Author's Note

Hi again.

Next content chapter is chugging along. Should be out in less than a few days, just ironing out some dialogue.

Nothing much to say here. The arm is getting much better and should be back to normal soon.

Anyway, here is the next entry of James' journal. Hope you all enjoy it!

Journal Entry 2

January 3, 1944

Last two weeks sucked, that much is certain.

We caught hell up by Suicide Creek. Just happened to waltz right in front of a fortified Japanese pillbox. I can almost imagine the sneering, snickering smile that dirty Nip had when we walked over the hill in front of his machine gun. I'm sure he couldn't believe his luck!

Of course, we took fire. Couple rounds ripped right through a few Marines I forget the names of. Poor sods were dead pretty much on arrival, 'cept for the kid who took the round through his femur.

Lord, I still hear his screams at night. Keeps me up knowing the man's final moments were spent in pure, unrivaled agony. I wish I could've at least given him morphine before he went from blood loss. I was too slow, too far away.

Damn that slant-eyed Nip.

It feels like I've failed my comrades, which I know isn't true. You can't fix everyone, you can't be everywhere at once, as the Petty Officer would say. But I can't shake my feeling of failure from my stomach. Many a night has been spent bargaining with myself. Perhaps if I'd been here, or if I had my splint out already when I was crawling to him, maybe then he would've lived.

But, these thoughts won't bring the man back. My 'what-ifs' can't bring his mother's son back.

We lost Uler too. Just lost too much blood before I got there to get the tourniquet on. It only strengthened my feeling of uselessness and failure as I watched the light fade out of his eyes.

It is unsettling to look upon a freshly-made corpse. It has not ceased to cause me discomfort. The way their eyes glaze over, just lost in space. The way their mouths hang limply open. Their fingers relaxing themselves into that death curl. I suppose I might never become used to it. It just feels so, wrong.

I might never shake the sight of corpses out of my head for as long as I live. It's not a thought I cherish...

January 4, 1944

I killed a man today.

Nip was sneaking up on me, the little rat. Thought me and Howard were fast asleep, easy pickings for the Emperor's 'finest'.

It was so quick, so instant. I didn't even have to think.

He was dead before I even realized what happened. One minute I hear the shout of his babbling language, the next he's dead and I've got my KABAR in his belly. Even now, his body lays decaying a bit away from me.

I'm unsure of how to feel about what happened right now. At first, I felt some sort of disgust. I guess, a fear of myself, or some sort - I can't quite find the word at the moment. I'm happy to be alive, but I felt this twisting, contorting pit in my stomach at the clear, present pain and agony I caused another young man before I snuffed out his mortal coil. It still frightens me as I think back to his face.

But then again, he would have done that to me without hesitation and I'm sure with much less reservation.

As I thought of our enemy, I felt my mind fill with a new feeling, a broiling hatred for the Japanese. A hatred for their tactics, that they'd tried to fight dirty and kill me in my sleep. That they fight so hard for a worthless piece of swamp and marshland. That they forced a bunch of gullible young men like me to come out here and fight them back.

Today, we happened upon the corpse of a dead Marine, which was strange on its own. The boys are usually very protective of their dead buddies and do just about anything they can to extract them for burial. I now see why.

The dead man's ears had been cut off and placed facing up around the sides of the man's nose, kind of making a morbid, bloody 'butterfly' out of his ears and nose. He had been scalped, no doubt taken as a trophy, and badly maimed, I only hope after death. His skin was all cut up with deep slashes from some swing happy Jap officer. But what was most disturbing was that the man's penis had been cut off and stuffed firmly into his own mouth.

I wanted to kill every last Jap I saw after I saw what they'd done to him. It confounds me that men could conduct themselves in such a way, to do things to another. I hate the Japanese soldier, but I don't think I'd ever do such a thing to a Jap corpse.

I suppose it is just the nature of war.

A heavy, twisting rain has started to fall on the island and has been roaring outside. I only hope it lets up soon. I think the boys will start calling me a squid like the rest of the Navy boys if my foxhole fills up any more!

January 19, 1944

I have forgotten the war.

I realized this today as I huddled myself in the ammo depot tent, trying to keep as warm as I could in my poncho.

15 long, tiring, damn-near unbearable days of rain have demoralized our ranks and are destroying what little sanity I have left. I haven't thought about a Jap attack in days; Hasn't even crossed my mind. I'm sure they're having a grand ol' time, sitting in their bunkers and tunnels as they wait this out.

I have forgotten the war. My battle is with myself. My battle is to stay sane.

To think that continuous rain could have this effect on a man, I would have laughed in the face of anyone who tried to convince me of it. It's just rain after all!

Disease has run rampant and I'm being worked to the bone. Trench foot, jungle rot, dysentery, everyone's got something. I watched a man today peel layers of dead, disgusting skin of his feet with the non-sharp end of his KABAR. It came off like grated cheese! Even on my own person, my skin crawls and peels from the constant saturation of water that bombards it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It blisters and wrinkles with no relief. No one can find a spot to get dry in, not even the lean-tos with our supplies are safe. Our jungle hammocks, which Mad Dog scrambled to get for us as quickly as he could - bless his soul, can barely keep the rain out. Just one gust of wind through the mosquito netting and the cycle begins again.

I can't blame the privates who have tried to end it on their own. In fact, I sympathize with them. Seems the only way off this rock is in a bodybag. But I'd never have the strength to go through with it. Howard, Jenkins, Miller, Mom and Dad, I couldn't do that to them - They'd be devastated.

I am so unbelievably exhausted. I am tired to my bones and I can't take this place anymore. Everyday, I wonder if today is the day I can finally get shot and be done with this. To finally have relief.

Why do you let this happen, God? Do You even care about us raggedy Marines? I pray for rest but it never comes. I pray for an end to this battle, but yet we press on, whittled away day by day by this hellish rain season.

Looks like I'm needed once more. Got a malaria case I gotta take back to the Battalion Aid station. If this guy's lucky, maybe he'll get sick enough to let him go back to Australia.

Until next time.