I'M B A C K

FINALLY, I have a good Wi Fi connection here in San Diego. So many adventures have kept me busy putting slide productions together... 25 just here in San Diego, where I have spent the past five months.

When I last posted I told you that I would tell about my experience with a 50-cal. machine gun at the Marine Base in Twenty Nine Palms. The group that I was with, the Golden Spike chapter of Family Motor Coach Ass. were on a tour of the Marine Base. One of the stops on the tour was the multi million dollar simulator center where they train Marines tactics using Hummers. There are five rooms. Each has a real Humvee in the center with a 50-cal. machine gun mounted on top. Around the edge of the room is are 360 degrees of wall size video monitors. All the controls of the Humvee along with radio communications, speed and direction are tied into a central computer. On the screens can be seen the other Hummers that are being used in a given exercise.

 

 

I was shown how to load ammo. into the gun. 

 

  

 Around the edge of the room are 360 degrees of wall size video monitors. All the controls of the Humvee along with radio communications, speed and direction are tied into a central computer.

I looked down into the front passenger's seat where our "commander" would sit.

 

Then down in the cab to the left sat our driver.

 

We were ready to ROLL! Each Humvee can see all the others in real time. When our driver steps on the gas, our image moves on the wall screens.

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Our mission was to convoy through a hostel village to meet up with a platoon and escort them back to the Marine compound. We are on the road.

 

 

We did not get through the village alive. All three Hummers and their ground support were lost.  But we had to congratulate ourselves.  

 

At least we did not shoot down any of our own helicopters.

You can see all three of us burning on the road in the above picture. However, we did blow up two of the bad guy's trucks before we arrived in the village.