With the Old Breed_ At Peleliu and Okinawa - E. B. Sledge [96]
The drafted Marines took a good bit of kidding about being “handcuffed volunteers” from those of us who had enlisted into the Marine Corps. Some of the drafted men insisted vehemently that they were volunteers who had enlisted like most of us. But they were careful to conceal their records and identification, because “SS” (for Selective Service) appeared after the serial number if a man had been drafted.
The draftees sometimes had their laugh on us, though. If we griped and complained, they grinned and said, “What you guys bitchin’ about? You asked for it, didn't you?” We just grumbled at them; no one got angry about it. For the most part, the replacements were good men, and the company retained its fighting spirit.
Our training picked up in intensity, and rumors began to fly regarding the next “blitz” (a term commonly used for a campaign). We heard that the 1st Marine Division was to be put into an army to invade the China coast or Formosa (Taiwan). Many of my buddies feared that we would lose our identity as Marines and that the Marine Corps would finally be absorbed into the U.S. Army (a fate that has caused anxiety to U.S. Marines of many generations, as history well documents). Our training emphasized street fighting and cooperation with tanks in open country. But we still didn't know the name of our objective. After we were shown maps (without names) of a long, narrow island, we still didn't know.
One day Tom F. Martin, a friend of mine in Company L, who also had been in the V-12 program and was a Peleliu veteran, came excitedly to my tent and showed me a National Geographic map of the Northern Pacific. On it we saw the same oddly shaped island. Located 325 miles south of the southern tip of the Japanese home island of Kyushu, it was called Okinawa Shima. Its closeness to Japan assured us of one thing beyond any doubt: Whatever else happened, the battle for Okinawa was bound to be bitter and bloody. The Japanese never had sold any island cheaply, and the pattern of the war until then had shown that the battles became more vicious the closer we got to Japan.
We made practice landings, fired various small arms, and underwent intensive mortar training. With a third weapon added to our mortar section, I felt as though we were Company K's artillery battery.
At this time hepatitis broke out among the troops. We called it yellow jaundice, and I got a bad case. We could look at a man and tell whether he had the malady by the yellowing of the whites of his eyes. Even our deeply tanned skins took on a sallow appearance. I felt terrible, was tired, and the smell of food nauseated me. Pavuvu's muggy heat didn't help any either. I went to sick call one morning, as other Marines were doing in increasing numbers. The medical officer gave me a “light duty slip,” a piece of paper officially relieving me from the intense exertion of routine training but still making me subject to minor work parties such as picking up trash, straightening tent ropes, and the like. It was the only time during my entire service in the Marine Corps that I got out of regular duties because of illness.
Had we been civilians, I'm confident those of us with hepatitis would have been hospitalized. Instead, we received APC pills from a corpsman.* This medication was the standard remedy for everything except bayonet, gunshot, or shrapnel wounds. After several days I was pronounced recovered enough for resumption of regular duties and surrendered my cherished light duty slip to an officer in sick bay.
Training intensified. During January 1945 the company boarded an LCI† and, in convoy with other such vessels, went to Guadalcanal for