The Old Breed

Chapter 42

Nakagusuku Wan, Okinawa

April 4th, 1945

Sergeant McCorkle had been right. Throughout April 4th, we spent the day finishing taking the Katchin Peninsula, and clearing caves and other fortifications, which, like everything else, had been found void of Japanese presence. Supplies had began showing up in deuce-and-a-halves, big two and half ton trucks, and we had finally gotten fresh food, more ammunition, which wasn't needed that much, and other necessities. By noon, the actual conquest of the peninsula had been completed, the 1st Marines having control of the areas. We spent the rest of the day fortifying positions and moving supplies.

Where we saw no enemy soldiers in our march, we made contact with large amounts of civilians. They were mostly older women and men and young children, but we did see a minority of young adult men and women. Most of the young men were being employed by the Japanese army as reserve and service troops while many of the young women were being used as playthings and prostitutes for the needs of the combat soldiers. Those fucking Nips.

We paid special attention to the kids. We knew that it must have been scary having to have to leave your home, be guided by foreign soldiers, and not know what your final destination would be. Every K-ration came with a chocolate bar and only the greediest and hungriest of Marines ate them. Most of us saved them, knew at some point we would come across Okie children. When we first gave out the bars of chocolate, the children had been scared, didn't know what to think about the handouts this white foreign army was giving out. But after a bold young boy took the first move and took one, opened it and took a bite, he realized he loved it. Which caused the others to want to try it and soon we had no problem giving out candy to the kids. During our voyage to Okinawa, I had found that our ship's PX sold comic books, and had bought some for myself because the sea voyage had been enormously boring when we weren't drilling on deck. Now, on Okinawa, I gave out the comic books I had been keeping in my pack. I had saved one though, an original printing of the first 1938 Superman comic, had been planning on keeping it with me. But we'd past one child, a boy, maybe a young teen, sitting by the edge of the road, who was devastated. He held a small dog in his hands, a dog that had recently died. He was crying, alone, no other family members to be seen. We had received orders to not take civilians with us, to let the support troops behind us take care of the Okies, so, though we felt terribly guilty, we had to keep walking on. It would be hard to count the amount of candy bars he received, though, and I gave him the Superman comic.

Watching the other Marines giving gum, food, comics, and just their compassion ignited a flitter of hope in my chest that I hadn't felt in a while. I had been surrounded with hardened, numbed, and cold-blooded killers for so long, I felt I was losing my humanity, my ability to love and care for other people. But these actions I witnessed and took part of were ones of kindness. Seeing the sparkle in those kids' eyes, the dimples as they smiled, their hands brown with melting chocolate, there was some part of me that I knew could never be destroyed by war. Never be destroyed, no matter how much we were beaten and battered. Looking into those big eyes, and into the caring eyes of my fellow Marines, I saw something I had thought I'd never see again after how brutal I'd learned humans can be. I learned again how kind humans can be too. For a while at least, I knew there was still some humanity left in us.

On April 10th, we saw our first body while on patrol. Since we had captured our objective, the battalion had begun extensively patrolling the rear, because we moved so fast to get to the water that we had bypassed many obstacles that could be a threat more inland. None of us should have been surprised when we came across the body, although most of us were anyways. It was a war zone, even though we had only seen lackluster resistance. People were still being wounded, still getting killed, but not around us. It was happening down south, where the Army was slamming up against the impenetrable Shuri Line, as we would soon know it as. It was happening up north, where the 6th Marine Division was clearing the northern portion of Okinawa. We had been like the compromise unit, the one going straight through the middle. It seemed that the enemy had spread to the two opposite sides of Okinawa, had left the middle prime for the taking. It was as if they felt bad for the beating they had given us earlier in our campaigns, let us get the easiest job now. As if. We all knew that our stroke of luck would be short, that soon, inevitable, the Army would require reinforcements to make up for the casualties they were taking, that we would be the first to support the line.