Camping with the Marines

This week 100 San Francisco boys are escaping the city's chilly August fogs for a week of fishing, swimming and hiking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They are not the sons of the middle class off with collegiate counselors; they are black, Mexican-American and Chinese youngsters of the city's ghettos --and their camping instructors are U.S. Marines.

They are the first of 400 youths scheduled to participate in a new program that has brought the military into the problems of the inner city. In late spring, a Marine Corps colonel attended a meeting concerning summer unrest held in Mayor Joseph Alioto's office and offered the Corps and its former survival training school near Lake Tahoe as a fresh-air refuge from the streets. San Francisco policemen recruited the 13-to 15-year-old campers, including some they had previously arrested for purse snatching and car theft. Businessmen put up the money for food, the Marines assigned mess sergeants, and reservists volunteered to act as counselors.

If Marine Camp High Sierra proves successful, San Francisco authorities have their eye on other branches of the armed forces. There is talk of using Navy ships for cruises and setting up camps at Air Force flight schools.

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