WAR STORIES

Blog number 137                                               Dec. 26, 2007

I was watching a History program called, "Shootout."  Ten days after the invasion of Guadalcanal (the first invasion by the Americans in the Pacific War), a few hundred marine raiders set ashore at Makin - a small Atoll a few miles from Guadalcanal in an attempt to make the Japanese think there were many invasions and that Guadalcanal was not the main one.

The "shootout" part of this episode was a small band of Marines that were to flank several machine gun nests on Makin.  Walking across an open ground surrounded by jungle, they were cut down by hidden machine guns - all except for one man.  The story was about what this one man did, which was pretty amazing, but that's not what concerns me. 

What does concern me was that here were marines - supposedly highly trained in infantry maneuvers, led by someone who was supposed to have even more intense training, walking across a clearing in a jungle held by enemy soldiers.  And not only were supposedly highly trained marines doing this, but they were RAIDERS - who were supposed to be even more intensely trained in such maneuvers. 

No surprise to me that they were cut down, and I've never had any such training.  Why didn't any of that group say something?  Or maybe they did and were told to shut up. 

That happens.

And this reminded me of a story a friend of mine told that had been in Vietnam.  He was  describing walking along a stream in a jungle looking for North Vietnamese.  When I heard this, I asked him if that wouldn't lead to an ambush from the higher ground on each side of the stream.  He said, "Yes, that was the idea.  We would be ambushed and then we would call in the heavy guns and wipe them out."

I said, "You were bait."

He says, "Yep."