Smith and I silently unpacked and examined it all. We unpacked the shame, too. I survived Guadalcanal only to be wounded on the second day of the Cape Gloucester landing. Like Smith, they patched me up in time for the next one, which was Peleliu.
Too many of us died in the Hell-hot, stinking meat grinder on Peleliu. While blasting the Japs out of the Umurbrogol pocket–our Bloody Nose Ridge–we paid the butcher’s bill with a loan shark interest rate.
Puller ran the First Marines on that island and damn nearly killed us all. The Japs were in mutually supporting caves protected by steel and reinforced concrete. Our only protection was razor-sharp coral outcroppings, steel pots, and herringbone twill dungarees.
Bloody Nose consumed the First Marines and spat us out with 66% casualties, and it nearly did the same to the Fifth. That’s when something in me died. Maybe everything I’d ever believed in and hoped for died, but after that hell ended, the living part of me was no longer whole. I no longer feared dying because acceptance of death became easier than the crushing burden of fearing it.
After Peleliu, I knew I couldn’t survive the next one, which turned out to be Okinawa. Strangely, I was okay with that. Like the true cynic I’d become, I saw surviving Okinawa as the ultimate cruel trick of fate. That’s because the final invasion would be of Japan itself, and there were already whispers of a million Allied casualties. We knew our breaking point approached like a pale rider. We prayed for the Million Dollar Wound or a quick death in the company of our brothers.
What I wasn’t ready for was the A-bomb ending the war and… surviving. Was I glad? I wasn’t sure how I felt because of my broken emotions. I struggled to believe it was real, that fate or bad luck wouldn’t kill us after the fighting was over. Irrational fear and tentative hope fought for control of us.
The protective sheath of acceptance of death ripped away, and I had to live in a world where so many better Marines–better men–than me didn’t survive. I wasn’t ready to live with the shame of being alive. “Why me and not them?”
Guilt overtops relief when you’re living in a world where the memories of what you survived can be worse than what you survived because they’re always with you. You face that demon naked and alone. You start seeing those who died as the lucky ones because they are at peace.
Was I even worthy of the gift of life? I’d done nothing to earn it. And now, another survivor of that hell on earth sat before me. In my hands, I held the fate of a stranger I had more in common with than my own flesh and blood. Mercifully, the darkness hid my face.
‘Semper Fidelis means always faithful.’ I remembered. It was time to ‘turn to’ and start living it.
I came to Houston to find Paul W. Smith, reclaim the money and the ledger, and return everything to Christine, earning a lot of money and boosting my reputation. Now, I resolved to do what was right where both Smith and I were concerned. ‘This job and big payday be damned!’
I whispered to the hunched figure before me, “Semper Fi, Mac. Semper Fi…my brother.”
For the first time since the war started in ’41, I wept. I wept for all of us.