| Some Navy Hospital Corpsmen do their sea duty on ships. The lucky ones get to spend theirs with the Marine Corps. From 1982 to 1984 I was attached to the First Tank Battalion, First Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, CA.
The day I checked into the Division Surgeon's office, I heard, "Well, by luck of the draw, you're going to tanks." I wasn't sure what he meant until later. Of the eight years I spent in the Navy, those three were the absolute best. |
| Early morning out in the field at Camp Pendleton. In the background are some Amtracks, armored personnel carriers that float... barely! |
|
| In this picture, tank crews and other personnel involved in whatever mechanized maneuvers were going on are meeting to discuss objectives. I realized after scanning these that the above picture and this one were taken in the exact same place. In our tank battalion we had a "TOW Company". These were jeeps fitted with TOW (Optically Tracked, Wire Guided - an inexact acronym) antitank missile launchers. In the early 80's, these were about as high-tech as it got. When the missile was fired, a wire trailed back from the missile that was connected to the guidance unit on the launcher. Wherever the operator moved his crosshairs is where the missile would go. |
 |
 |
At the firing range. These tanks come with a 105mm main gun with a rifled bore and very accurate (and deadly) with the right crew, a .30 caliber machine gun mounted parallel to the main gun, and a .50 caliber gun mounted in the tank commander's cupola (smaller turret atop the main tank turret) and can be aimed independently of the main gun. This is the view from the loader's hatch toward another firing range. The .50 caliber machine gun is in the foreground. |
| A Marine Corps Harrier jet is landing in a field behind the firing range. Those are the jets with the steerable exhaust nozzles and can hover like a helicopter. The first time you see one of those fly up to you in the field, come to a stop, and gently land straight down it's amazing. You can barely see this one in the dust. |
 |
| More from the firing range. This is a composite of two photographs. You can see the smoke downrange where the shell landed. |
 |
| You can't see them in the picture but down in the impact area were many old armored vehicles, trucks, etc., that were used as targets. |
 |
Loading ammunition. |
| Night firing. These pictures were taken using a tripod and an exposure time of 20-30 seconds. The smaller streaks are tracers from the .30 caliber coaxial machine gun mounted on the turret next to the main gun.
In the bottom photograph there is something neat. Notice that the main gun is up higher than the blast and path of the round. The gunner fired right after I opened the shutter, then raised his gun and left it so for most of the exposure the gun was where you see it. |
 |
|
|
| Practicing beach landings off a Navy LCU. The things sticking up out of the backs of the tanks were snorkels. Also, an inflatable turret seal and cover for the main gun muzzle allowed the tanks to drive off the ramps of the landing craft into water deeper than the tank and charge their way to shore. It's quite a sight watching a tank come up out of the water. |
 |
|
