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Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Gene Rackovitch entered the Marine Corps in 1944. In March 1945, he was attached to C Company, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, 4th Marine Division. At the end of the Second World War, he was sent to Guam where he was stationed for eighteen months. There he amassed the material for his novel, Marines and Renegades.
Rackovitch’s guiding philosophy is that “life is an adventure not only for the celebrated, but for each and every one of us.” We asked him to share with our readers, his thoughts on Memorial Day.
I Sit and Think
I sit and think then cry like a child with a broken toy. I read an article by a colonel of the Second Calvary during the Viet Nam war as he was a captain, that explains how he felt burying his 78 dead, and I cry for him. I read an excerpt from the poem “In Flanders Field” for the crosses one on one and I cry. Then I think of my friends and how we have had the pleasure of lasting these 80-odd years and I cry for those that died and made it happen. I don’t know how it happens, it just does; I cry. I sit and think and realize how luck has played a part of my being here to write this.
I’m in a replacement draft in the Hawaii Islands in 1945. We are counted off alphabetically: those with names beginning with the letters A through Q are sent to Okinawa, the rest of us from R to the end of the alphabet are sent to Maui as replacements for the 4th Marine Division; the war ends while I’m on maneuvers there.
I think of the men who went to Okinawa and wonder how many of them died there taking my place and I feel for them. Of all that has happened to me, I wonder why I am still here.
After I wipe my eyes, I say to myself how stupid I am to break down like that. Then the realization comes to me of the great and full life I've had; and I smile, for that’s what it’s all about.
Download an excerpt of Marines and Renegades.
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[Photo Credit:National Archives/United States Marine Corps]
