Brothers-in Arms

Brothers-in Arms

Fresh-faced, with smooth skin and eager eyes, the graduands’ white-covered caps conceal their thoughts. ‘What lies beneath those caps,’ I wondered? ‘Minds full of burning fervency to serve their country, perhaps.’ In their wildest imagining, they could not perceive the hell my generation met. A nightmare of death and destruction like the world had never known and may never know again. It felt like a lifetime ago, but it was only yesterday.

        In May 1940, when I graduated, we raw officers were unaware that over three-quarters of our company would be dead or injured by August 1945. Five years in which bodies were ripped apart, limbs lost, and eyes blinded by bullets, shrapnel, and bombs. Pieces of men were left to decompose on coral islands, deserts, or French beaches. Men to whom you were speaking at one moment were gone the next. ‘Oh, Billy boy, why did you thrust up your head?’ Shot clean through mid-forehead, he dropped like a stone. 

       I no longer believed in a celestial heaven and hell. The white sand and rolling surf of the beaches of the pacific islands looked like heaven as we approached, but hell, the second we disembarked. Separation was and remains inconceivable. Heaven and hell occupy the same space. Only luck and your rifle stand between them.   

Our training at Fort Worth was intense for green recruits just out of High School or College. The Marine Corps turned us from spotty, cocky adolescents into mean fighting machines trained to lead and kill. Our Sergeant Major, hauled us out of bed at dawn and kept us working until dusk. He sure was a hard case. A strapping figure with a buzz haircut, bulging biceps and a voice that would cause horses to bolt, we lived in fear of his anger. We called him Sergeant Barking, for the way he barked orders at us. But complain, and you got bawled out, a kick up the backside and half rations until you complied. ‘You’re a frigging Marine, not a ragged-assed school kid.’ In parachute training, I launched myself with bravado that first time, only to twist my ankle on landing. I forgot I would land on the ground, not in water like I did as a kid in the swimming hole upriver from pa’s place. Not that we needed parachutes for landing on a Pacific island. Body bag shrouds were more helpful.  

Rifle practice was a revelation to boys who grew up in big cities. Chicago gangsters cannot shoot rifles like backwoods boys used to shooting jackrabbits. My pa taught me to use a one when I was ten, and I have an accurate eye. My first shot in training barreled clean through the bull’s eye. Sergeant Barking thought it a fluke, beginner’s luck and guffawed. But his arraogant attitude towards me changed when I hit the bull’s eye three times in a row. He treated me with a modicum of respect by accepting me as a crack shot.

I was aroused by a bugle fanfare. Had I been asleep? I had not slept in peace since Iwo Jima. But that day, I had the valedictory speech to give. I shuddered, seeing Billy’s face, fresh, like those graduating officers, now bones on that godforsaken island. The Officiating Officer beckoned me to mount the dais and stand behind the microphone. I climbed those steps, my heart beating like a tattoo at taps, reflecting that stepping off a landing craft was less of a challenge. But I cleared my throat, stood tall on the famed “woolly socks” ma knitted throughout the war, and began.

‘It’s great to be with you on this proud day, boys. You are about to begin your career in the best of our great nation’s armed forces. I know you have overcome many hardships in trainingt to reach graduation. Your ability to lead in the most demanding circumstances is now razor-sharp. Keep it that way. It may save your life and the lives of your men. But be assured a great future awaits with every opportunity to be successful.

      Six years ago, I stood where you are today, and like you, I had hopes for my future. But the life I hoped for was not the one I was granted; the war intervened. I did my duty as an officer and a marine. But of the fifty officers who graduated with me, less than twenty returned unscathed, and many did not return. If the call comes as it did for me, give your all. That is what the Marine Corps demands of you.

Go boldly into the world and send out a message to all of America’s foes that the you are members of the “best of the best”. As officers, hold your men in absolute trust and keep friends beside you wherever you may be. Remember those who have gone before -you walk in their footsteps. God bless and keep you always.’ 

I saluted and stepped back. At a sign from the bandmaster, everyone stood for Hail to the Chief. Men placed their right hand across their breast; if they had a right hand. The women dabbed their eyes with handkerchiefs, and the children peeked at the medals on display. Then the bugler played The Last Post, and I was undone. Tears stuck in my eyes for nigh on three years flowed; tears for the thousands who did not live to see this day. Finally, I sat down and closed my eyes, my ears ringing. 

‘Corpsman,’ I shouted over the raucous din, but he did not hear -busy tending other injured men. Bodies littered the beach like fallen apples in an orchard, except it was no orchard - it was a slaughterhouse. I called my platoon to follow me, and we tried to get off the bloody beach. But within minutes we lost five more men. It is a cliché, but we were up to our necks in muck and bullets., But the muck was tenacious black sand, turning red in front of my eyes.

