Marine in live fire exercise
Subject: US Marine in South Korea
Photo: Ray Petersen
TSQ Location: Book 1.2, Short Story section, page 109
This photo was also taken in Korea. The company of Marines that I was assigned to cover were conducting live fire exercise with Rifle Squads, Assaultmen, Mortars, and Supporting Fire Elements (which is what this photo shows). The Marines were firing an M240G automatic machine gun.
This was actually my favorite gun to fire. It properly opperated by two people. One person to be the gunner and the other to be whats known as the “assistant” gunner. The job of the “A-Gunner” was to properly feed the rounds through the chamber, since this is a belt fed weapon, meaning that the rounds are all attatched to links to form a belt of rounds.
But the best job was to be the main gunner because all you had to worry about was pulling the trigger and making sure the rounds were on target. I particularly like this photo because there was lots of sand and dust blowing in the air so it helped create a more dramatic effect with the photo. And the brass rounds flying out of the chamber was just icing on the cake.
- Ray Petersen
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