A 24 hour walk in the hills.

In the spring of 1944 I was stationed at Camp San Luis Obispo. Our main assignment was amphibious training at Moro Bay. The generals decided that we also needed some land training. They thought "what would be better than a 24 hour march in full gear in the hills?".

So we got up at 3 am, put on full gear including M1 rifle, and started marching. We walked back and forth over the hills between Baywood Park, Moro Bay, and San luis Obispo. Those are pretty hills. On and on we marched. I can remember a bunch of us singing the Mills Brothers hit song "I am going to buy a paper doll". That is still one of my favorite recordings. It is in my iphone.

Some men fell out with blisters. I alway had good luck with my boots fitting my feet. Maybe because US combat boots are built on the Munson Last.

At 3 am the next morning we got into bed. At 5 am we fell out for a regular day of training. That was a short 2 hour night's sleep. We were tired that night! No singing.

We looked something like this. We did not carry a bed roll.