The Fellowship of the Hole

The original members of the Fellowship of the Hole.
I'm the ridiculously handsome one on the left.

Hello again, Dear Reader.  It’s been a while.  You look great! Have you lost weight?  Just kidding, we’re Americans, so you probably haven’t lost weight…  As for me, I find myself in Iraq.  Again.  I’m on what we call an “individual augment” or “IA” for short.  That means they pluck you randomly and out of the blue from whatever life you thought you were leading and stick you somewhere else where the quality of life sucks.  It wouldn’t be so bad if they sent me someplace exciting, you know like with bullets whizzing by in a hot LZ.  But alas, they sent me to another boring staff job, just now I live in a dismal little trailer-type thing with brown linoleum walls.  Being sequestered in Mesopotamia as I am, my usual diversions in life are greatly reduced—I’ve been here 2 months now, and I’m starting to get a little stir-crazy.  So, I felt it might be a good way to pass the time to start writing silly blog posts again.  And here we are.  I’m also trying to learn the ukulele, if you can believe that.  More on all of that later.  What I want to do today is tell you another Marine Corps “sea story,” as we call them, mostly to remind myself of why I still do this stuff.

The Fellowship of the Hole

               When I’m not getting IA’d to butt-fucking Iraq, I have a job in the Pentagon advocating for the combat engineer community in the Marine Corps.  It’s actually an interesting job, and has landed me in some unusual places to watch things explode a few times, which I find most enjoyable.  Almost exactly a year ago, in December of 2017, I had just such an opportunity.  There was to be a huge exercise on the West Coast and as a part of that exercise, 1^st Combat Engineer Battalion (at the time commanded by a good friend of mine, Chris Haar) was going to conduct live-fire amphibious rehearsals with Assault Breacher Vehicles (ABVs), Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs), and armored bulldozers on San Clemente Island, off the coast of California.  For the lay-person, that means they were going to land on the beach in tanks and other big armored vehicles and set off really big explosions and do other manly shit.  The Marine Corps has been so preoccupied with chasing little guys in man-dresses around the Middle East for the last 15 years, that we hadn’t really tried this out for real in a very long time—like since 1992.  So it was all very exciting.  I was going to fly out there and observe the exercise, feel the explosions, perhaps remember what it was like to be a real Marine again. 

               The combat engineer community is relatively small in the Marine Corps.  As such, we all tend to know each other, or at least know about each other by reputation.  In this case, I knew personally several members of the staff of 1^st CEB.  A certain couple of officers in particular, I don’t want to embarrass anyone so I’ll assign them aliases—let’s call them “Nate Knowles” and “Eric Spalla,” both of whom I had known for years and had been their instructor twice—once at the Marine Corps Engineer School and once at Expeditionary Warfare School.  Nate was the battalion operations officer (OpsO), and Eric was the executive officer (XO).  They told me everything was going to be taken care of.  In fact, I spoke to Nate on the phone, he said and I quote, “We have a squad bay barracks locked on, so it’s going to be fine.  All you need is your sleeping bag.  Don’t worry about anything else. I got you, sir.”  This last sentence should have been a huge red flag.  I mean, this is not my first rodeo.  But I was so excited to get away from the Pentagon and go watch explosions and hang out with old friends, I totally fell for it. 

               So I flew to San Diego, got a rental car there, and drove up to Camp Pendleton (By the way, San Diego—I love you, but you gotta do something about the rental car situation at the airport.  Seriously.  Who wants to ride a bus for 20 minutes just to begin to get a rental car?).  Once at Pendleton, I got on a Marine Corps plane.  Not just any plane, but a VIP transport plane, like a Gulfstream IV.  Traveling like a rockstar.  So far, this trip was working out great.

 

Straight Pimpin'

               After a short flight, we landed at a tiny airfield on the northernmost part of San Clemente Island.  Now I had never been to San Clemente Island before, but I ‘Google-Earthed’ it, and knew a little.  It’s a long thin island, owned by the US Navy and used mainly as a range for naval gunfire.  It’s just south of Santa Catalina (you know, as in “the fuckin’ Catalina wine mixer”). Then the truck arrived to take me to the SHOBA, short for Shore Bombardment Area, where the battalion commander was.  We drove along for about 30 minutes, and all was well until we entered the gate to the SHOBA, and then the road turned from nice, flat, normal pavement into an absolute nightmare trail.  It was hilly, eroded, and very slow going.  When we started out it was maybe about 3:45 PM, and we entered the SHOBA about 4:15 PM.  It took at least 45 more minutes before we actually arrived at the battalion’s location, a distance of maybe 2 additional miles, so it was now quickly growing dark. 

