I remember driving past Fort Ord and reading up on it at the time

The main thing I remember is that the one base had over three times the troops of the entire NZ Army

California also has more state laws than any other. We felt it was a police state when we were there, National Parks were even worse.
It's not all Haight and Ashbury hippies man.
https://youtu.be/eIqESwzCGg4?si=MPzVch36eKvbpRz8

Quote from: paulr on 30 September 2023, 03:21:08 AMI remember driving past Fort Ord and reading up on it at the time

The main thing I remember is that the one base had over three times the troops of the entire NZ Army

Not much of a challenge.  I did an exchange with the RNZIR in Singapore in the 1980s.  They had two regular battalions and as far as I know that hasn't changed.

And the grenadier company wasn't there because his mum had the 'flu.

Did a five week road trip in the SW of America in 2017, ending up in California.  One of the things we did was visit the Little Big Horn battlefield  site in Montana.  Got talking to a couple of Americans who, when we told them what we were doing and how we were heading, eventually, to California, via most of the National Parks we could on the way, went off on one about how California was run by 'liberals' and 'Communists', manifested mainly, apparently, by the state's 'restrictive' gun laws (apparently it actually has some) which violate, in their opinion, the constitution.  I must admit when we arrived eventually in San Francisco, governmental repression of all aspects of life and the arbitrary exercise of power by the military and police was so apparent.  The less said about the secret police the better :-)

So secret that nobody ever sees them. 

It's a while since I've spent any length of time in California though I was briefly in SF for business in 2017 and 2019 and Santa Monica in 2018 likewise.

These locations were expensive (according to my US colleagues this is a fact of life for California) and SF seemed to have much more homelessness in evidence than I remembered from pre 2000.

In the late 1980s one of my American friends was going out with a cop (K9 handler) in a small city south of SF and his stories from an 18 person police department were startling to a Brit. Also wandering round with someone who was carrying a 9mm semi auto as an off duty weapon was disconcerting.

Edward