Last weekend, Alpha Company (USMC, 4th Landing Support Battalion based out of Ft Lewis, WA) went to Astoria, WA. All 60 of us boarded busses and headed south to the mouth of the Columbia River which was a 4 hour drive all things considered. After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived at Camp Rilea, an Army training facility on the outskirts of town and adjacent the mouth of the Columbia River. Area History
It's actually a very interesting region, steeped in history. Originally a fishing community named after America's 1st millionaire (John Jacob Astor.. who made his fortune in the fur trade and then developing Manhattan as a real estate baron), Astoria was truly established thanks to the overland route blazed by Lewis and Clark who wintered over from 1805 to 1806 at Fort Clatsop. More on that later. Once Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery expedition returned and presented maps of their great journey westward, the Columbia River became a highway of trappers, settlers, ne'er do-wells and other pioneers looking to set out on a new life. To support this bustling community, Fort Astoria was established and eventually grew into a small city/ port outpost. Widely considered America's most established writer at the time, Washington Irving was approached by John Jacob Astor to mythologize the three-year reign of his Pacific Fur Company. Irving's book, Astoria (1835), cemented the importance of the region in the American psyche and as a result the name stuck. Astoria had arrived. Over the years, Portland grew to overshadow Astoria as an industrial shipping port and business began to center specifically on the fishing and lumber market. Today, it is an artsy enclave that maintains a distinct flair for the sleepy pioneer days of long ago through unique architecture, shops and homes. Adding to that from a modern flair, there is a bridge that is at least 4 miles long and spans the Columbia River right at its mouth. One end on the Astoria side is elevated to allow container ships to pass through enroute to Portland while the remaining 3 3/4 miles stretch at barely 40' above the water giving it a unique and interesting appearance.
Arriving at Camp Rilea, we were directed to our bivouac site at TA-13 where we prepped the grounds and set up for the next few days. The first night, the staff bedded down the Marines and then headed out to Astoria so we could relax and plan for the following days training events. That plan lasted all of about 10 minutes. After driving aimlessly through the town we finally found the Wet Dog Cafe- a local brewery where a few of the Coast Guard ARSC guys took me when I was in Astoria for work a few months back. 15 Marines pile into a bar in a Coast Guard town, and what do we find: some long haired hippie wearing one of those Marines T-shirts that recruiters hand out. How stupid do you think he felt? "Hey, check me out, I'm a bad-ass! Oooppssssss...." The bar was all decked out for Halloween, complete with corn stalks and a half million pumpkins but after drinking a few beers (their strongest was something sort of dark that they wouldn't serve more than two 8 oz glasses to any one person) Batwings (Sgt Lentz) ran out of the bar with a 10 lb pumpkin on a dare. Chafing Gun (Sgt Huntington) then decided that he was going to steal a larger pumpkin just for the hell of it, but for some reason that didn't work out. When we returned to the bivouac site, Bat Wings handed off his pumpkin to the firewatch who were then tasked with carrying the thing for the rest of the weekend... lucky them. I do think that it's pretty funny that here we are in this town full of hotels and nice houses and then when we are ready to go to sleep we get excited to head to a grassy meadow where we can jump into sleeping bags. Man if only the people around us in that bar knew.. they'd be so jealous.
The next morning, reveille sounded at 06:30 and the Marines were hopping. After ~20 minutes of prep and another delicious MRE breakfast the company broke into two groups: one would conduct Helicopter Support Team (HST) training at USCG Air Station Astoria and the second would prepare for hoist training at Camp Rilea. Both would involve the HH-60J "Jayhawk"- one of the Coast Guard's multi mission SAR birds. Astoria maintains 3 HH-60s and we had worked for several weeks to plan and prepare for the days cross-training
the Marine colors, which were rolled up and propped up in a corner. Story goes that at some point the flag mount broke and they just hadn't gotten around to fixing it. In their defense, there was a broken mount up at the hangar door and I'm sure that with all the elements hitting that particular mount it was just a matter of the right gust of wind. Give bored Marines enough time to be idle, and watch out. YouTube is full of videos to prove it. Once the hangar got quiet, there they were, scaling the girders and in an image as close to any Iwo Jima Mt Suribachi flag raising as I'll ever see, our Navy Corpsman Doc Peterson pulled the Navy flag out of it's mount and replaced it with the Marine flag. Other than a few scuff marks on the pillar I doubt that many people will notice other than just about every Marine that sets foot into that hangar.. and maybe one or two eagle eyed Elks Club members. So after screwing around for what seemed like forever, the skies began to clear and fog burned off. At 10:00, flight ops gave the green light and the pilots began to warm up their HH-60. We moved the team out to a far corner of 
the air field where we were then able to complete multiple HST lifts of a 1,250lb buoy. Typically, Marines conduct HST lifts of items like HMMWVs, 10,000lb net loads or other heavy items using CH-53E helos but those are few and far between in the Pacific Northwest. In Iraq, Alpha Company Marines worked almost every day to move items as wide ranging as vehicles, Riverine boats, MRE pallets, water, container units and even recover helicopter wrecks. It is truly an efficient way of moving equipment and cargo- especially in Iraq, where the roads are so dangerous. But that's for another post. At Astoria, we focused on thinking out of the box to succeed in working contacts to link up our Marine company with the Coast Guard and conduct joint training that was beneficial to both teams. Wrapping up the lifts, the HST team was ferried back to the hangar in order to prepare for the next phase of our cross-training evolution.
