Author's Note

Hey

Nothing to report, just another Journal Entry while I work on the next content chapter.

Hope you all like these. I've been questioning whether or not these have been getting repetitive and growing old, but I haven't received any criticism stating this as such. Perhaps it might just be me second-guessing myself. If you have any thoughts, feel free to leave them below in a comment.

Alright, Journal Entry 3

Journal Entry 3

April 9, 1944

I am glad to be off this miserable island and we didn't leave soon enough! Words cannot express how relieved I am that we will be leaving tonight.

Word was passed down the line that we'd finally be leaving, boarding ship and sailing to somewhere called Pavuvu. Can't say I've heard of the place, but that's the Pacific for you, I guess. They should've let us go months ago. It's not like the Japanese were fighting us anymore past January. Let the Army occupy this place and actually contribute to this damn war for once!

Frustration and dejection have been my two constant companions these past days. I am frustrated with my upper command, though I'll never verbalize it, and I am frustrated at, well, I suppose life in general. Everyday has been a challenge to slog through, every morning an uphill battle of attrition against rain, insects, malaria, disease, you name it. It's a maelstrom of every bad thing one can contract in a jungle. I could fix one guy, but another one will replace him immediately after. It's been a certain, shall I say, morale killer for myself and many a day I've felt useless and dejected, though I've never let the men know that.

But that's all behind me. I take solace in the fact that I've survived. I survived my first campaign. I've endured the most torturous, barbaric, difficult, and toilsome obstacles that life can throw at me and I can take the hits. If I was a younger man, I'm sure that'd give me an ego the size of the Empire State Building, but I think this battle has moved me past that bombastic, prideful stage of youth.

I am sitting on a pile of pillbox rubble with my unit, Howard to my left napping on a jagged piece of concrete (I never can understand how he can sleep anywhere! Laying my head on that hard piece of concrete would give me the fiercest headache imaginable!), and I feel some sort of introspection. I'm gazing at my friend's faces and seeing how this war has aged us. We were just young kids, hell we still are young kids, when we came in a year ago. Just regular folk living their lives to the best they could and now here we are. Sunken eyes, bony cheeks, filthy clothes, and looks of reservation and distance when not amongst buddies. They look as if they've tasted a thousand lifetimes and have no one to talk to about it.

It makes me understand my father's stories of the Great War veterans so much more. I hope that my friends shall not follow in their footsteps as we try to process what we've seen here.

Looks like we're boarding ship now. Here's seeing you on Pavuvu.

April 12, 1944

Well, we've arrived. And not soon enough.

I've decided that life on ship is not for me, or at least, life on a troop transport ship is not for me! Aside from morning calisthenics and PT, I've been bored out of my mind on ship! I suppose I was glad that I had no work or duty to do, but the options outside of that were pretty slim. The only things any of us really could do is go up on deck and watch the ocean for hours or, in my case, fix up some Marine's boo-boos when they don't want to go to the ship's doctor or corpsman (I will say Dr. Tavin is one mean motherf***, so I can't really blame them for not wanting to see him for a cut or other non-important thing).

That's not even mentioning the terrible air quality below deck. I swear they just pumped out the air, ran it through a few oranges or peaches to freshen it up a little bit, and then just pumped it back in. It was absolutely stifling and I feel that I would have suffocated if I slept another day on that ship.

It is surprising that this bothers me, considering the place I just left, but it is nonetheless peeving to me.

Pavuvu is an... interesting place. I can't say I've formulated an opinion on it yet, so I will just describe it here. It is incredibly muggy, intensely humid and hot (which I've grown quite used to now), a rock in the middle of nowhere, Pacific Ocean. From what the lieutenant told me, it was once a coconut plantation that was used by the natives before the war, but they abandoned it when the Japs took the Solomon Islands. Even now, as we've arrived, the remnants of their hasty flight is apparent. Discarded, unharvested coconut pits lay all over the loose sand on the beach. Strangely enough, they look half-dissolved, probably from the intense rain season that hit the islands when we were on Cape Gloucester. The trouble with that is now that they're cooking in the hot sun, this permeating, repulsive stench of rotten coconut is all I can smell right now. It can only be described as the worst stench I've ever had the displeasure of smelling outside of rotting bodies. Because this mush has covered the ground, many Marines have gotten stuck trying to navigate through it and lost their shoes. Now we squelch and squash through the rotting coconut barefoot while trying to clean it all up.

I can't even imagine the amount of disease I'm going to have to treat in the next few weeks.

We have no mess halls, no company street, no tents, nothing. Hell we don't even have fresh rations, forced by our commanders to subsist off of C rations. We gotta make our own camp with what supplies we've been given.

