Midway between Beaufort and Wilmington, much of the coastline is taken over by the 100,000-acre U.S. Marine Corps base of Camp Lejeune. Established during World War II, and now home to the crack rapid deployment forces and an urban combat training center, Camp Lejeune is open to visitors interested in a nose-to-nose encounter with tanks, humvees, and other lethal machines. Sentries will check you in and out at both ends of the surprisingly scenic 25-mile drive across the base along Hwy-172, which serves as a shortcut to looping US-17.
At the northwest corner of Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville (pop. 66,715) is little more than a civilian adjunct to the base, with all the gas stations, fast-food franchises, and tattoo parlors Lejeune’s 45,000 Marines and their dependents could want. One sobering sight is on the edge of town, just off Hwy-24 (opposite a Sonic Drive-In): the 50-foot-long granite wall of the Beirut Memorial remembers the more than 250 Camp Lejeune marines killed in Beirut in 1983 by a suicide bomber. Alongside a list of their names are the words “They Came in Peace.”
The Outer Banks
