What about the Marines in WWII?
Marines...
I'm not one to bellyache much, but if you've been living with this - as I have - for 66 years, it begins to ache a little in your heart of hearts.
A well meaning kid (from the philippines of all places) sent me a message on my face book today asking me if I knew a Richard Winters. I don't know who he was talking about, and I said as much...so I asked him who this guy is. The kid replied that this fellow was an Army guy, a paratrooper in Easy Company.
So, it dawns on me, this kid is talking about somebody who served in Europe. Okay, fine, kid. So, I informed him that I was in the Pacific, fighting the Japanese. He seemed a little disappointed by this.
Now, when I came home from the war the same older knuckleheads who used to stand on the street corners were still standing there, but this time in their Army uniforms, having returned from n. Africa, Italy, France, etc. I came waltzing up in my Marine uniform, and everyone asked me where I had been. I told them about Peleliu and they didn't know what I was talking about. They had barely heard of Okinawa.
It hurt. I went home and took off my uniform and made a vow that if somebody didn't ask me, I sure as hell wouldn't talk about what I did over there. In 1946 I went to the very first 1st Marine reunion in New York, and I didn't know anybody without their dirty faces, salty dungarees and cracked lips. I never went to another reunion until 2006.
To this day the war in Europe still overshadows what we did on those crappy little islands. I've never been a very prideful man, but dammit, one of these days I hope we get what's coming to us.
Even with that TV show that came out about the Pacific...people still don't talk about the Marines. What happend to the Marines in WWII?
Semper Fi
Sterling G. Mace