Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"
Don't want to get away from the purpose of this thread, but I do (for obvious reasons) find the Marine aspect of all this interesting.Found this passage at the "Crime Library" site
"[Whitman]... left for basic training on July 6, 1959.
Charlie spent the first part of his stint with the Marines at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. He worked hard at being a good Marine, following orders dutifully and studying hard for his various examinations. He earned a Good Conduct Medal, the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal, and a Sharpshooter’s Badge. Chillingly, the records of his scores on shooting tests show that he scored 215 out of 250 possible points, that he excelled at rapid fire from long distances, and that he seemed to be more accurate when shooting at moving targets. Captain Joseph Stanton, Executive Officer of the 2nd Marine Division remembered, “He was a good marine. I was impressed with him. I was certain he’d make a good citizen.”"
Don't know how seriously to take all that, for one thing, you don't get a Good Conduct Medal "at first".
You get it after 3 years of...at least avoiding real bad conduct.
Found the 215 rifle score interesting.
It's the Sharpshooter level, again, NOT the best.
BTW, I had scored 210 in boot camp, just sliding in above the dreaded Marksman level.
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Here's a little personal history I wrote a couple of years ago followed by a short history of Camp Matthews:
Camp Matthews”…the Marine rifle range near San Diego. In 1964 part of my boot camp experience was rifle training there. The goal was to fire the M-14 as well as possible. Top scorers earned an Expert badge, and then came Sharpshooter and, though it may sound important, the Marksman was the least of the three. Below that you had failed to show proficiency and would have to try again.
After about 3 weeks of training I was pretty average. On the big day the final shots were made in the prone position at 500 yards. When it came down to it, I needed all bull’s-eyes if I was going to score 210 and earn “Sharpshooter.”
My instructor told me to take my time, and I did.
Normally the range is really noisy. But I was noticing that toward the end I could actually hear my own shots echoing in the surrounding hills. I got the needed bulls-eyes and then saw that everyone else had finished firing.
The record book for the range was brought over to me and they asked me to sign it. I was the last Marine to fire a shot on “A” Range at Camp Matthews.
Here’s a little history of the place:
"A major part of recruit training concerns the art of weaponry or marksmanship training. Such training involves use of considerable isolated land for weapon firing. From the beginning of marine training in San Diego, it had been necessary to establish and maintain a rifle range on a small tract of land a few miles north of the main base. First called the Marine Rifle Range (Pueblo Lands), La Jolla, then officially commissioned as Camp Calvin B. Matthews in 1942, the range became the home for the Weapons Training Battalion, Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Named for Lieutenant Colonel Calvin B. Matthews, a distinguished Marine marksman of the 1930 period, the rifle range remained an effective training facility until closed in 1964 to provide for expansion of San Diego. To show how the range grew during World War II, in 1942, 69,208 Marines fired over the course and in 1944, this figure rose to over 100,000. From its beginning in 1918 to its final shot, over one million shooters fired over 300 million rounds while undergoing weapons training(2).
As the war caused the Marine Base and its satellite unit to be expanded, so also did the conflict in growth result for the City of San Diego. When the war ended, San Diego's urban expansion continued and in the late 1950's negotiations began for the removal of Camp Matthews to provide for both city expansion and college construction(3). The University of California wanted to establish its San Diego campus on the site of the Marine Rifle Range. Bowing to civilian pressures, funds granted by Congress permitted construction of a new range for the Weapons Training Battalion in the Stuart Mesa area of Camp Pendleton. Plans and construction began in 1962 and 1963 respectively and the new facility, named Edson Range, became operational on 8 August 1964. Closing ceremonies occurred at Camp Matthews on 21 August 1964 and 46 years of Marine training at that portion of the San Diego Marine Base came to an end. Today, only a plaque on the campus of the University of California at San Diego marks the site(5)."
Sorry, the footnotes aren't here.
