CHAPTER 1

It was late nineteen eighty-nine and the Christmas holidays were imminent.The trees were bare and a light frost still glimmered on the grass of thesprawling cemetery. A gentle wind that blew from the north only served toaugment the already bone chilling cold of that somber December morning.

"I can't believe he's really gone!"

"C'mon, Mom. It's time to go. I don't want you to catch pneumoniastanding out here too long."

Most of the congregation had long departed the gravesite that held theearthly remains of Jim Mathews. In the distance, the lone bugler who hadprovided a stirring rendition of "Taps", still stood at attention in UnitedStates Marine Corps full dress uniform, silhouetted against a solitary oaktree.

"He was such a quiet man. Most people never even knew what a braveand lonely soul he was.

Your father had many friends while in the military, but after he returnedhome from the war he abandoned most of them out of fear of losing them tooI suspect. I don't think he ever got over what he saw there ... or what he wascalled upon to do during his years in the Pacific. After he won the medal, hewas asked to speak many times at soldier gatherings. Out of respect for hiscomrades, he did a few times right after returning home. But for the last fortyor more years, he preferred not to talk about it."

"Did he ever confide in you about the war, Mom? I don't remember himever mentioning it in my presence."

"Once.

He told me some things that were hard for him to say. You could see thetears well up in his eyes and hear the crackling of his voice whenever he triedto speak of those times over there, and the people he was with ... especiallythe ones that never made it home.

I tried to tell him that I understood how difficult it must be to speakof such things. But, he assured me that no one could really know just howdifficult it was unless they had been there.

I assured him that I was willing to listen to his stories at any time. Ithought that after the years had allowed the strong emotions to fade a bit itwould be easier for him. But, it never was.

When we visited cemeteries on Memorial Day, which we did faithfullyevery year, I often sensed that he wanted to tell me more ... but he neverdid. We talked of taking a trip to the sites of the big Pacific battles with someof his Marine friends ... but that too he put off for various reasons. I don'tthink he could have handled seeing the graves of his comrades or the placeswhere they died even after so many years.

So now, those memories will all be buried with him."

Maria stood silently behind her mother for several minutes.

Finally, her mother released her hand from the coffin, took Maria's armand prepared to go.

"Goodbye, my darling.

I'll miss you and I look forward to joining you soon."

She touched the coffin one last time and then threw a kiss toward Jim'sgrave as they turned to leave.

Maria was concerned about her mother's reference to her own mortality,but remained silent as they walked to the waiting limousine that wouldreturn them to the family home. As they passed the bugler, Helen gave a faintwave of thanks and forced a smile his way. He acknowledged her gesture witha crisp salute.

The women held hands tightly but didn't speak during the twentyminute ride back to the house. Safely inside the living room, Maria's motherburst into tears.

She stood and held her mother quietly, comforting her as best she couldgiven the circumstances. Silently, she tried to imagine how her mother couldgo on without the man that she had loved and lived with for more than fortyyears. Helen sat down on her favorite chair. After a moment in which sheattempted to compose herself, she turned to Maria.

"If you will look in our bedroom closet, your father kept a small safe inthe corner on the floor. In it, you will find his medal in a small box.

Please bring it to me. I'd just like to look at it again. It's been a longtime.

The safe should be unlocked."

Maria got up and walked to the bedroom.

In the back corner of the oversized walk-in closet, she saw the safe andswung open the door that was already ajar. She was surprised to find not onlythe small box with the Marine Corps insignia atop a silhouette of the medalcontained within, but also a large brown envelope addressed to her mother.

Returning to the living room, she handed the objects to her mother.

"I found this addressed to you along with the box containing the medal."

Helen carefully inspected the envelope that bore her name written in herhusband's easily recognizable handwriting.

"I never saw this before. He must have placed it there just recentlywithout telling me. Would you open it for me?"

Maria took the envelope and carefully unsealed it.

It contained several sets of VCRs each in their own case. Accompanyingthe tapes was a handwritten letter. A quick glance at the last page revealedher father's signature.

"The letter's from Dad and it's addressed to you."

"Please read it to me. I don't think I can. My eyes are still wet."

Maria unfolded the pages, glanced once more toward her mother andbegan reading.

P.S. The case marked with your name is for you only. It's a little personal.The other set of tapes is ok to show to whomever you choose."

* * *

Maria looked at her mother.

"You didn't know anything about this?"

"No.

Your father often went out by himself ... for walks or occasionally toplay golf or so he said.

I guess he was working on it during those times. But, he must have hadsomeone help him make the VCRs ... I doubt he could do it all by himself.He was never very handy with electronic things."

She smiled ... in fact, almost laughed for a brief moment.

Maria remained quiet for several moments while her mother reminisced.

"Why he had trouble just changing channels on the T.V. when we gotour first remote. He would make excuses about people getting lazy and get upto change a channel like we used to do. And when we got our first VCR ...I thought he was going to break the darn thing ... he got so frustrated tryingto get it to work."

Helen took out a tissue and wiped her eyes, still wet from the emotionalevents of the day.

Finally, Maria asked: "Are you ready to watch this, Mom?"

"I think so."

Maria led her mother into the den where they had a large screen T.V.with an attached VCR player. She loaded the first cassette into the machineand sat down next to her Mom.

"Well, here goes" she said as she pressed the play button.

