Boot Camp

[Ray Merrell]

We stepped off the bus at San Diego Boot Camp December 1, 1942 at 5 pm, the drill instructor, Corporal J. W. Montgomery, was mad that his leave had been cancelled because of new troops coming in, so we were already in trouble without having done anything. He let us know WHO was BOSS. We were in the 1127th Platoon and were issued an M-1 rifle.

Gung Ho,

Ray

[William Hardy]

Would you believe...after boot camp when my platoon was sent from PI to Camp Geiger for ITR, we were issued M1s. That was the summer of 1967. In boot camp we had M14s. Years later after Vietnam, WWII and Korean vets would talk about their weapons, and having trained with the M1 and getting my thumb clipped a time or two, I could relate to their training days and just how reliable the M1 was...you could get it full of sand and it still functioned.
Semper Fi

[Zulu 36]

I was never formally trained on the M-1 in the Corps, but I did shoot it competitively one year in the Air Guard. I liked it. Other than the ammo feed difference and a little more recoil, it was basically like shooting an M-14.

That was the last year we were able to shoot M-1s in the Governor's Twenty competition as the Army Guard felt we had an unfair advantage over their M-14s. The Air Force weenies were getting too many Gov 20 tabs to make them happy. So we switched to M-14s and still kept getting a lot of tabs.

Even our Lutheran chaplain had a tab and shot second place one year. That really annoyed the Army.