It had more of a recoil than I was expecting; my arm felt like I had just smacked a rock with a cracked, wooden bat. Fortunately, we were taught to shoot one-handed in those days, with an extended arm, relaxed at the elbow, so only one arm was numb when my 100 rounds had been spent. My first time, actually my first few times, I wouldn't have even qualified. It took numerous sessions with a very patient gunnery sergeant to get me to the Expert badge.
It was a Colt 1911 semi-auto in .45 calibre, the standard USMC version that had been, by the 1970's, in service for over 60 years. Although it appeared complicated, the mechanism was easy to break down, clean, and reassemble, even during live fire training in the field. Rain, mud, that nasty red clay of Southeast Asia, nothing could gum it up so badly that it wouldn't work.
I became so comfortable with its use that, when I bought my first civilian semi-auto handgun, I made sure it was in the 1911 design.
