Due to ops in Afghanistan, the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in California is fast becoming the new Twentynine Palms. Among the training events there is the Cold Weather Medicine course.
MARINE CORPS MOUNTAIN WARFARE TRAINING CENTER BRIDGEPORT, Calif.-Petty Officer 3rd Class Salvador Bautista, a corpsman with Company I, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, maneuvers through the snow at Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center Bridgeport, Calif., near the Goose training area to set up a warming station during a Cold Weather Medicine Course Jan. 14, 2009., Cpl. Nicole A. LaVine
This is smart training, but no surprise to Marines who know how much emphasis the Corps has put on mountain and winter ops. Not to be invidious, but I’ve often thought it was a substantial error not to deploy more Marine units to Afghanistan from the get-go, since they had so much experience with battalion-level mountain operations.
Bridgeport is the one training evolution I’ve really wanted to do, but I’ve never had the chance. Maybe I’ll be able to rectify that one day soon. (Reader and frequent commenter Neal did the winter package waaaaay back in the Old Corps, maybe we can get him to cough up a story or two.)
Echo your assessment.
Bridgeport is Really good training. It looks like the gear has changed somewhat: the ski boots/skis and funny blue plastic carbines are new, but the concepts are sound.
Two stories.
Back in ‘the day’ on week two of six for the BN training course there was a BN ski race. The start point was clearing the size of a football field. You can imagine an entire BN on-line funnelling down to a trailhead in 100 yds. It was absolute pandemonium at the start but a lot of fun(bodies and ski poles sprawled like the aftermath of Picketts charge). For a Mississippi boy who never even saw more than a few inches of snow before I got there I did pretty well, #17. #1 of course was our British Royal Marine liasson, who won despite a diagnosis of Pneumonia!
Story #2 involves the many uses of Vic Vapor Rub. My old S-4 swore by its miraculous uses. After wearing the rubber Mickey Mouse boots he developed some serious atheletes foot funk. No problem, he mixed a little vics vapo rub with iodine and God knows what else from the first aid kit. He applied this dubious mixture over his feet in a paste, then we went on one of our many 4 hour ski “tours” with pack and weapon. Halfway through he whispers to me at a switchback-”My feet are on fire!” His foot funk was gone, but so was the outer layer of his skin from the look of it when we got back. I won’t even tell you what he made Suppo do with vic;s when he was coughing up loogies and forming a mucous mosaic on our snow cave.
Then there are the MR Yuck bottles for those nightly urinal callings.
Very good training. You will learn, you will loose weight. Some things are cyclical, but good training endures.
I remember watching an episode on the Military Channel about that Marine Mountain Training… It was a summer one, no snow at the beginning but they had to climb up the vertical wall with all the gear… There was the smallest Marine in the BN whose gear weighted almost his own weight (the difference was like 10lb!) and he was ordered by his CO to accept help because it was clear to the instructors on the top that no way he could really hoist himself AND his gear up that wall and they were telling him to use help but he was refusing because he was going to make it on his own… I am still amazed…
That’s pretty hot, even with the big, blue rifle.
Yeah, since when do we train with fake weapons?
We didn’t have plastic weapons when I went through.
I did the Mountain Package in ’86 or ’87. It was one of two of the best training evolutions I did in the mil (the other being my Initial Altitude Chamber class). We went in Mar or Apr, IIRC so it was cold at night and t-shirt weather during the day. It was nice skiing in cammie-bottoms and t-shirts!
We built the best snow-cave in the company! Unfortunately, my cave-mate and I had so many candles burning during the night (we weren’t going to freeze!), we woke up in the middle of the night and the roof was melting! So we had to blow out all the candles (save one) and then we froze our asses off for the rest of the night.
That sucked.