What a stark departure from the typical Pacific scene. I'd have thought Pavuvu would be an enticing beach, with colorful blossoms, green flora and fauna, the colorful tints of a beautiful sunset or sunrise on the horizon, and perhaps a few late night escapades with a fertile, enticing, and willing Native girl (Lord knows I could use the company of a woman...).

But no, we get rotting coconuts and ripped, wet cots to sleep on.

Another day in Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, as the saying goes around camp.

Looks like I'm needed for another detail before chow. I'll write again soon.

April 20, 1944

Well, we've at least settled in now, but the troubles have only begun.

We still sleep on ripped, old cots, but at least the Seabees were able to construct some tents for us to sleep in and paved dirt roads for us to walk on. (Bless them).

Showering has been a hassle and by hassle I mean non-existent. We have no showers or source of clean water on the island as we haven't constructed them yet. The only thing we can do to get clean is to wait for a errant rain, frantically strip ourselves to our birthday suits, lather ourselves in soap, and quickly try to scrub everything before the rain inevitably stops 10-15 seconds later. It has not been uncommon at any given time to see men, clad in the nude and holding a bar of soap, waiting outside their tents and looking up at the sky, waiting for the clouds out in the distance to blow our way.

I'm afraid I've seen more penises in the past week than anyone should see in a lifetime.

Rats have moved in and they've been nothing short of a nuisance. Perhaps not an egregious nuisance or one that really bothers us too much, but a nuisance nonetheless. Often they make little parties that try to raid our tents for food and treats during the night. It's not uncommon for one man to shuffle in his sleep, prompting the rats to scurry out of our tent in a fit of fear and waking up every man in their bunks. We've tried to control their population, but they prove to be resilient rodents, much like the Japanese in a pillbox.

But the animal who takes the cake of the biggest annoyance on this God-forsaken rock are these insufferable, beady-eyed little shits known as land crabs. These little disgusting gremlins get in everything. Our shoes, our bunks, socks, food, they somehow find a way. The act of putting on our shoes as we roll out of our bunks puts the fear of God into every man. No one wants to slip on their boondockers and feel a smooth, hard snip to the bottom of the food and beady little antennae prodding at their toes. It's enough to make even the saltiest of Marines scream in absolute terror and ain't no one blames them for it.

When I look at one, it makes me wonder how God could have made such a disgust and disgrace to nature with how ugly they are. The only thing they've been good for is meals, but preparing and cooking them is too much of a hassle for most to try.

God, I'm getting angry just by writing about them. I suppose I will put my pen down and walk for a bit, lest I rip the pages of this Bible with fierce, angered pen strokes.

April 24, 1944

Loneliness, I believe, emits a sort of sound. I think, perhaps, no one but us Marines stranded here on Pavuvu can hear it. But there is a sound loneliness emits and that sound has been in great supply here.

I'm sitting on the beach at the moment and watching the surf lap at the loose sand as I write this. And I've thought about my family and how much I miss them. Loneliness and especially homesickness has been plaguing me today. I heard about Opening Day at Wrigley Field with the Cubs vs. the Sox and it reminded me of just how isolated we are out here in the middle of the Pacific. Opening Day was weeks ago and here I am only hearing about it now! We haven't been able to set up radios or get a signal and our mail only gets delivered or sent out when the nearest supply ship docks at our port since we have no airfield constructed. The ship could take weeks to get here!

It makes me feel as if I've been forgotten, abandoned by my country and countrymen. I know this is not the case, but I still can't shake the feeling. The world passes us and leaves us behind and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. There's many times, this one included, that I've walked out here to the surf and just watched the sea, wondering if anyone knows where I am, thinks of me, or remembers me back home.

Perhaps to be forgotten is the worst part of Hell when one goes there. I could endure the fiercest fires and worst tortures they could throw at me, but knowing that no one would know where I was or remember me would be my breaking point. I've gotten just a taste of it here on Pavuvu and it's not something I'd wish upon anyone. To be forgotten by my loved ones is not a thought I'd ever relish.

I suppose I have it easy. I feel for the men who are married, separated from their wives and missing the intimacy they once had with them. I'd say we're all a little pent up out here, myself included. But I don't have a girl who's anxiously waiting for me that I'm thinking about 24/7 and I suppose that's a gift of some sorts.

This separation from, shall we say, the feminine touch, has made any pornography a valuable resource to have, even more valuable than gold. I've amassed a few contraband magazines from the States that I've traded for, though they've cost me an arm and a leg. After 'taking care' of myself, these magazines have gotten me off quite a few crappy details. Can't imagine cleaning barrels or giving the new replacements their shots is exactly fun work, but what do I know, right?

Well, I suppose I'm just going to sit here and enjoy this pleasant Pacific evening breeze blowing in. Best not to ruin a moment of peace when I have it, right?

Write again soon.