Court Street
Sgt Grit,
Just wanted to write it to ask my fellow Jarheads if they have any fond memories or funny stories of Court Street, Jacksonville, North Carolina?
For those Marines who were not stationed at Camp Geiger, Camp Lejeune or New River Air Station, Court street was a famous (or infamous if you will) street off of Highway 17 that ran through Jacksonville. I talk about it as if it was a city or a major place when in fact it was a just a short dead-end street off of the main drag that was loaded with seedy bars, strip joints and tattoo joints, but it was famous indeed. I have not been back to that area since I was discharged back in 1985, but I am told that the place was closed down several years ago.
After ITS at Geiger, I ended up being assigned to Weapons Platoon, Lima 3/8 right there on Geiger and if I did not end up going home on the weekends or for a 72 or a 96, it always seemed that try as we might, we never were able to stay away from that place for long. There were times when we did drive south on Highway 17 to Surf City or other places, but more often than not we ended up on Court Street.
Looking back now I typically laugh at what might have been the draw to those little bars, but for those brother and sister Marines who know the area, you all know that there were simply not many places to go to around the bases that did not involve, beer, dancers or tattoos. Anyway, I do have fond memories of many of those little places because they helped me pass the time away back as a young twenty year old Marine!
Semper Fi to all and God bless all of our brother and sister Marines serving our great country today and for all service men and women!
Semper Fi
Mike Kunkel
Cpl 0331
Weapons Plt, Lima 3/8
Nothing Left
During my tour in 1966 at Chu Lai as an interrogator, we had a practice of taking captives with any knowledge about enemy activities or caches back to where they were captured in the field with the capturing unit. On one occasion while crossing on a paddy dke from one unit's control to another's there was just me, the POW (excuse me, CAPTIVE), and my interpreter we received fire from a ville some distance away.
There were two ONTOS just coming from that area. When they saw we were being fired upon they quickly turned around, began firing, and rolled back to that ville. When they were done, there was nothing left of it. We got up, spit out the mouthful of dirt we had tried to eat (a common occurrence), and continued on. My hat is always off to the crews of the ONTOS. Needless to say, I LOVE them.
SSgt, 9th ITT, Chu Lai, SVN 1966