Got misty eyed

Got misty eyed

A few weeks ago I was searching on the Internet for horse items. I found a website about a young lady who makes what she calls “rhythm beads” for horses. She mentioned that she had Army and Navy related items to put a military theme on the beads but had not found any Marine Corps or Air Force items. I searched and found some Marine Corps pendants and emailed her the information mentioning that I would like to buy rhythm beads with a Marine pendant. She replied that she had found some Marine pendants and would look at the information that I had sent her. This young lady then thanked me for my service to our country and offered to send me the rhythm beads with an EGA as a gift for my service. I received the beads and the picture is of my horse with the beads on. This old Marine got misty eyed.

I was stationed at Camp Margarita in 1961 with L/3/5 and in 1962/1963 with C/1/5 and I remember the roach coaches that came around. Don?t remember the names of the coaches.

I went thru boot camp at MCRD San Diego starting in August of 1960 and remember very well going thru the rifle range. Not sure whether it was Camp Elliott or Camp Matthews. We were in tents and did a lot of duck walking. Did some of that at MCRD plus the bucket drills. MCRD had Quonset huts rather than barracks. We did a force march from the rifle range back to MCRD with one steep hill. All non-quals had to run around the platoon all the way back to MCRD. Fortunately, I qualified expert that being the only time I shot expert during the time at rifle range.

I was fortunate in that during active duty we were using M1- Garands until 1962 then were issued M-14?s. While in the reserves we used M-16?s. Life is great.

Semper Fi
Frank D Briceno
USMC/USMCR