Hero of the Pacific_ The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone - James Brady [109]
Maybe, as has been charged, the Basilone of the war bond tour, with his handlers and packaged speeches and appearances, was to an extent a product marketed and merchandised by imaginative young officers doing PR for the Marine Corps. They were out to sell inspiration to a country that needed heroes, and Basilone must have looked like a good bet, a superior salesman. The kid out of Raritan was everyman from everywhere, an ordinary Joe, a small-town American; the darkly handsome, undefeated boxer Manila John, a poker-playing roughneck from the caddy shack, the guy with a knockout punch—and that marketable nickname. If this is true, none of it was Basilone’s idea.
Basilone has surely been ill served even by people who loved him, family and friends, and by others, publicity professionals and inventive journalists, who damaged his reputation with fanciful stories and memoirs, their cartoon-styled exaggerations of feats of arms never performed, the hero lost behind his deeds.
The Basilone statue in Raritan, New Jersey, haloed by the sun.
But this is what makes him a legend and an American icon. Maybe we should just embrace the colorful lore, memorialize John Basilone as a Marine and honor his service, take him on faith, forget the disputation and the skeptical theories, mine and others, and just love the guy, saluting him with a well-earned and final Semper Fidelis. Always faithful. Perhaps we should leave it just as simple and as wonderful as that.
Bibliography
This bibliography was compiled from the author’s notes after his passing. Any omissions or inaccuracies are, therefore, those of the editor.
Alexander, Joseph H. Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps [Supt. of Docs., U.S. GPO, distributor], 1994.
Alexander, Joseph H., with Don Horan and Norman C. Stahl. A Fellowship of Valor: The Battle History of the U.S. Marines. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
Doorly, Bruce W. Raritan’s Hero: The John Basilone Story. Privately published.
Lansford, William Douglas. “The Life and Death of ‘Manila John’ Basilone.” Leatherneck. October 2002.
Leckie, Robert. Challenge for the Pacific: The Bloody Six-Month Battle of Guadalcanal. New York: Da Capo, 1999. ———. Helmet for My Pillow. New York: Bantam, 1995.
Paige, Mitchell. A Marine Named Mitch. Santa Fe Springs, CA: Wylde & Sons, 1975.
Proser, Jim, with Jerry Cutter. “I’m Staying with My Boys . . .”: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC. Hilton Head, SC: Lightbearer Communications, 2004.
Santelli, James S. A Brief History of the 7th Marines. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1980.
Shaw, Henry I., Jr. First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps [Supt. of Docs., U.S. GPO, distributor], 1992.
Sledge, Eugene. With the Old Breed, at Peleliu and Okinawa. New York: Bantam, 1982.
Tatum, Charles W. Iwo Jima: 19, February, 1945, Red Blood, Black Sand, Pacific Apocalypse. Stockton, CA: C.W. Tatum Pub., 1995.
Tillman, Mary, and Narda Zacchino. Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman. New York: Modern Times, 2008.
United States Marine Corps, Historical Division. Lieutenant Colonel Frank O. Hough, USMCR; Major Verle E. Ludwig, USMC; and Henry I. Shaw Jr. History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II: Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, vol. I. Washington: GPO, 1958.
Illustration Credits
Page xi, AP Images; pages 14, 180, USMC; pages 78, 126, Leatherneck magazine; page 218, © Bettman/CORBIS; page 238, Bruce Doorly.
Index
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
Albany, New York
Alexander, Joe
Allbritton, Louise
Alvino, Lawrence “Cookie Hound”
American Civil War
American Cyanamid
American Revolution