To the non-combatants and those on the periphery of action, the war meant only boredom or occasional excitement, but to those who entered the meat grinder itself the war was a netherworld of horror from which escape seemed less and less likely as cas...
The other veteran said "Listen, mate, everybody gets scared, and anybody says he don't is a damn liar
Your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the marines.
The Japanese fought to win - it was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting and dirty business. Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically for it whether we liked it or not. In the post-war years, the U.S....
As the sun disappeared below the horizon and its glare no longer reflected off a glassy sea, I thought of how beautiful the sunsets always were in the Pacific. They were even more beautiful than over Mobile Bay. Suddenly a thought hit me like a thund...
Would the war dehumanize me so that I, too, could "field trip" enemy dead with such nonchalance?
I asked God "Why, why, why?" I turned my face away and wished that I were imagining it all. I had tasted the bitterest essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and it filled me with disgust.
Something in me died at Peleliu. Perhaps it was the childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that Man is basically good. Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places, who do not have to endure war's savagery, will ever stop blunde...
As I crawled out of the abyss of combat and over the rail of the Sea Runner, I realized that compassion for the sufferings of others is a burden to those who have it. As Wilfred Owen's poem "Insensibility" puts it so well, those who feel most of othe...
As I looked at the stains on the coral, I recalled some of the eloquent phrases of politicians and newsmen about how "gallant" it is for a man to "shed his blood for his country," and "to give his life's blood as a sacrifice," and so on. The words se...
I concluded that it was impossible for me to be killed, because God loved me. Then I told myself that God loved us all and that many would die or be ruined physically or mentally or both by the next morning and in the days following.