the air field where we were then able to complete multiple HST lifts of a 1,250lb buoy. Typically, Marines conduct HST lifts of items like HMMWVs, 10,000lb net loads or other heavy items using CH-53E helos but those are few and far between in the Pacific Northwest. In Iraq, Alpha Company Marines worked almost every day to move items as wide ranging as vehicles, Riverine boats, MRE pallets, water, container units and even recover helicopter wrecks. It is truly an efficient way of moving equipment and cargo- especially in Iraq, where the roads are so dangerous. But that's for another post. At Astoria, we focused on thinking out of the box to succeed in working contacts to link up our Marine company with the Coast Guard and conduct joint training that was beneficial to both teams. Wrapping up the lifts, the HST team was ferried back to the hangar in order to prepare for the next phase of our cross-training evolution.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Ever wonder if a tree makes noise when it falls in the woods? The same thing goes with Marines and screwing around when the leadership is gone. You know it happens, all you can do is just keep your fingers crossed that nothing bad happens and that it all works out in the end. If I had a dollar for all the Iraq stories that I was blissfully unaware of when we were in Iraq.. but did actually happen and am now being told.. I guess in their eyes there is some sort of Statute of Limitation in place on when things that happened aren't something that is ass-chew worthy anymore.
So the reason I bring all that up is because as we come driving down the road to TA-13, all of the Marines are sitting there looking way too innocent. I don't know what was going on, but I'm sure that come 2010 I'll hear about it. Maybe something involving Bat Wing's 10 lb pumpkin.
See what I mean?
After an hour of Marine Corps Martial Arts, the HH-60 arrived for hoist training. Hoist training involves the following: Helo arrives on station, drops Rescue Swimmer (R/S)
down to the site for assessment. After R/S communicates with the helo, basket with tag line (used to secure and stabilize the basket as it is moving underneath the helo thanks to rotor downwash) is dropped to ground level. Marines fireman carry fallen Marine to the basket, where he is placed and then raised up to the hovering helicopter. This process is repeated over a 45 minute span of time to the point where any exposed skin is sufficiently exfoliated from all the blowing sand whipping around at 80 miles an hour. Interestingly enough, this is also where you learn quickly who has listened to your packing list and who decided that they knew better as five minutes into the evolution ~15 Marines were huddled together on the other side of the berm with their backs to the helo and shielding their squinting eyes. Guess who forgot their goggles? Smooth move on their part. To me, this was quite similar to what it's like watching with painful awe as your dog learns the hard way about drinking sea water for the first (and last) time. I guarantee that now whenever someone says "helo ops", the first piece of equipment thrown into their packs will be goggles... I swear I saw some of them picking sand out of their eyes 24 hours later.
All in all, rewarding training among teams that really don't have the opportunity to train much together. Basket lifts are in all likelihood 
the most logical real-world event that would occur between Marines and Coast Guard, typically during a humanitarian crisis- sort of like what played out over and over in TV coverage of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. But additional SAR type of challenges involving canopied forests or higher angle terrain might find several of Alpha's Marines involved in real-world rescues with the Coast Guard- likely given the large number of climbing Marines that are housed within company and larger scale Natural Disaster events like last year's floodings.
