperaments, seabags, rifles, helmets, cartridge belts and forty pound marching packs.
One can only look back at it all in utter amazement.

Here's another device no longer to be found. The "Ontos", Greek for "Thing." A track vehicle with six 106mm recoilless rifles. Baaaaad-ahhh-Biiiiing!

Friday afternoons everywhere are pretty much the same. The day's work completed, welders lay down their torches, clerks close their drawers and students put their books aside for the weekend, all of them entertaining ideas of how they will use the next three nights and two days to their fullest enjoyment. It was this feeling of anxiety that possessed several thousand men, myself included, to leave Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on a particularly cold and rainy day in mid-November of 1961.
Liberty call had been long awaited for by my entire platoon, but Privates Schmidt, Fusco, Lane, Teklits and myself had further to travel that night than the others and we were most anxious to get started. Picking up our overnight bags, which had been conveniently packed the night before, we ran from the barracks to an area one-half mile away, where we hoped we could obtain a ride.
As was usual, the "circle" - a parking area used as a pick-up point for men traveling any lengthy distance - was crowded, and the five of us had quite a task on our hands in trying to find a car with room enough for all of us, since there were scores of men badgering the drivers to take them instead of us. Eventually, however, we were able to find room enough for all of us in a Volkswagen of the bus-type class. Within minutes, eight men including the driver had filled the seats available, and one man lay atop the luggage in the rear. We expected a twelve hour long and uncomfortable trip. We were wrong. In fact, only three of us were destined to get where we all wanted to go, New York.
Sleeping, sightseeing and talking are the only pastimes available to the nighttime initiate. Within the first six hours, we had pretty well talked ourselves out and since there is not much to see at night outside of neon signs and truck lights, all but the driver fell asleep.
Indeed, because we were all asleep some fifty minutes after stopping in Washington, D. C. for some much needed leg stretching and a cup of coffee, may account for our being alive today. For, nine miles above Baltimore, Maryland, from across a thirty-foot grass island came a car at 47 miles an hour. So abruptly did it happen that few of us realized completely what was going on until we bad stopped rolling over, over and over again some twenty feet off of the highway.
At the very second of impact, with me lying atop the luggage thrown over the rear engine compartment, the left side of the car caved in and pushed my head, chin first, down against my chest while the momentum of my body, suddenly traveling at near sixty miles an hour with the car moving at perhaps ten, bent my back into a position I shall never again want to assume. A scream so horrible issued from my throat that it had my companions, while they were still conscious, believing I was being torn apart.
For several moments after the car stopped rolling, all of us remained unconscious. One at a time we awakened. The silence was the most appalling thing next to the cold we had to endure. To hear one moment a car radio, a crash, the sound of rolling, the screams of men and then absolutely nothing filled us all with a sense of fear none of us would soon forget.
From the front of the car, then lying on its passenger's side, a hand could be heard scratching the metal of the dashboard. It was Fusco fighting his way into a sitting position to shut off the ignition for fear of the car bursting into flames. When he finally reached it, I was greatly relieved as I was lying directly next to the gas tank and engine.
One at a time those that could climbed out, while I remained lying on my back stretched out along the interior length of the passenger side windows.
State troopers tore the rear door off the van and light from the bright sealed beams of semi-trucks along with cold air swept over those of us still within. The driver, one other passenger and myself remained. What could be seen was not a pretty sight. Blood covered the walls and when I lifted my head and looked toward the front of the car I saw the driver hanging upside down by one leg from the steering column, covered with the same red fluid that lined the walls and making what I thought to be his last groan. To say the least, I wanted to get the hell out of that car. Feeling my body "here and there" to see that things were in order, then spitting a few times on the already dirty ceiling next to me to see if I had any obvious internal bleeding, I finally crawled out the back of the car shivering like an Alaskan sled dog without fur.
An half-hour later, all nine of us were either laid out or sitting in the emergency room of the Army's Aberdeen Maryland Proving Ground's Medical facility. By 0200 Saturday, we had been stitched, padded, doped up, bent back into shape and told that six of us would have to remain until Wednesday. Bitterly, we gave phone numbers to those who would be able to continue on to New York, so they might notify those awaiting our arrival that we would be unable to make it...this trip.
The six of us that were to remain in Aberdeen until Wednesday then decided we would take a philosophical outlook on what had happened. After all, we were lucky to be alive and none of us were seriously injured. Even more importantly, we would have only two working days after returning to LeJeune to endure, before we would again face Friday afternoon with both the need and another attempt to "get away from it all."

Well, according to Massachusetts rumors, one of our lot took to training a group of gun moles for the Boston "Mafia."
Yep! Cold sober, he managed to persuade a bevy of beauties on to a plane, then to the deserts of the southwest, where he taught them how things can be done with a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) and Thompson machine gun.
Though nothing ever came of their efforts, every once and awhile you'll run into gal in a Boston pub that'll tell you about her mother's being part of some ragin' 60's outfit and a hotshot weapons expert.
"Mom, was just so cocky " she'll say, "about takin' the black out of a target at 200 yards! She thought it was really...neat."
Whoa, don't believe it??? Well, you check out the film clips to the right and tell me the gal doesn't have a Boston accent.

First came the BAR Training !

Then they learned to use the Thompson !