A Salute From Fort Ord

Sunny days and cool breezes off Monterey Bay. Cyprus, sage brush and sardines.

Kind of makes you want to shoot something, doesn't it?

For seventy-seven years, Fort Ord was the most desirable domestic assignment in the U.S. Army. It's idyllic location meant reliably awesome weather, gorgeous scenery, fresh, local brussels sprouts and artichokes and delicious seafood year round.

Many a lazy afternoon was spent by many an American boy firing live rounds of artillery over the wind swept plains and soft rolling, seaside hills surrounding the Fort's clapboard bunkhouses.

Jimi Hendrix did his basic training at Fort Ord. Clint Eastwood and Jerry Garcia both once called the Fort home. A portion of the base was set aside in the 1980s as the first federal nature reserve designated for the protection of an insect, the Smith's Blue Butterfly.


When the Army decommissioned Fort Ord in 1994, the coastal artillery range and beachhead were designated toxic Superfund sites due to excessive lead dust (from the bullets) and the prominence of unexploded blow-uppery of various kinds.

A brief, lawsuit-worthy attempt at remediation by the Army followed, and the area was converted into a State Park in 2009.

Today most of the area is still poisoned.

The California coast is littered with relics of war. Echoes in the agriculture remind me of the cost paid by so many so I could walk here free today. I am thankful for their sacrifice. And I hope for a day when we can more easily sacrifice our pride than our children. I hope for a section of this earth to one day be set aside for the preservation of humanity.

I understand war is necessary. I just don't believe it is necessary as often as we are told. And when I see the bare feet of my neighbors' children running care free through the lead-poisoned sand of the Fort Ord dunes, I wonder with what sincerity our government is working to keep us free.

But they are busy, I know.

So we all must do our part.

A Salute to Fort Ord from Mossy Mossy!


For more photos of Mossy Mossy's day trip to Fort Ord, visit A Mossy Softness.