Hell in the Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Journey From Guadalcanal to Peleliu Read Online Free Page B
Author: Bill Sloan, Jim McEnery
was a housing development that had been built in three sections. Gerritsen Avenue was the main street and the only way into the neighborhood by land. Knapp Street and Avenue U were other major streets that led down to the water.
In the early spring, all us boys would sneak down Knapp Street, climb over a fence, shed our clothes and hide them, and jump in the creek. We almost froze our butts off. All of us would turn blue from the cold, but we didn’t care as long as we could claim the honor of being the first ones to take a dip that year.
T HE HOUSE WHERE I lived with my mother and father and sister before we moved in with my grandparents was a small, single-story frame with barely enough room for the four of us. We were poor as a bunch of church mice, as the saying goes, but Gerritsen Beach was far from being a wealthy neighborhood. Most of the people who lived there were first- or second-generation immigrants from Europe, and most of them were just as poor as we were.
It was what you’d call a blue-collar neighborhood. Most families struggled to make ends meet, even in the 1920s when times were pretty good. When the Depression set in, times got a whole lot harder.
O NE DAY WHEN I was about seven years old, I saw something that left a deep impression on me. It must’ve been Armistice Day of 1926. Everybody celebrated Armistice Day back then, much more than they do Veterans Day now. They wore poppies and held parades and sang songs like “Over There” and “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”
There was a parade that day that ended with some kind of ceremony on the grounds of the Lutheran church in Gerritsen Beach. That was where I saw my first military uniform.
The man who was wearing it was really old, and somebody said he was a veteran of the Civil War. But he stood up straight and erect when he saluted the American flag, and I could tell he was proud of the uniform he wore. It was a lighter color than the dark blue uniforms most Union soldiers wore in the Civil War, and it had to be at least sixty years old, but it still looked good. I really admired that uniform, and I thought how great it would be to have one like it.
I never saw that old soldier again, but I thought about him a lot after that day, and I never forgot him. Seeing him in that uniform started me thinking about what it would be like to be a soldier.
I could picture myself marching in parades where crowds would be cheering and waving flags. I could see medals being pinned on me by some big-shot general, and I thought how much fun that would be. But the best part would be getting to wear a uniform like that old soldier’s every day.
I want a uniform just like that , I said to myself, and one of these days, I’m gonna get me one.
I guess maybe every boy feels that way at some point. The difference for me was I never got over it. As a seven-year-old kid, I didn’t stop to think that soldiering would be dangerous work, much less that you could get killed doing it. All I thought about was the glamour and excitement. I was what you’d call gung ho before that term was even invented.
And when I look back on that Armistice Day, I’m pretty sure that’s where it all started. I think I was destined to be in the military from the first minute I saw that old soldier until I actually joined the Marines thirteen years later.
F OR AS FAR back as I can remember, I was a scrappy kind of kid. I never went around looking for trouble, but I never dodged a challenge or ducked a fight, either.
One fight I especially remember was when I was in the fifth grade at good old P.S. 194. There was this other kid in my class who was kind of pushy and a show-off. He seemed to think he was better than all the rest of us, and he liked to boss other kids around. One day, he started smarting off at me until he really got on my nerves bad, and we ended up slugging it out in a vacant lot. I gave him a pretty good licking, and he didn’t act so high and mighty after
In the early spring, all us boys would sneak down Knapp Street, climb over a fence, shed our clothes and hide them, and jump in the creek. We almost froze our butts off. All of us would turn blue from the cold, but we didn’t care as long as we could claim the honor of being the first ones to take a dip that year.
T HE HOUSE WHERE I lived with my mother and father and sister before we moved in with my grandparents was a small, single-story frame with barely enough room for the four of us. We were poor as a bunch of church mice, as the saying goes, but Gerritsen Beach was far from being a wealthy neighborhood. Most of the people who lived there were first- or second-generation immigrants from Europe, and most of them were just as poor as we were.
It was what you’d call a blue-collar neighborhood. Most families struggled to make ends meet, even in the 1920s when times were pretty good. When the Depression set in, times got a whole lot harder.
O NE DAY WHEN I was about seven years old, I saw something that left a deep impression on me. It must’ve been Armistice Day of 1926. Everybody celebrated Armistice Day back then, much more than they do Veterans Day now. They wore poppies and held parades and sang songs like “Over There” and “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”
There was a parade that day that ended with some kind of ceremony on the grounds of the Lutheran church in Gerritsen Beach. That was where I saw my first military uniform.
The man who was wearing it was really old, and somebody said he was a veteran of the Civil War. But he stood up straight and erect when he saluted the American flag, and I could tell he was proud of the uniform he wore. It was a lighter color than the dark blue uniforms most Union soldiers wore in the Civil War, and it had to be at least sixty years old, but it still looked good. I really admired that uniform, and I thought how great it would be to have one like it.
I never saw that old soldier again, but I thought about him a lot after that day, and I never forgot him. Seeing him in that uniform started me thinking about what it would be like to be a soldier.
I could picture myself marching in parades where crowds would be cheering and waving flags. I could see medals being pinned on me by some big-shot general, and I thought how much fun that would be. But the best part would be getting to wear a uniform like that old soldier’s every day.
I want a uniform just like that , I said to myself, and one of these days, I’m gonna get me one.
I guess maybe every boy feels that way at some point. The difference for me was I never got over it. As a seven-year-old kid, I didn’t stop to think that soldiering would be dangerous work, much less that you could get killed doing it. All I thought about was the glamour and excitement. I was what you’d call gung ho before that term was even invented.
And when I look back on that Armistice Day, I’m pretty sure that’s where it all started. I think I was destined to be in the military from the first minute I saw that old soldier until I actually joined the Marines thirteen years later.
F OR AS FAR back as I can remember, I was a scrappy kind of kid. I never went around looking for trouble, but I never dodged a challenge or ducked a fight, either.
One fight I especially remember was when I was in the fifth grade at good old P.S. 194. There was this other kid in my class who was kind of pushy and a show-off. He seemed to think he was better than all the rest of us, and he liked to boss other kids around. One day, he started smarting off at me until he really got on my nerves bad, and we ended up slugging it out in a vacant lot. I gave him a pretty good licking, and he didn’t act so high and mighty after
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