HMLA-369 participated in the Unit Deployment Program (UDP) along with two other HMLA squadrons from MAG-39, and as far as I know, they still do today. They spend six months based at MCAS Futenma, on Okinawa, with side trips to places like the Philippines and South Korea, then a year back at Camp Pendleton, then another six months at Futenma, etc. HMLA-267 and HMLA-367 also participate in the UDP, while HMLA-169 goes to Central and South America with UNITAS. At the time I am writing this, May of 2004, this is probably all screwed up with all the activity going on in Iraq. I don't keep tabs on where the units are. I would not be surprised at all if they are maintaining the rotation, but only leaving a small detachment at Futenma while the rest of the squadron is deployed elsewhere. Battalions and squadrons from both coasts participate in the UDP. I used to think it was only a West Coast activity, but I know now that some infantry battalions at Camp Lejeune go to Oki, and some jet squadrons from MCAS Beaufort also participate.
Anyway, HMLA-369 was my home for several years. I went to Oki twice with them. Before we did that, though, there were several training deployments. We went to a Combined Arms Exercise (CAX) at Twenty-Nine Palms, CA, and NAS Fallon, NV for weapons training. We also sent a detachment to Weapons and Tactics Instruction (WTI) at MCAS Yuma, AZ, to train a team of Huey and Cobra pilots to be instructors for the Squadron.
My first Officer in Charge (OIC) was Captain Marlowe. He was a big man, maybe 6' 6", no idea what he weighed, although he wasn't overweight, hairy as a bear, and his callsign was "Wookie". He was a Cobra pilot. I have no idea how he shoe-horned himself into a Cobra, especially the front seat. He was also the calmest guy I ever met, never got in a flap over anything. He gave me a ride in a Cobra during my first CAX at 29 Palms, and even let me fly a little from the front seat, an experience I will never forget. I have a recurring dream where I am back on the flightline at MCAS Camp Pendleton on a weekend, and I turn up a Huey and pull it into a hover and fly it across the flightline, because it needs to be re-spotted for a flight on Monday. I have no experience flying a helicopter, other than those two or three minutes, so I don't know where that dream is coming from.
My office was only a little bit bigger than a broom closet, located inside the S-3 (Operations) office. My first Noncommissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) was a dark-green Staff Sergeant, and I can't remember his name, for the life of me. He wasn't there very long before he was replaced by Sgt Anthony Banks, another dark green Marine. I don't even remember where the Staff Sergeant transferred to. If I remember right, he had made two deployments with HMLA-369, and it was time for him to move on. Sgt Banks hadn't been to Intel School yet, so he was OJT (On the Job Training). We got along pretty well, as well as any Private can get along with his Sergeant. He eventually applied for and was accepted to become a Warrant Officer, and I heard recently that he is now a Major. He did a lot of MCIs (correspondence courses for Marines), and he took college classes whenever the training schedule allowed. He definitely had his ambitions. I took a couple courses while I was in, but it was more out of a lack of anything better to do at the time, and because my friend from Intel School, Larry Dickey, was doing it, too. Larry was several years older than I was (I think he joined at 23), so I tended to copy his behavior a lot. He really wanted to fly aircraft, and was accepted into a commissioning program, called MECEP (mee-sep). He was allowed to go to the University of Arizona at Tucson to finish his degree, and then he became a CH-46 pilot. I applied for MECEP a couple years later, but I wasn't all that enthusiastic about it. In hindsight, It was probably a good thing I wasn't accepted. Marine Corps officers have to be pretty aggressive, and competition for promotions is pretty tough, and I don't have the right personality. I'm good at being a cog in the wheel. I like to be a special cog, but a cog, nonetheless. I have also been heavyset my whole life, and that is a definite no-no in the Marine Corps.
All the enlisted Marines in the S-3 got along pretty well. Several of us lived in the barracks together, or right next to each other. I eventually made friends with a couple guys from the maintenance shops, as well. There was nobody I didn't get along with. There is always a little rivalry between the Marines working in the S Shops (S-1 (Administration), S-2 (Intelligence), S-3 (Operations), S-4 (Logistics)) and the Marines in the Maintenance Department, which varies in degree from unit to unit and Marine to Marine. The Marines in the S Shops tend to work more normal hours, while the maintenance Marines often work late into the evening. Their work depends on the training schedule. There are always inspections to perform, as certain parts in helicopters are designed to wear out, so they require constant checking; and helicopters have to be configured differently for different roles, so stuff has to come off and other stuff has to be put on. Sometimes they haul Marines and gear, other times they are the Command and Control node for the ground commander, sometimes they are the transportation for the VIPs, sometimes they fly around with a whole lot of ammo and shoot at things. The mechanics perform inspections, the aircrew perform inspections, Quality Assurance inspects the inspections... layers upon layers of Marines checking, checking, checking. It's amazing that aircraft still go down, but they do.