I got out of the truck, still in a good mood, and found Nate and after some handshaking and friendly greetings, I said “So where’s this squad bay?” He looked at me and said, without even the slightest shame in his voice, “There is no squad bay, sir.” 

I said, “Surely we aren’t driving all that way every day?”

He said, “No sir, we’re staying here,” and gestured around at the collection of two man tents in the area.  “The squad bay up the hill is over-run with rats, so it won’t work. Here’s your flak jacket and helmet.”

I said, “You are a terrible human being, Nate.”

To translate, a squad bay is a type of barracks with one big room filled with bunkbeds.  It sort of sucks, since you share the room with a bunch of dudes who are expelling MRE farts and foot odor everywhere, but it’s at least INDOORS.  I am now totally homeless, in a strange land, and it’s dark.  All I have with me is a steel thermos, some sunflower seeds, a long underwear shirt, a sleeping bag, and an IsoMat (a thin foam rubber mat).  Oh, I also have a pocket knife, some civilian clothes, a cell phone, and a laptop computer.  Unfortunately, there is not even a hint of a cell phone signal down here in the SHOBA, so the phone became only a camera and the laptop wasn’t much good except as part of a pillow.

I get the idea you are not appreciating the position I was just finding myself in…  Let me elaborate.

First off, it’s December and it’s at least 20 miles out into the Pacific Ocean.  And crazy windy.  Like hard-to-stand-up-straight windy.  Everything is rocky and uneven.  And let’s not forget the bombs.

This range is the only place remaining where the U.S. Navy can practice ship-to-shore fires, and has been in continuous use as such for about 80 years—since before WWII.  So there’s a LOT of dangerous junk left around everywhere as a result of this. Things like the expended cases of rockets, shrapnel, flare parachutes, etc.  And let’s not forget the random shell or bomb that failed to detonate, what we call UXO, or unexploded ordnance.  EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) technicians say that roughly 10% or so of explosive projectiles malfunction in some way.  I’ve always thought that estimate to be a little high, but even if it’s only 1%, you can imagine how many that might be in a range this old.  These are things that were meant to explode, and for whatever reason didn’t.  You can also imagine how hazardous that is.  They (EOD techs) periodically go through the range to try to clear out the majority of the UXO, but it’s very difficult to find them, even when they are on the surface, which they may or may not be.  High-velocity naval gunfire shells or even aircraft-delivered bombs that don’t detonate tend to burrow into the ground.  They sometimes do a “porpoise” maneuver, meaning they pop up out of the ground at a seemingly random place away from the point of impact, and just lay there waiting to murder you. 

Caution has never been my strong suit.

As if that isn’t enough, the island is also absolutely COVERED in cactus.  Like 15 different species of cactus, all of which have evil little spines just waiting to find their way into an unsuspecting toe or finger.  Also, as I would soon discover, it is also home to about a billion mice.  And foxes that chase them.  Neither of these two have much exposure to humans, and thus do not always keep the usual respectful distance that I have come to expect from wildlife.  Everything that lives on this island can either bite you, stick you, or stab you.

I wasn’t alone in my predicament.  Some other guys from various places in the Marine Corps had come too, with the same level of preparation as me.  They all came a few days earlier though, riding the ships and landing craft there with the engineer battalion.  So they had the lay of the land already.

After arrival the first night, after talking for a while to all my old friends, I just did the only thing I knew to do.  I found a relatively flat spot, kicked as many rocks and cactus away as I could, spread out my IsoMat and sleeping bag, and climbed in.  That night was pretty miserable.  For one thing my flat spot was not very flat, and angled toward a good-sized cactus.  The wind howled all night long, and when my bladder roused me at about 4 in the morning, I realized that it had blown my backpack down the hill about 20 yards.  The problem was that my boots and trousers were inside that pack, and I was in a field of cactus.  So I climbed down the hill in my underwear and socks (it’s maybe about 45 degrees, by the way), picking my way very carefully and very unsuccessfully through the hazards, to retrieve my boots and then to relieve my bladder.  Afterwards, I spent about an hour removing cactus spines and trying to get warm again in my sleeping bag before the sun came up.

That next morning, I was complaining to my friends about the wind, and that’s when they told me about the hole.  Of course I had seen the hole the night before, but I didn’t realize that’s where everyone else with no real gear or tent was.  Going down the steep sides was out of the question in the pitch dark of the night before, anyway.  But it offered a little protection from the wind, and best of all had a dozen or more concrete slabs, each about 4 feet by 8 feet in size.  Concrete is not usually the first choice as a sleeping surface, but at least cactus can’t grow there.  So I moved in, and thus began The Fellowship of the Hole—the group of seven of us poor souls who wound up living here for a while. 

