A Marine From Boston: A First Person Story of a US Marine in World War II - Boot Camp-Samoa-Guadalcanal-BougainvilleJohn Carey was brought up in a suburb of Boston. His knowledge of world events was influenced by the weekly newsreels he saw at the local movie house, showing the unrest in Europe, Asia, and labor/management strikes in his own country as the Depression ended. He was a junior in high school when Pearl Harbor was bombed and part of a group of teenagers, not yet of enlistment age, who feared the war would end before they had a chance to "get even" with those who attacked the USA. His education in the real world started with Boot Camp in '42 where he learned to exist, in a platoon of recruits from every walk of life, under the direction of uncompromising Marine Corps drill instructors. He witnessed the segregation in the South, and was trained as a scout sniper in still primitive American Samoa. He joined the Third Marine Division on Guadalcanal and was in the assault wave on Cape Torikina on Bougainville and spent the next two months when many men were wounded and died in a Hell on Earth. The purpose of this book is to put on record some of the events and attitudes as we entered the war. It then tells the story of many Marines, many of whom performed deeds in combat that were never recorded, never recognized, and quickly forgotten by all but a few. This is his effort to record those deeds for their children and grandchildren and report what he witnessed. He proudly describes himself as a Green Marine: young men who enlisted in the Marine Corps reserve for the duration of the war-plus six months. The Green Marines were never issued the fancy dress blue uniforms. They had only dungarees, khakis for summer and greens for winter. They joined to help win the war and now that it was over they wanted to return to a life without blind obedience or excessive protocol. The Green Marines left the Marine Corps with their heads high and proud of the service they provided. |