My wife Mary-Beth, with our son, little Billy, in her arms, shook my arm and smiled at me. She mouthed, ‘well said’. Despite the medals I wore, she knew they meant nothing. I was spared, and I had spoken for those who were not. Mary Beth knows the nights I hide in the closet, waiting for hell to end. The old Don lies with his buddy on that bloody beach. 

But then, a voice broke my reverie. ‘Would you and your wife please join us for luncheon, Captain?’ The General spoke kindly, but I knew we could not accept. Little Billy needed his lunch, and I must escape this place and its associations.

‘Thank you for the invitation, General, but we have our young son to consider and a flight to catch back to Missouri.’ 

 The officer, his medals gleaming in the sunlight, bowed, raised his head and smiled -a smile that did not reach his eyes. He understood.  We arrived in St Louis around five o’clock, with a long drive needed to return to our farm and to Branson. Little Billy did not sleep on the plane and grew fractious in Mary-Beth’s arms. We had told no one, but she was expecting our second child. We reached our ranch home around midnight. Mary Beth took herself and little Billy to bed. I was too tense to sleep, so with a glass of whisky on the side, I sat, reflecting in my favourite armchair and dozed.

‘Christ Billy will you get ya feet off my bunk; they stink’.

 Billy grinned and removed one foot. ‘What’s it worth for the other, Don?’ 

‘A pair of my woolly socks?’ Billy removed the other foot and guffawed. I punched him playfully with a sock covered foot in his belly.

The swell causes the troopship to yaw, making many men seasick. Several of my platoons lay in their bunks, the stink of vomit overpowering. Grunts had little to do except grumble, play craps or poker and clean the vessel. As officers, we were supposed to keep our platoons busy, but it was a self-defeating task for it was mere repetition and we were bored too. Scuttlebutt bets were made on our destination, and I bet Billy five dollars on Iwo Jima. Finally, after three uncomfortable days, our destination was announced, and Billy owed me the five dollars.

‘We are assigned to landing craft number six,’ I shouted to my platoon over the deafening roar of deck guns pounding the shore. ‘Get your gear together ‘cos when the guns stop and the enemy is softened, we cross to the beach.’ In theory, I said to myself, as the strategy did not work on Tarawa.

      Half an hour later, crammed into the craft, Billy’s platoon and mine were a combined unit. Our orders were to get the men off the beach and to attack the enemy positions. We could see nothing, trapped in the iron prison craft to hell, but we heard gunfire and blood-curdling screams. Suddenly, the ramp dropped, and we saw the sea below was crimson. We scrambled out and stepped waist-deep into that roiling bloody surf. Then, holding our rifles above our heads, we waded to the shore. The sand was volcanic, dark sugar tainted with cochineal. The enemy’s aim was so accurate that men dropped in serried ranks. I was right; Tarawa revisited. The enemy must have dug in somewhere because we could not see their guns. 

 ‘Get your heads down, boys,’ I shouted as my feet crushed that sand. Billy and his men followed, all of us jumping over dead bodies. But within seconds we were flat on our bellies. Bullets buzzed everywhere like flies over a dead horse. Many marines were shot in their bellies as they scrambled from the surf, never making the beach. Some were wounded in the arm or leg; few seemed unscathed. 

       I surveyed the scene through my field glasses, trying to determine our next move, when I heard Billy shout. ‘ Come on men let’s….’ he had lifted his head, and wham, he dropped to the sand, his words unfinished. I crawled to him and felt his pockets for the letter to his fiancé, Janice. I retrieved it and put it in my pocket with a message to Mary Beth.

‘Keep your friggin’ heads down,’ I screamed to both platoons. ‘The enemy must be dug into the cliffs.’ I gazed around me. ‘Sergeant Major Larsson, I recommend you for a battlefield commission. Take charge of Lieutenant Baxter’s platoon.’ I moved flat on my belly while shouting more orders -a battle cry. ‘Move on, boys. Slither like rattlesnakes, and keep your frigging heads down. We gotta get off this frigging beach and massacre the bastards killing our brothers.’ 

I awoke with a start; Mary Beth shook my shoulder. ‘Come to bed, Don. You were screaming again and woke up Billy. Tomorrow you are going to see the shrink Doc Jones recommended. These nightmares have to end.’ She held out her hand, and I took it. She was right. All I had left were memories. All but one thing: Billy’s letter to his fiance. I had it, blooded but intact, among a box of fading photos and my silver star. I had to take the letter to New Jersey and deliver it in person. Then maybe Don could get off that beach and live again.