After some more beach training and an afternoon awards ceremony the company sounded liberty, boarded the bus and headed into Astoria for several hours of R&R. Think it was funny watching 15 Marines walk into a brew house? Watch 60 Marines walk down the street and listen to on-the-street conversations. Most people, unaccustomed to Marines in that part of the world yet right on the Pacific assumed that a US Navy Destroyer was in port but then checked out the sexy hair cuts and thought the better of it. People there were really great, even buying us drinks from time to time- all of this in a town that has an Army and Coast Guard base within a stone's throw of city center. We ended up snagging a 3" stack of coasters and a bunch of beer glasses after some bartender tried jamming us on our bills and was ridiculous about a burger order made 1 minute earlier "sorry dude, you can't change from a classic burger to a bleu cheese burger- its too late now". Ass.
the most logical real-world event that would occur between Marines and Coast Guard, typically during a humanitarian crisis- sort of like what played out over and over in TV coverage of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. But additional SAR type of challenges involving canopied forests or higher angle terrain might find several of Alpha's Marines involved in real-world rescues with the Coast Guard- likely given the large number of climbing Marines that are housed within company and larger scale Natural Disaster events like last year's floodings.After some more beach training and an afternoon awards ceremony the company sounded liberty, boarded the bus and headed into Astoria for several hours of R&R. Think it was funny watching 15 Marines walk into a brew house? Watch 60 Marines walk down the street and listen to on-the-street conversations. Most people, unaccustomed to Marines in that part of the world yet right on the Pacific assumed that a US Navy Destroyer was in port but then checked out the sexy hair cuts and thought the better of it. People there were really great, even buying us drinks from time to time- all of this in a town that has an Army and Coast Guard base within a stone's throw of city center. We ended up snagging a 3" stack of coasters and a bunch of beer glasses after some bartender tried jamming us on our bills and was ridiculous about a burger order made 1 minute earlier "sorry dude, you can't change from a classic burger to a bleu cheese burger- its too late now". Ass.
The next morning, the company sounded reveille early- 05:00. 
Breaking down camp we donned helmet, flak and packs to kick off on an 11.5 mile conditioning hike down the Fort to Sea Trail, a historic trail believed to have been established by none other than Lewis and Clark to link Ft Clatsop with the Pacific Ocean. Round tripping the hike, we actually hiked the grounds of Ft Clatsop to see the fort, the fresh spring watering point and canoe entry point. Why not? It's not like any one of us is going to wake up one morning and go "you know what? I want to go see Ft Clatsop today" and make it a destination visit. I'd even bet good money that unless we conduct another training exercise at Rilea, there's a good chance only one of us might make ever make it back. I sort of put it into the same category as the 
Hole-in-the-Wall Monument, located in the Mojave National Preserve that you drive by at 80mph enroute from 29 Palms to Las Vegas. It's located near this little rinky-dink town (Cima) and sounds intriguing, but who wants to side trip 20 some odd miles to see it when you have Vegas on the mind? Not me. So, here was our chance to see Ft Clatsop as Alpha goes humping by. Hopefully one day, someone will talk about Lewis & Clark with one of the Marines and he'll be able to talk about how he was there and saw part of that history. And that right there makes it all worth it.
Breaking down camp we donned helmet, flak and packs to kick off on an 11.5 mile conditioning hike down the Fort to Sea Trail, a historic trail believed to have been established by none other than Lewis and Clark to link Ft Clatsop with the Pacific Ocean. Round tripping the hike, we actually hiked the grounds of Ft Clatsop to see the fort, the fresh spring watering point and canoe entry point. Why not? It's not like any one of us is going to wake up one morning and go "you know what? I want to go see Ft Clatsop today" and make it a destination visit. I'd even bet good money that unless we conduct another training exercise at Rilea, there's a good chance only one of us might make ever make it back. I sort of put it into the same category as the 
Hole-in-the-Wall Monument, located in the Mojave National Preserve that you drive by at 80mph enroute from 29 Palms to Las Vegas. It's located near this little rinky-dink town (Cima) and sounds intriguing, but who wants to side trip 20 some odd miles to see it when you have Vegas on the mind? Not me. So, here was our chance to see Ft Clatsop as Alpha goes humping by. Hopefully one day, someone will talk about Lewis & Clark with one of the Marines and he'll be able to talk about how he was there and saw part of that history. And that right there makes it all worth it. 
As for Ft Clatsop, this little log cabin structure way out in the middle of nowhere, Lewis and Clark stayed while hoping that at some point they would be able to hitch a ride on a passing ship rather than have to re-trace their steps. Think our 47 mile Mt Olympus climb was opening up a big can of suck-it-up? That doesn't hold a candle to what those guys had to look forward to. I'm sure one wise-ass soldier looked at their journey home and said "hey, we're halfway there". So waiting out the winter, the Corps of Discovery holed up to prepare for the return that I'm sure wasn't exactly looked forward to.Alpha lucked out and were able to bus it back home, but only after retracing our hump route back to Rilea and then one last drive through Astoria.
Look out, One Eyed Willie, the Marines are in town and giving you a run for your money.
Back to Main: http://territoryahead.blogspot.com/
Posts
1 comment:
Actually, I (allegedly) took down the Army flag. I wouldn't diss on the home team like that :)
Post a Comment