Bull in the Ring

"The sun had not yet risen that morning of July 1, 1977, whenI slipped behind the wheel of "Black Beauty," my '68 Cadillacconvertible, and headed north on I-5 to Camp Pendleton Marine CorpsBase. I had the top down as usual since it hadn't rained much in SouthernCalifornia since 1969. Camp Pendleton is perhaps the largest military basein the world. It occupies 125,000 acres, or almost 200 square miles, inSouthern California. It has over seventeen miles of coastline that extendsfrom Oceanside north to San Clemente. It is home to as many as seventythousand United States marines."