FIRST MARINE RAIDERS GUADELCANAL
As a young, brash Marine heading to the
PacificTheater in the summer of 1942, William S. Parks "didn’t think much
about surviving--that was a given." Taking part in the Guadalcanal
campaign quickly proved him wrong. He lost his best friend, a member of his
machine gun squad, in August 1942, and found that life on the island posed
threats beyond enemy bullets. He spent the six-month campaign subsisting on
minimal provisions--including food he could forage, such as taro roots, and
captured Japanese rations--and weathered two bouts of malaria. He was one of
the lucky ones: of the 44 men in his platoon, roughly a dozen survived. When he
finally made it to New Zealand for rest and relaxation, he and his comrades
spent several weeks gorging themselves on the fresh milk and produce at
"milk bars," as the local soda fountains were called. He would go on
to see combat on Tarawa, a battle he describes as a "barroom brawl.
"All of us had malaria. And there was
jungle rot and coral poisoning and just about every kind of disease and vermin.
If you could find it in the jungle, Guadalcanal had it."
I agree 100%
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