Saturday, April 24, we were driving to Redondo Beach, CA from Incline Village, NV to visit SIL. We stopped at THE Shell station in what is called Pearsonville, CA on 395 just north of the 14 intersections. This beautiful highway runs N-S on the eastern slope of the Sierra. Mountain vistas contrasted by barren high desert. While my wife went inside to potty, I asked a truck of 4 VERY fit young men how their camping trip was, as the bed was full of camping gear and they were each wolfing down a foot-long. One of the young men stepped over to me and spoke about their experience: The mountains were tough: 6 days of nothing to eat followed by 6 days of all they could eat. He said they did elevation shooting which was a nice change from their flat range. Mind you, he did not introduce himself. He asked what weapon class I preferred. Pistols, I replied. He considered that and said that it would be good for them to get proficient with pistols and moving. As he walked away, he said they were Recon Snipers. I mumbled something like “Keep up the good work. We appreciate you.” China Lake is not far from Pearsonville, but Pendleton is a day’s drive. Meeting this young serviceman makes a patriot like me feel REALLY good and gives me hope. 10 Marines make Recon Sniper

Semper Fidelis!!!

My father, now passed on, had that job back in Korea in 1950.... '03 Springfield with a scope.

The new Recon Sniper course is a streamlined course that broke with the sniper community's overbearing dominance of the 0317 book of instruction. For awhile, there was a number of senior members that staunchly refused to broaden instruction to other parts of the advanced infantry community, thus the Recon community was limited to how many students could pass the Basic Scout-Sniper course, meanwhile they'd loose members to MARSOC. Similar to how Force Recon had to be reformed after the MEU commanders recognized a hole in their overall capabilities with their members departing to MARSOC.

Unless they said they were doing training at China Lake, they were likey up at either Hawthorne Army Depot, where a lot of pre-Afghanistan training is done and has a number of high-angle ranges. The Mountain Warfare Center outside of Bridgeport is also further up 395 just below Sonora Pass.