Not as much an adventure for me as it was for the others. They were in Singapore, Djibouti, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Malaysia, and all sorts of other places, training with the local armies, and doing all sorts of interesting things. Fortunately no one was shooting at them.
We make a big circular line and load the landing craft. This harbor seal watches the whole thing. The marines have main packs and these contain everything they take with them except for their combat packs and personal weapons. They weigh over 100 pounds and I can not carry one. Combat packs were what I loaded on the boat and they were plenty heavy. Soldiering is for young folk, not old guys. After the third trip to the boat they tell us to stay in it. Werner and I are up near the front.
I thought we did a good job of packing everything nice and tight. Not good enough, it seems. One sergeant is not satisfied and he screams at the guys in the back. The other sergeants hear this and they swarm over, yelling and foaming at the mouths, cuss words and spittle flying out. Sergeant fission. One sets off the others. Marines with packs and weapons crawl over us as they move toward the front of the ship and we are covered by people and gear. It is a big panic to load the boat in a hurry. Then we wait a long time. Finally we slide out from the dark and into the light. We are going home.
That's all.
