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Countywide : Active Duty for Wives of Marines

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Betty Muro braced the M-16 rifle against her shoulder, carefully clicked off the safety and, squinting under her helmet down the barrel of her weapon, fired 20 rounds into a dusty target 25 meters away.

Weighted down by a heavy camouflage flak jacket, she struggled to her feet and discovered that she had hit the bull’s-eye--20 times.

Muro, an accountant with Saturn of San Juan Capistrano, is not a Marine in training. Rather, she is one of 40 women who donned their husbands’ camouflage fatigues and body armor Friday to find out just what their Marine spouses do for a living.

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“This is my first time ever shooting an M-16. I can’t believe it!” Muro exclaimed as her husband, Staff Sgt. Carlos Muro, looked on proudly.

The occasion was Jane Wayne Day for the wives of Weapons Company, an infantry unit of Camp Pendleton’s 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which will be deployed to Okinawa and other points in the western Pacific for six months, starting in November.

From firing M-16 rifles and 9mm pistols to rappelling off 50-foot towers, the women learned a thing or two about their husbands’ jobs.

“I never fully realized how much responsibility they have,” said Patty Beattie, an attorney whose husband, Capt. Tim Callahan, is the company commander.

“They’re out here shooting, and if something went wrong, they’re the ones who are held accountable,” she said before being briefed about the dangers of live ammunition.

For Claudia Kenyon, the best part of the day was rappelling off a 50-foot platform, an exercise to train Marines how to jump off airborne helicopters.

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“It’s a blast!” declared Kenyon, whose husband, Gordon, is a lieutenant in the company. “At first, logic tells you, ‘Don’t go.’ But then you just want to do it again.”

The spouses also experienced the more mundane side of Marine Corps life, such as having to eat dust all day during training exercises.

“My wife sees me come home every day, really tired and dirty, and wonders what I’ve been up to,” said Lance Cpl. Tim Mobley. “Now she knows.”

At lunchtime, the spouses even got a sample of something many Marines think tastes almost as bad as dust: the dehydrated MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat, featuring such entrees as potatoes au gratin, better known as “potatoes are rotten.”

Frivolity aside, the daylong event has a deeper purpose. It gave the women a chance to get acquainted and to develop a camaraderie to help sustain them during their husbands’ long absences.

“We need to take time now before we deploy to ensure a strong support network for our families,” said Callahan, who organized the event. “It’s time well spent, and it will definitely pay dividends later.”

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