The last time we California surfers had to worry about getting hassled by Marines was in the 1960s and ‘70s, when the greatest, most consistent waves on our whole coastline were off-limits, legally at least.
Cotton’s Point was right below the cliff on which sat President Richard Nixon’s Western White House, and the Secret Service don’t surf.
Just south, Upper Trestles, where now I paddle out every November with a posse of old longboarders to celebrate my birthday, and Lower Trestles, where the 2028 Olympics competition will be held, were entirely verboten beaches because they are the property of the United States Marine Corps’ Camp Pendleton.
Braver kids than I was would sneak past the Marine guards anyway, stashing their boards in the high marsh grass, making a run for the beach to catch a few waves in between patrols.
The only way we got to surf any of the five or so miles of Pendleton’s rocky reef break was that some of our dads were ex-Marines themselves, allowed onto the base, and some were members of the weirdly exclusive San Onofre Surfing Club, and when we piled into their station wagons with the classic Sano decal on the windshields, we had access to Old Man’s and Dogpatch and the shady palapas that give the beach scene there the most aloha vibe of any in Southern California.
Now the whole stretch of coast is leased to the state of California as San Onofre State Beach, with access for all, though you’ll occasionally see amphibious landing drills down the coast south of the brilliant break known as Trails.
But even back in the bad old days, it wasn’t as if the Marines were launching mortars at us.
Yet the state came under artillery fire last Saturday at Pendleton, as shrapnel from an absolutely asinine show of force billed as a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Marines rained down on Interstate 5 just below San Onofre.
“A simulated beach assault in which artillery was fired from the sand toward the interior of the sprawling base was intended to be a capstone demonstration of the capabilities of the Marine Corps. But the display went awry — and was forced to end early — when an artillery round exploded midair,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
The shrapnel over the main artery between Los Angeles and San Diego hit a California Highway Patrol cruiser and motorcycle parked on a freeway on-ramp.
While no one was hurt, someone certainly could have been. All for a stunt to show off the fact that our howitzers can indeed be fired from a beach? What gall, to put Californians in harm’s way for no real reason other than puffed-out presidential, and vice-presidential, chests — JD Vance was a guest at the live-fire session.
Were such White House worries what made the Marines decline to notify Caltrans and Amtrak about the Friday dress-rehearsal during which live shells were also fired over 5?
Is that why no apologies have been received from the commander in chief?
Because at the Saturday main event, state authorities closed down the freeway and train service in order to protect the public from the incoming.
But for Friday’s practice bombardment, a Times follow-up by Hannah Fry and Rong-Gong Lin shows, there were no public warnings to the state as the Marines fired 30 rounds from its M777 howitzers on the beach into the hilly interior of the base between 5 and 5:30 p.m.
Which would be your rush hour.
“We did not receive a notification that weapons would be fired over the freeway during Friday’s rehearsal,” a spokesperson for the California State Transportation Agency told the Times. The reporters asked the Marines Corps for comment and have yet to receive an answer.
These are shells that weigh 100 pounds each. Apparently, most of the time they are very good at hitting their faraway targets. Clearly, some of the time parts of them blow up and spew shrapnel short of their goals. They shouldn’t be fired over civilians. What hubris to do so shows.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.