10-09-06 - Jeffrey Hunter
Jim - Remember Lt Jim
Ostrich ? Now a Captain I think. He was so much FUN !
We used to take his little car, a Toyota if I remember
right, and place it on the end of pier 13... SIDEWAYS !
One of our guys "Big Al", had a Buick that he used to
drive down from L.A., and for some reason his key would
work on the LT's car. So we were constantly stealing his
car for stuff.....lunch, beer runs, what have you. He'd
walk out from the admin building and Yell "Where's my
car?" I don't think he was ever on time for anything
cause he was always trying to find his car. We parked
that thing in all kinds of weird places.
Remember the infamous "Hit the Rock" gunshoot out at San
Clemente Island (SCI) ? LT Ostrich again. He sets up a
gunshoot at the Island. So the LT says "Where can we go
to shoot ?" The guy at the island says there is this
little island off of the North side called Bird shit
rock, go shoot at the rock. So off we go, we set up and
start shooting at Bird shit rock, with San Clemente only
1/4 mile behind it. I remember saying to the LT, "This
doesn't look right", but he said "Hey this is where they
said we could shoot, so here is where we shoot", me
being the new guy I didn't know any better, so we start
banging away, 50's M60's, mortars, everything we got,
with Rock and Roll music in the back ground, just having
a BLAST. I remember hitting a few CONEX boxes on the SCI
beach as well. Next thing we know a bunch of Intruders
fly over waiving they're wings at us. We're like "YEAH
Baby rock and roll !". We shoot until were out of ammo,
then head back to the pier for fuel. This SCI guy is
waiting for us Screaming "Oh my God that was Great, it
was just like Vietnam !"He was dancing and going nuts.
As it turns out our rounds were coming into the SCI
Airport. They had to secure all operations, and evacuate
the entire area. The SCI guys don't know what an SBU is,
so they think we're a Squadron of jets or something.
When the Air guys needed a shoot, the Planes would fly
over the island and shoot at the rock with the rounds
going out to sea, so
naturally being a Boat unit, we were at sea shooting the
rock with our rounds going into the island. We had shot
up our own Airport ! ! !
Greatfully the damage was pretty small and no one got
hit, but as sea stories go, buy the time we got back to
San Diego, we had shot up airplanes, blew up a truck,
wounded several hundred, the story grew every day. Thank
God for Ed Cahill, he was our C.O. at the time, and he
was the one who made sure nobody burned on that one.
Jeffrey |
I saw Jeff's
blurb on the gun shoot. A couple of minor
corrections and additions. We were on an
ACTDUTRA at SCI and had been working with HAL 5
who had been shooting in the same area, I think
they shot the day before. I may have pics of
this. After the shoot on Castle Rock, we went
into Wilson Cove and the Lieutenants (Jim
Osterich, Jim Milesky
(sP?) Jay O'Keefe maybe John Higgs too) were
summoned to the Island CO's office, where they
were dressed down, while the Ensign (me) had a
barbecue with the men and conducted maneuvering
drills at Wilson Cove.
There were two air tech's on the runway
servicing the arrester gear. One reported he
heard a few rounds whistle over head; the other
said they were under continuous fire for 20
minutes. I think Osterich also said what
shooting? and the CO dropped a spent .50 bullet
into his hand. The CO asked, "So when did you
stop shooting?" "When we ran out
of ammunition, sir," Osterich replied. Of course
the word got around the Island and back to base
and was amplified way out of proportion. At the
chow hall, the sand crabs were whispering "they"
were the guys that shot up the airfield as we
walked in. However Chief Wallace really
embellished things back at NAB telling the
Skipper (Cdr. Ed Cahill) that we had destroyed
the control tower and F-14's were burning on the
runway. Captain Cahill and the XO LCDR Rick
Measel went to North Island and got the duty
Lt.jg at one of the helo squadrons to fly them
out to SCI ASAP! Imagine its 1700 and two
Vietnam SEAL's, CDR and LCDR chest full of
ribbons, lighting a fire in the days before
pagers and cell phones. I think this was the new
XO's first introduction to the reserves. With
nothing burning on the ramp, we all wrote
statements and the event passed into legend.
Phil Garn |
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Photos from Jeff Hunter |
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