So, anyway, there I was, in my first real Marine Corps unit, doing real Marine Corps things. I got to spend my first birthday in the Marine Corps at a Combined Arms Exercise at MCAGCC Twenty-nine Palms (yahoo.). Twenty-nine Palms (aka "29 Stumps") has its own distinctive smell. I think it is the dust. The parts of Korea I saw smelled a lot like it, too, but, you get out there in the desert around Yucca Flats, and you can smell it. I spent several birthdays out at the Stumps for some reason. There always seemed to be a CAX going on at that time that we had to be a part of. I had to get a government drivers license, as Marines from the S-Shops are called on to fetch and carry a lot of the time. As time for the CAX approached, I was instructed to go get a tactical vehicle endorsement on my government license, as they needed someone from the S-Shops to be able to drive a Jeep around. I hadn't been to Tactical Vehicle School, but I was told to go anyway, so I went up the hill to where our Motor Pool was and told the clerk running the Motor Pool I needed an endorsement for tactical vehicles.
The Corporal looked at me and said, "You've been through Tactical Vehicle School, right?"
I blinked, and then said, "Uh... yeah". He stamped and signed my license, and bing-bang-boom, I could drive tactical vehicles up to 1.25 tons (Jeeps). We got out to the Auxiliary Airfield at The Stumps, and one day I was told to take a couple other guys from the S-Shops in to Mainside to get something or other. We got in, sat there a moment, and I said, "Hey, where's the keys?" Russ Cudney looked at me and said, "Tactical vehicles don't have keys."
In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought, so I said, "The one I used in Tactical Vehicle school did." They looked at me kinda strange, and then Russ showed me how to push the clutch in all the way and push the starter button on the floorboard. Thank God I already knew how to drive a stick, or I would have really been up a creek.
The CAX was pretty uneventful. We had A-frame sheds to sleep in, hot chow twice a day, not much to do except in the morning when all the paperwork had to be done. There were movies every night, shown on a large billboard painted white. The grunts were out running around in the desert almost the whole time. They were in camp right at the beginning and then again at the very end, but most of their time was spent out on the ranges. 29 Palms is a small Mainside area, and then the rest of the base is ranges of one kind or another. A lot of the live fire training for the grunts is conducted in one particular wide valley with steep sides. There is at least one observation post on top, where the grunt commander can watch the whole thing unfold underneath him. The one I know of is called OP Crampton, and I am pretty sure there is another one on the opposite side of the canyon. The grunts up there sent us a tarantula. We kept it in a bottle in the Operations tent, and I fed it crickets. I let it out a couple times, and even let it crawl around on my arm until one of the pilots got grossed out and told me to put it back. The mechanics found scorpions all the time around the maintenance shed at the flightline.
One thing that did happen at the CAX was that a Navy A-7 supporting the CAX crashed during a takeoff. It started its roll down the runway, and something went wrong, and the pilot ejected. The A-7 rolled up in a ball and caught on fire. There was a vry slight hill between the hangar and the runway. Everybody from the maintenance area started running over the hill toward the aircraft, and then the ammo started cooking off from the heat of the fire, and everybody came running back over the hill again. Crash Crew went over and put the fire out. The pilot was hurt, but lived to tell the tale.
At the end of CAX (and almost every training exercise), there is a party. Everybody got a steak, and two beers. The real fun was before that. I was told to get over to the maintenance shed at the flightline, Capt Marlowe wanted me for something. So, I hightailed it over there. One of the crewchiefs slapped a pilots helmet on my head and walked me over to a Cobra, which was sitting on the flightline with the engine running and the blades turning. They were giving Cobra rides, which I don't think they are allowed to do anymore. Capt Marlowe was driving. The crewchief got me in the front seat and strapped me down, connected my helmet to the radio system, and then shut the canopy. Capt Marlowe twisted and lifted the throttles, which made the blades spin faster and changed the angle of the blades so they grabbed more air, and then we floated up off the ground and took off. The stick between the pilots legs makes the rotor disk change its plane, and therefore makes the aircraft go forwards or backwards or sideways. The sides on a Cobra are really low, so it is like sitting in a chair, up in the air. Capt Marlowe told me what he was doing as we went. He showed me how we turned one way, and then the other, and then we dove down and made a couple simulated gun runs on a spot on the ground. The pilot in back usually does all the flying, while the front seat controls the missiles and guns. The front seat can fly the plane, too, in a pinch. There is a small stick on either side of the seat. The one on the left is for the engines and blades, the other is the stick for changing direction. They are really stiff. Capt Marlowe let me fly it a little. Our flight was only five minutes or so, but it was really cool. So, Capt Marlowe, if you ever read this, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Somewhere along the way we also went to NAS Fallon, NV for some squadron-level training. That was where Ivan Kenter and I got to be really good friends. I don't remember what happened exactly, but there was a mix-up regarding the chowhall, and everyone had to pay for their meals. We got checks to cover our expenses, but they didn't get issued and sent up to us until near the end of the deployment. Ivan and I didn't have a lot of cash, so we went to the PX and bought a couple jars of peanut butter, some bread, a few cans of chili, and we lived on that for the most part. It was a real bonding experience.
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