Camp Pendleton

Camp Pendleton, in Virginia Beach, was established in 1912 on the Atlantic Ocean beach, just south of Rudee Inlet, as a state rifle range. Between 1922-1942, it was renamed after the current governor of Virginia - Camp Trinkle, Camp Byrd, etc. The current name honors Major General Joseph H. Pendleton, a Virginia minister who served as a Confederate general during the Civil War.

(Camp Pendleton in California was named after Joseph Henry Pendleton, a Marine Corps general born in in 1860 Pennsylvania...)

Camp Pendleton is now the home of the Virginia Army National Guard. (Air National Guard bases are in Richmond and Newport News.) Much of the unit's training is conducted at Fort Pickett, since urban development has occurred on the northern and western edges of the base. The National Guard runs the Commonwealth ChalleNGe "to provide a highly disciplined atmosphere fostering academics, leadership development, physical training and personal growth to educate and train unemployed high school dropouts."

as noted by one student in 2001:

The governor also has a resort "cabin" at Camp Pendleton, not too far back from the beach. Although a guard shack controlled access to the camp, the beach that provides one of the camp's boundaries was unfenced and open to the public so anyone could enter the facility from the east. You may remember some of the Va Beach "partying" allegations/exposes that ran in the Richmond, Norfolk and DC newspapers about Charles Robb when he was governor; they were tied to the governor's cabin at Pendleton. Rumor was that Robb would come down to relax at the cabin and then sneak off base unseen via the beach to an adjacent residential community.

The Afloat Personnel Management Center of the Military Sealift Command is physically located at Camp Pendleton.

Links

• American Forts Network - Camp Pendleton
• Salon: Dead Senator Running?
• Washington Post: Chuck Robb and the Cocaine Parties - 1987-1988