Special Weapons Training

March 1968

You could say that a Marine’s fate in combat can be partially determined by his weapons’ specialty. That is because his weapons’ specialty will influence his location and exposure during combat .

A WW II statistician once calculated that the life expectancy of a Flamethrower Operator in the Battle of Iwo Jima was 4 minutes. That is one of the first pieces of information I learned as I began my special weapons training.

George and I began advanced weapons training in early March,1968. George was to be trained in Mortars and my training would be in Anti Tank Assault Weapons. We had not been given the opportunity to select our top three preferences for our weapons. From what we were learning about the war, it seemed that being a basic rifleman was the best way to stay alive.

Weapons training battalion was not as physically demanding as our previous training. However, early every day we would be taken by large open air trucks into the vast reaches of Camp Pendleton. We would be dropped off far away from our outdoor classroom/firing range and be “force marched” some miles to our destination in full combat gear. We would repeat this to get back to the trucks after our training was done for the day.