By: Gerald A. McGill

The crew and officers who had been assigned to the 82-foot Point-class cutters did some of our pre-deployment training for Vietnam with the Marine Corps.  Generally, us Coasties got along well with the Marines. The standing joke was that we had a common enemy-the U.S. Navy.

The training program, which was known as survival, evasion, resistance, escape (S.E.R.E.) took place at Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, California. The camp encompasses more than 125,000 acres which contain Pacific beaches, bluffs, canyons, and mountains.  It is located approximately 38 miles south of San Diego, California.

On the first day of training, we mustered at 08:00 Monday morning at Camp Pendleton and were taken by bus to the firing range.  There were approximately 50 men but only about 10 were Coast Guard.  The rest were Marines, mostly 18 or 19-year-old kids just out of boot camp.

Although at age 24 I was just a LT (jg) (02), I was the senior Coast Guard Officer present.   The remaining men were enlisted petty officers of various specialties ranging from Enginemen to Electronic Technicians even some Cooks.  All persons who would be on the Coast Guard 82’s in Vietnam got this training. 

When we got to the range we got an orientation briefing from one of the Marine instructors.  He told us we would learn to throw hand grenades.  He explained these were not the real grenades we would have in the field as the powerful explosive had been removed and a greatly reduced charge had been substituted.  The grenades had to be thrown over a 5’ wall.  To make things more interesting several 55 gallon drums had been scattered down range as targets at which to throw.  There was also the rifle range where one could fire different types of rifles, M-1s, M14s, M16s and various handguns mostly .45 caliber pistols.

At 15:30 one of the Marine instructors blew a whistle and yelled, “Form up”.  He said that he would be wearing a 30-pound backpack and that we should try to keep up with him.  The march went on for an hour, uphill and down.  By the end we were all dripping wet from sweat.  On the bus trip back to our quarters, one of the more senior Coast Guard petty officers approached me to ask if we could get out of the afternoon marches.  He claimed that his reasoning was that the longest march for us in Vietnam would be 82 feet, the length of our patrol boats.  That argument made sense to me.

The next day, I approached the Marine who had led Monday’s march.  I made the “82-foot” argument to him.  I told him that I understood that it was necessary to have rugged conditioning and training for the Marines but not necessary for us.  He told me that he would discuss it with his Captain (0-3) but he doubted the Captain would agree.  He said the Captain would want to know what the Coast Guardsmen thought they would be doing while everyone else was marching.

I don’t know where the inspiration came from but I replied, “Remedial weapons training.”  I said, “Assign one of your Marine Instructors to each Coast Guard trainee for a solid one on one hour of individual training to improve our weapons capability.” 

To my surprise, the Captain apparently agreed that this was a good idea and we were relieved from the daily marches. My men were happy and in truth, I sincerely believe this great improved our training.