Good old days at Pickle Meadows
Was a Corpsman with the 7th Engineer Bn sent to MWTC in 1974 on TDY for 30 days. Ended up requesting an extention to stay which was eagerly granted by Pendleton since no one at Pendleton wanted to go up there! The base was being restored by the Engineers and being reactivated. A hell of an adventure for an HM2 on independent duty with "my" detachment of Marines!!
Lived in the Quonset huts on the hill, slept in a hammock and sleeping bag and ate C-rats for the first 5 months there (no mess facilities) Heat was a waste oil heater in the middle of the hut! ...but R&R was great and liberty consisted on going fishing up at Leavett Meadows on the West Walker River or coyote hunting on the back roads between Bridgeport and the base!! Being a Navy Corpsman, I had my own wheels which allowed me and a few Marines to go to Tahoe, Reno and Carson City as well as visit ALL the cat houses in the area!! ;)
These were the days of the legendary MGySgt John Marjanov and his beer making skills and secretly burying his stash. Before the NCO club opened it was a "dry" base- except for Marjanov's contraband hootch!); Bill Cody (civilian owner of Devil's Gate Pack Station and an Ex-Marine himself) and his pack trains of mules and the seasonal transitions from Mountain Warfare Training to Cold Weather Training.
Had two CH46 Choppers from NAS Fallon (NV) on Standby at the base in case of emergencies up on Sardine Meadows or other training areas. Ran the dispensary consisting of 4 Quonsetts abutted together into a single dispensary next to the Motor Pool. Dispensed medicinal brandy from the mount-out boxes and fought with Pendleton HQ for more Rx brandy!!
We'd take any Marines needing additional medical or dental care to the Naval Weapons Station in Hawthorne NV and would trade C-Rats for medical supplies with a grizzly old Senior Chief there and return the back way by way of Lucky Boy Grade and Bodie stopping to do some gold prospecting or panning on the way!! My Marines never objected to going with their Doc!
Eventually, Pendleton Marines would TDY there for training while we Engineers were permanent party. Dont remember the CO 's name but he would wear his USMC fatigues with cowboy boots and a straw cowboy hat with his Colonel's eagle on it! Standing up and "driving" a string of Terrex bulldozers up the mountain punching out roads.
It was the best duty imaginable!!! Left there in 1976 and back to Pendleton to run the BAS and my eventual discharge from the USN/USMC.
A million dollar experience I wouldnt pay 2 cents to do over again!