When I was 20 years old I had an experience that, at the time, didn’t have the impact on me that it does today. To understand this, I have to take you back in time, long before I was born; to one of the most turbulent times in American history, but also one of its proudest times. America was embroiled in World War II. My father, then a farm kid from a small town in southern Minnesota, was preparing for what he felt was his obligation; to join the military and help defend his country.
My father entered the Marines Corps in the summer of 1943. He was a marine rifleman. Dad went through basic training and infantry training before being stricken with pneumonia and hospitalized in San Diego. When he was cleared to join the war he trained at Camp Pendleton; eventually he shipped off to Guam. In Guam he joined the Sixth Marine Division, 22nd Marines. This was a proud unit that took part in action at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima. The 22nd Marines suffered many casualties, and my dad was joining them as a replacement. This meant he was taking the place of dead or wounded marines; not an enviable position..
By the time my dad joined the war in the Pacific, the Japanese Army and Navy were but a shell of their former glory. Though depleted, surrender or capture was considered disgraceful to the Japanese soldier, so each man continued to fight to his death, taking more American servicemen’s lives in the process. As my dad took to the battle field of Okinawa, he did so knowing that, even though some of the hardest and deadliest fighting was over, still hundreds of Japanese soldiers remained, intent on defending their country to the death, and, in the process, killing him as well.
For one month and 17 days my dad fought on Okinawa. Going from village to village and cave to cave, rooting out the Japanese. I know this, not from him, but from history books and documentaries. The fighting in the Pacific was like nothing the American servicemen had encountered. Luckily for my father many men sacrificed their lives and many hard lessons were learned to help him, and others like him, survive. I know from my grandmother that his 47 days of combat took a heavy emotional toll, though he spoke very little about it.
Fast forward to March of this year; HBO aired “The Pacific”, a 10-part series, documenting one of the most decorated and battled-tested fighting units in American history, the 1st Marine Division. Although my father was not a member of the “Fighting First,” I was intrigued by HBO’s attempt to chronicle the events that took place in the Pacific from 1942 through 1945; particularly that they were going to document the fighting on Okinawa as documented by Eugene Sledge in his book, With the Old Breed: at Peleliu and Okinawa.
I watched each episode and committed them to my DVR for further review. Eventually, the one and only episode featuring the fighting on Okinawa aired. I sat intently watching it as it delivered riveting images of the fighting. I can’t tell you the exact moment that I had the epiphany, but at some point, I remember thinking out loud, “Oh my God…I was there.”
In March of 1987 I received the orders that almost every Marine gets during his or her first stint in the corps…OKINAWA. I spent one year on the “Rock” as it is affectionately called; from April of 1987 until April of 1988. I drove a van for the CAFO office, so I had a unique perspective, seeing much of the island by roadway.
The CAFO office had a group of old salt Marines who endured heavy fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and they had their own stories to tell. So, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary that they would take such an interest in the battlefields of Okinawa. In fact, they relished the chance to go out into some of the harder to reach areas. After divulging my tie to the island through my father, one Marine, Master Sergeant Whitehead took me through many of the battlefields, if you can call them that. Areas overrun with jungle. Rocky outcrops riddled with bullet marks, many of which resembled nothing more than smoothed indentations. Top Whitehead took particular interest in my father’s history. I didn’t know at the time how his interest would affect me until I watched the HBO series.
Distant memories came creeping back into my mind of the areas we trekked through. Talking about what the Marines had to endure; showing me caves, hidden by the jungle’s reclamation project, where Japanese soldiers would launch suicidal attacks on Marines. These made our excursions even more surreal. It was incomprehensible; trying to grasp what it must have been like as a young kid fighting in such a Godforsaken place. Top Whitehead’s desire to get me out to these battlefields is something I could never thank him enough for – and I probably never will get the chance.
I have pictures and memories of my time on Okinawa. What is missing are the tales that my father never had a chance to tell me, or that I was too busy going through childhood to sit down and ask him about. Either way his untimely death leaves me with the regret of the lost opportunity to talk to him about his experience on Okinawa and my revelation of how lucky I am to be able to say that I walked in his footsteps, if only for a brief moment in time.
