Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton is the Corps' biggest training facility on the West Coast, according to the …More href="http://www.pendleton.usmc.mil/">base Web site</a>.</p> <p>The base is 125,000 acres, the northern edge of which runs along the south of San Clemente. President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the base in 1942. The base trains Marine, Army and Navy units, as well as national, state and local agencies.</p> <p>The base, according to the web site, is  "home to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Logistics Group and many tenant units, including Marine Corps Installation-West, 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion, Wounded Warriors Battalion-West, Marine Corps Air Station at Munn Field, Marine Aircraft Group 39,  Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego's Weapons & Field Training Battalion, Marine Corps and Army Reserve Forces, the Navy's Assault Craft Unit 5, a Naval Hospital and 1st Dental Battalion."</p> <p>Specialized training schools and artillery ranges make up the base's facilities. Basic training happens at School of Infantry-West at Camp San Onofre before assignment to other units throughout the Corps. More than 38,000 military and family members occupy base housing complexes. </p>

This is the headquarters for San Clemente's Marine Safety Division.

Lifeguards staff the towers up and down…More the beach during the summer season, and <a href="http://san-clemente.org/sc/inf/weather/beach/beachreport.aspx">update the city website</a> several times per day with information about conditions in the water.</p> <p>The life guards let swimmers know how rough the surf is with a series of flags -- green, yellow, red -- which indicated the severity of the surf. (None but the most experienced swimmers should swim during a red flag day, while a green flag indicates calmer waters.)</p>

Dedicated to the Marine Corps, Park Semper Fi is a small, hilltop park adjacent to Parque Del Mar that overlooks the…More pier. A tall, bronze statue of a Marine standing at attention and saluting looks out over the ocean and San Clemente Pier. To his left is a plaque bearing the names of Marines killed in battle, and the park -- landscaped with flowers and plantings by the San Clemente Garden Club -- has become a memorial for local families who have lost their husbands, sons, daughters, wives, brothers or sisters to war.</p> <p>The city of San Clemente holds its yearly Veterans Day ceremony at Park Semper Fi.</p>