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"the Old Breed"


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Every generation stands in awe of the generation before them it seems...We look back on our Father's and find it hard to believe that they endured the things they did. They in turn looked back to their Fathers and so on back to Biblical times I suppose. This was brought screamingly forth to me while reading "With the Old Breed, at Peleliu and Okinawa" yesterday.

 

One passage says it all: The introduction of Gunnery Sgt. Haney, a veteran of WWI who came back to the Corps at the age of fifty +...

 

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I had seen Haney around the company area but first noticed hm in the shower one day because of the way he bathed. About a dozen naked,soapy replacements, including myself, stared in wide-eyed amazement and shuddered as Haney held his genitals in his left hand while scrubbing them with a GI brush the way one buffs a shoe.

 

 

 

Ok I would be impressed too... http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/blink.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/blink.gif

 

We revere these men as the "Greatest Generation", but we need to remember that they had "Heroes" too...

 

Just thought I'd share this..

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I read my father-in-law's copy of that book back in the early eighties when he was still alive. I think his outfit was K company, 1st platoon 2nd squad-1st Marine Division. He was assistant gunner in a .30 cal machine gun squad, in that campaign. I noticed a couple pictures that he had penciled notes by. One picture showed blasted and bombed coral ridges and rivines. At the bottom of the rivine were 3 "xxx" marked in pencil. I asked Bob what the marks were for.

 

He said, " There was a small water hole there and the Japs were dug in the nearby caves. It was about 110 degrees and they were out of water. I was manning the "gun" while the chief gunner was taking a break and 3 of the little bastards ran out to try fill jugs with water. We had sighted the gun in (800 yards) on the water just in case they tried this. I got all 3 with one burst! Everyone around cheered. These were the first ones we had seen in the daylight and out in the open for quite a while."

 

He also said in the same area was a small hut. One Jap ran out of a cave and into the hut. Some marines on a 37 mm gun swung it around and blew the hut to pieces.

He was 18 and already a veteran of 2 campaigns. He was wounded but not severly on Pelileu and went on to Okinawa where he was wounded by mortars (most of the squad killed) and shot by a sniper while being carried to the rear. He still had the 6.5mm bullet in him when he died of cancer.

 

Yes he had heroes too. He told me they were the commander "Col. Chesty Puller" and the "boys" he shared company with in the 1st Division.

 

Uncle Dudley

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