The Hole

In defense of Nate and Eric, there actually was a squad bay.  There was an abandoned observation bunker complex up on another hill overlooking the area.  We didn’t use it because it was absolutely over-run with mice.  It had showers and toilets, but the running water wasn’t working.  I know all this because I went there.  It held the only phone that worked, so I and the rest of the Fellowship had to go up to it and take turns on the phone to change our flights when the timeline got screwed up.  The whole place smelled like a hamster cage.  The air was so thick with mouse pee that my sinuses were up in arms for hours after that.  One of the other guys told me a story about trying to take a nap here when they first arrived and waking up to find a rat sitting on his chest.  Ordinarily I don’t put much stock in stories like that, but in this case I believe him.

This is the one phone that works, in the rat building.  Doesn't look that bad, but be thankful we can't send smells over the internet yet.

During the day, we would go down to the cliffs overlooking the landing beaches and observe some truly remarkable combat engineer stuff, including everybody’s favorite—the MICLIC, short for Mine Clearing Line Charge.  That's 1,750 pounds of C4 in 3-pound bricks all along a 100 meter rope, fired with a rocket.  This thing is like porn for combat engineers.  The blast it produces has to be felt more than seen to really understand its erection-inducing qualities.  Here are a few pictures to give you an idea.

Tell me that's not cool...

  I was just enjoying the show.

And a YouTube video that shows it a little closer up.

But those blasts had long intervals of nothing in between, and with cell phones out of commission, what we did most was talk.  To an actual living, breathing human standing right next to you who was actually paying attention.  We talked about anything and everything.  We talked about everything from the texture and odor of our latest poops, to war stories, politics, women, religion…you name it.  Nothing was really off the table.  And in a world where you can’t post a funny cat video on social media without some asshole making it into either a Pro-Trump or Anti-Trump statement, it was quite refreshing.  I mean, guys would still say fucked-up things, but it was to your face, and you could argue back in real time.  And you actually had to sort of listen to the other side in order to participate.  And you also always knew that the other guy might just punch you in the face if you went overboard.  These factors (especially that last one) allowed a certain civility to be maintained during even highly contentious discussions.  A vast improvement over the state of affairs in the anonymous virtual world. 

               The thing I discovered is, your smart phone has been cheating you out of some things.  First of all, you never have to be truly bored.  You can play solitaire, or candy crush, or look at Facebook, or Insta-Twit or any number of a thousand other things besides talking to the guy beside you.  If some crazy person tries to engage YOU in a conversation, you can just sort of smile at them and go right back to your little electronic buddy until they go away.  This lack of boredom seems like a good thing, and it is, but it’s an essential ingredient for things like reading, the arts, story-telling—virtually all forms of admirable human endeavor.  These things are much more rewarding than candy-crush or Clash of Clans or whatever else, but they are on the other side of boredom , and boredom sucks. These types of games and apps are interactive and engaging enough to keep you occupied, sort of, but don’t result in anything useful at all, apart from filling the time you have until your inevitable death with random noise.  As I type all this out, I am fully aware of how smug I sound.  As though I figured out the meaning of life and I’m just letting all you poor dolts in on it.  I also recognize the irony that I’m using those very electronic devices to tell you about this.  If it makes you feel any better, the very instant that internet connection returned, I was right back on my smartphone with the rest of the herd.  I’m like a junkie telling his junkie friends about the time he went to rehab for two weeks and got clean, while in the act of tying off his arm and searching for a fresh vein.

Like crack cocaine, but harder to quit.

               Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that I actually talked to these guys.  A lot.  And I listened to them too.  We didn’t agree on a lot of things, but there’s just something about shared hardship and tall tales that brings men together in a way that is difficult to describe.  Camaraderie is just not a good enough word.  I guess it’s the reason I am still hanging around in this Gun Club, long after I thought I would. 

By the way, I was supposed to be there for a couple of days, but a combination of weather and Nate being a bad human caused me to have to wait and ride the LCAC back to Camp Pendleton with everyone else instead of getting another ride in the pimped-out VIP plane.  Actually, it’s really not fair to blame all of this on Nate.  I’m just doing that to be an ass.  He totally promised me we were sleeping indoors though, so he’s not off the hook.  It’s really just the way things go in the Marine Corps.  We call it getting fucked by the “big green weenie.”  This time it resulted in another night or two in the hole, but also in these cool pics.  And another good story.  So thank you, Big Green Weenie.

 

LCAC coming in for a landing.

Damn, I'm handsome...