A few months back, there was a brief bit in a newsletter about some odd concrete blocks that in all probability are still somewhere on MCAGCC, better known as the Stumps. These were described as being 3'X3'X3' (and 3,850 lbs, more or less) with forklift truck channels through the middle…..my guess is they may still be in use to block a road, or something like that, and my hope was that maybe some active duty Devil Dog out in the blazing sands would report having seen them……alas, so far, no takers…….
Climbing into the wayback machine, we can journey to the early 70's…….a time of some civil unrest, some weapon/explosives security issues…………and a new BG as the CG of what was then known as Marine Corps Base, Twentynine Palms. The new CG was a stickler for detail……..he was touring the Base Magazine for the first time, and as we arrived at magazine four, he was looking up at the 'windows' in the front wall of the magazine. These were glass brick, and other than having the big doors open, the only source of light inside the magazine……there are no electrical anything in a magazine……ever…..maybe excepting the very special 'explosion-proof' battery-powered forklift trucks. The General noted that a couple of the glass bricks in one corner of one window were of a different pattern than all the rest, so he asked why that was?
He was not pleased with my answer that those were probably just what Facility Maintenance had in stock at the time……and less pleased to hear that the replacement had probably been necessary because the originals might have been broken by a bored sentry throwing rocks……in fact, he went ballistic (ammo magazine not a good place for that, you'd think…..)…..he invoked the Deity, and others, exclaiming that 'you mean to tell me, that by breaking out the window, some SOB could get in there and throw ammo out', etc. etc.?……..At the time, there were no re-bar cages over the windows (there are now…been there forty years), and discretion overtook the urge to advise that if the said SOB was that big and mean, if he'd just call up, we'd be glad to deliver, since everything in that particular magazine looked a lot like 8" HE rounds, at 204lbs each, six to the pallet, and by the way, the bottom of the window is a good ten feet above the loading dock………
I was tasked to check out a sedan and tour every military facility in Southern California that had ammo storage, look at their security, draft a letter with four proposals to increase security,etc. (I skipped the SAC guys down by Riverside….them nuke guys can be really, really touchy about that kind of question)…..what I found out was that with the exception of NAD Seal Beach, if you had a decent pair of bolt cutters that would handle a brass padlock, you could conceivably steal all you wanted most any dark night.
Now, having had some exposure to 'staff work', I determined that the first three recommendations would be for things like fences, lights, sensors, infra-red beams (one vendor had these with transmitters and receivers camouflaged as tree stumps…….might be a little obvious in the Mojave desert?))…..knowing full well that there would be no way these would be affordable….for the final recommendation, I would submit something dumb enough that the whole thing would probably be wadded up, circular-filed, and forgotten……and we could go back to making sure every last .22 LR round was accounted for, stored safely, etc……and thus, I came up with……………making these blocks, using scrap dunnage lumber for forms, and our in-house all-purpose, jim-dandy, double-handy ammo tech Marines…these blocks would then be chained in front of the magazine doors……..and, of course, Fac Maint would be tasked to fabricate and install grilles over the glass block windows…
Had it typed, triple-checked for spelling, signed it, and sent it off up to the wind tunnel, and figured that was the end of that, and got back to work.
The next day, the letter came back….with recommendation four circled, and a cryptic 'get it done' note. So we did………..Once these things were cured, stripped of forms, and FacMaint had put the eye-bolts in the front wall, and got us a whole bunch of half-inch (meaning each side of a link was half an inch in diameter) chain, we were secure……really, really secure……..in fact ,so secure, that in order to issue one EDBD box of .22, we had to: get the one truck from Base Motors (ton and a half flat-bed…..Ford) that had the right hitch, hook that up to the one trailer on the base made to haul electric forklifts, go to the magazine, open the office, open the big safe, get out the fuses and seat for a forklift, go up the hill to the maintenance shed, undo a lock and chain, re-assemble the forklift so it would run, drive it onto the trailer, haul it up to a magazine, unload the forklift, undo a bigass padlock, pull the chain out of the forklift channels, move the block with the forklift, open another padlock, swing the door open, log in……then issue the ammo……before reversing the routine at the end of the day……..
As we were building the forms, I jokingly suggested that we put a brass plate in the bottom, so that a thousand years later, some archeologist might tip one over, brush off the verdigris (old term….used to be found on web belt eyelets at inspection….look it up…)…and there he would read "Dickerson's Folly'………
Dunno if it was GySgt Ray Marcillio, or GySgt 'Hammerin' Hank' Deffee or maybe SSGT 'Swoop' Berryhill…..(later made WO.)….who came up with the plaque when I got orders……but have cherished the thing these 40 years……..somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it (picture)…….
And……Marines being Marines……..figured out within a week, that with a Johnson or 'tank' bar……(metal lever about 6' long & ours were beryllium…non-sparking…..and about $700 each)…they could scoot the blocks out of the way pretty easily…..and back………officially, I didn't know that……….