My Float Tapes… Back in August of 2001 I was in the Marine Corps with Bravo Company 1/1 out of Camp Pendleton. I was a young Sergeant, a squad leader in a line company. I was set to head out on a Westpac (Western Pacific) deployment with the 15th MEU SOC (Marine Expeditionary Unit – Special Operations Capable). The plan was to make our way over to Djibouti, Eastern Africa, do some training and come home. Plans changed on September 11th.
I set out back then to create a Float Video, following my experience on that deployment. I had a little Sony HandyCam that used MiniDV tapes. Over the course of the next 6 months I captured about 19 hours of footage. Following myself from start to finish on that deployment.
When I returned I didn’t know where to start with all of the footage and was busy with life. The Float Tapes, 19 of them, got misplaced in the shuffle and lost until I finally found them about 18 years later. This will be the story of that deployment…
Part 7 picks up with us making it back to our ship on the night of September 11th in Darwin, Australia. It still amazes me to this day that everyone made it back to the ship that night. The whole MEU left port the next morning at 0600.
Routine is important to take your mind off of things you can’t control. To that end, we ended up working on our Marine Corps Martial Arts Program in order to get everyone trained up for their Tan Belt…
Loadout
