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Figmo -> "Marine At War" (8/28/2001 5:50:00 AM)
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I was looking through an old book for scenario ideas and when I read this FOREWORD - well - I just had to share it. It's an almost exact quote from "Marine At War" by Russell Davis:
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"I'm no expert in war. My service was in the Second Battalion of the First Marine Regiment from April of 1944 until February of 1946. My jobs were Combat Intelligence scout, rifleman, plans and operations sergeant, and rifle squad leader. As a Marine infantryman I was no better than average. I served through two major campaigns, Peleliu and Okinawa, and I was under fire in a few other patrol actions. I was wounded twice, cited for bravery once, and two times I was too frightened to do the job to which I was assigned.
My sons have asked me many questions about war. I have always tried to answer their questions, but sometimes the answers weren't true, and sometimes they weren't complete. It takes time to think out a good and true answer. It is very hard for a father not to make himself seem braver and wiser to his sons then he really was. And war is so many different things all jumbled together. It is hard to sort all these things out and give a sensible answer to one particular question.
To tell about my war I must go back in my memory many years. In the past few years I have dreamed about war, but I've rarely thought about it. Some names and places and events have gone, fuzzed over by dreams and wishes. But some knowledge has stayed with me. I know that, of the thousands and millions of men who fight war, the true burden falls on only a few - the riflemen. Sometimes machine-gunners take it; and on rare occasions a scout, runner, medic, stretcher-bearer or weapons specialist takes his share. But usually the rifleman takes it. I know, too, that every man has his limit; but just as some men are taller and heavier, so some men can go longer and take more. There is a great spread among men. I don't know why. It does not seem to depend on size or strength or intelligence, or the lack of it.
Before a man goes into battle it is hard to say what he will do. The last man to be able to say what he do is that man himself. Bravery is a fickle thing. It runs in some kind of cycle: it comes and it goes. One day a man is a lion in the fight; the next day a mouse........
I haven't intended to write a book about bravery, even though that is the quality, or lack of it, that most people associate with war. I have seen men who were brave when their feet were dry, cowards when they were wet; brave when they were warm, cowards when they were cold; brave when they were full, cowards when they were hungry; brave as long as the got their sleep, but cowards when they didn't. We think there is nothing between the two, but most men who know war know that there is.
There is the way I dreamed I fought, and the way I wish I had fought. There is also the way I think I fought, and that is the story I have told here."
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I hope you all liked it as much as I did!! Now to getting some scenarios out of it! ![]("biggrin.gif")
Figmo
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