USMC Mountain Warfare Training Center - Page 5
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  1. #61
    I was there from June 1979 to June 1980 on TAD from CamPen. I remember an a-hole 1st Sgt shot and killed SSGT Easter in the Pickel Barrel. Easter was a good guy. Cant remember the guys name who shot him.

    I also remember LtCol Guy......after the death of John Wayne, he declared a base holiday for "John Wayne Day".


  2. #62
    Yeah, Col. Guy was a hard-charger. Said his dream in life ws to lead a battalion into Moscow. "Picke Barrel" was fun. Used to serve a great stout-"Tooth's Sheaf Stout" from Australia.


  3. #63

    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!


  4. #64
    yellowwing
    Guest Free Member
    Welcome aboard Doc. It's great to hear these Legends first hand.


  5. #65
    I renlisted two times to go to and stay at MCMWTC you got to love up there or NOT and I'm from SC don't figure Sgt. Smitty


  6. #66
    I tried and tried to get assigned to the MCMWTS as a Sergeant 1345 after attending Journeyman School at Ft Leonard Wood MO. That would have been a blast, and I always wanted to work with bridge-company also. Never happened.

    I did do Cold-Weather-Training in Norway during Battle Griffin 99 and I must say that was a miserable experience living in tents w/aircraft pre-heaters just a bit shy of the Artic Circle at a FARP Site.

    Having tents collapse on you in the dead of night from the weight of the snow is NOT a fun thing lol...


  7. #67
    I went through Pickel Meadows in 1953 prior to going to Korea. In the winter it is a very cold place and living in snow is not my cup of tea. Mickey Mouse Boots cold weather gear including a Parka with fur around the face, it didn't matter as it was very cold. It is however a great place to go trout fishing in the summer.


  8. #68
    That was my very first duty station! I was permanent personell stationed at MCMWTC from June '85 to July '87. I worked in the Motor Pool (Motor-T). We lived in Quanson Huts my first year there while the barracks were completed. Being a South Texas boy I had never experienced freezing weather or snow until my first winter there! I had a blast though. and yes the fishing was great! The walker river (across from Hwy 108) was always good for some rainbow trout. I spent the next 20 years trying to get back there after I left for Okinawa.

    p.s. We used to call the training units "HERPES" because just like a cold sore they would come and go after awhile. Also heard that MGySgt John Marjonov died a few years ago. RIP.


  9. #69
    Marine Free Member colt59's Avatar
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    Pictures

    Anybody want to see some pictures of Pickel Meadows? I got a whole bunch from 1979-80. It'll give me an excuse to scan them. I just remember I humped a stainless steel 105mm shell casing down that I souvenired from the top of one of the mountains. I also remember a horrifying ride down the mountain in a 5 ton dumptruck with a nutcase named Peterson.


  10. #70
    I'd be happy to see them.


  11. #71
    That would be GREAT, Colt59~~

    I didnt get a chance to take many back in '74-'75 when I was stationed there with the Engineers (7th Eng Bn).




  12. #72
    Marine Free Member colt59's Avatar
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    Pictures and camera

    I carried one of those cheap Kodak 110 cameras. It went thru two floats, cold weather training, mountain warfare training, an Arctic Circle operation, drunken brawls, drunken not-brawls, just plain old drunken. It was broken once, I threw it at somebody in a club in Bergen Norway (It still worked after I put it back together). Best camera ever made. I think I lost it (along with my mind) after I got out.


  13. #73
    Marine Free Member colt59's Avatar
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    Will do, give me a little time though. I have to scan them.


  14. #74
    Marine Free Member colt59's Avatar
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    first page

    I've started some. This is a shot of base camp and tent city from one of the mountains also someone's Harley chopper. I apologize for the size, but the pictures were all stuck in the album and I had to scan the whole page. I will need to edit them in some sort of photo program to get them bigger.

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  15. #75
    Thanks for the memories. I went through mine and found very few. MOst out of focus from obvious reasons.


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