* * *

The opening frame had a written dedication with a voiceover narratedby her husband:

"This is the story of my life in the United States Marine Corps. Iwas proud to be the recipient of numerous awards, most especially theCongressional Medal of Honor.

However, I want everyone who sees and hears my story to understandthat the medal, while it bears my name, belongs to each and every person inmy squad who was there with me during those days on Iwo Jima so manyyears ago. Many of them received lesser awards. Many of them received nopersonal recognition at all.

All of them died in combat.

By being awarded the medal, I was relieved of further combat dutiesand was protected during the remaining months of a conflict that ended withvictory after many hard won battles and far too many casualties.

So to my comrades in arms from that conflict so many years ago ...especially to the members of my squad, to the 4th Marine Division and otherswho took part in the battle of Iwo Jima ... and to their families, I say withgreat pride one last time:

So, here is my story!"

CHAPTER 2

The nineteen thirty-nine/nineteen forty school year was a terrible one for me.It was my last year in high school and my grades were doing poorly thanksmostly to my need to work. Even though we had moved closer to Little Rock,word of the scandal followed us.

Ever since Mom's affair with the priest and her breakup from Dad, andthen his death, things had gone from bad to worse. It was almost like shewas that woman Hester Prynne in "The Scarlet Letter". She was ridiculedand laughed at. We could hardly go anywhere without someone pointingtheir finger at her. And the kids in school wouldn't have much to do withme either. I sometimes heard them whisper the word 'whore'. At first I didn'tknow what it meant; when I got older and understood what they weresaying, it made me real mad. I got in fights with others all the time andthat kept me in trouble at school with the teachers and the school principal,even though I'm sure they realize now that they could have been a little moreunderstanding.

Mom did whatever she could to make ends meet, but it was always hard.The only work she could get were jobs that others mostly wouldn't do, likecleaning bathrooms in gas stations or stores. The pay was bad back then ...usually not more than a dollar a day ... and frequently much less. We didn'thave any minimum wage laws like today. Of course the house was small, andthe rent and utilities weren't much. But still, after buying food and clothes,there was hardly anything left over for us to spend just for fun.

I found that there were lots of odd jobs for high school students ... ifyou didn't mind the odd hours and sometimes getting your hands dirty. So Idecided that it was my responsibility to help out and hopefully let Mom enjoylife a bit. She was getting older and her legs were about to give out from allthe mopping and scrubbing she did, mostly on her hands and knees.

A friend of our minister who knew of our desperate situation askedme if I could do some work for him at his trucking company. It involvedloading and unloading freight trucks. It was pretty hard work and it didn'tpay much, but the worst part was I had to work from three a.m. until aboutseven-thirty a.m. Then I went right to school from there. I was tired most ofthe time, so my grades started to slip.

Another member of our church who owned a variety store in town alsowas aware of our situation and asked if I could help out for a few weeksbefore Christmas when one of his regular salespeople got sick. I did a good jobfor him so he let me work as many Saturdays as I could up until I left town.That was about the time when Mom was not feeling well, so it kept us goinguntil she got back on her feet. Then after graduation I was about to take ajob at the mill where my father had worked. And that's when fate stepped in.

Some boys I barely knew from high school were heading to the MarineCorps recruiting station in Little Rock for a meeting with the sergeant there.They asked me to come along even though we didn't know each other verywell. The things we had in common were our bad grades and our badtempers. But at least we had graduated.

The sergeant was real friendly and said he was sure there was a place foreach of us in the Corps. It meant that we were guaranteed to be paid everymonth and I could send part of it home to my mother. Well, I bought hissales pitch lock, stock and barrel ... signed the papers right then and there.I had already turned eighteen, so I didn't need my mother's permission. Twoothers signed later.

Funny thing is, out of the six of us that went there that day, only two ofus became Marines. One of the others joined the Navy, and two later wentinto the Army and died in Europe. I was the only one that survived the warin the Pacific. The guy that joined the Navy became a medic and was onboard the Bismarck Sea when she was sunk off Iwo Jima during the airassault by the Japanese a day or two after the initial landing.

I felt real bad about losing all of them for a long time since it was theiridea and not mine to join the military in the first place. But I realized longago that life must go on ... and I was lucky enough to meet you later on andthat made all the difference in my life.

But on with the story.

The three of us who opted for the Marines were assigned to Parris Island,South Carolina for boot camp. I sure wish that someone would have warnedme about just how tough it would be. I was like the other guys who lookedat pictures of recruiting posters and saw a Marine in dress blues and thoughthow neat he looked, but didn't really consider all that he had been through toget to that point in his career.

Fortunately, I was pretty athletic so I spent the few weeks I had beforereporting doing some running and working out. The guy that didn't getthrough basic ... well, he was a little on the hefty side and never had beeninto sports or running. They put him on a diet and made him do extrarunning and exercising. He was doing great until he went and broke hisankle during a rappelling exercise during the fourth week. The doctors feltthat he would never be able to resume basic and he was given a medicaldischarge.

I hope he knows just how lucky he was. Last I heard, he had a businessof his own and a family and grandchildren. But, he probably knows that andcounts his lucky stars every day and every night.

At least I hope he does.

* * *

Well, the big day came, and Bob and I ... you remember BobPlunckett? ... he dated your friend Betty when we first met inWashington ... well we got on that bus at the recruiting station and rodetogether to Parris Island.

We were barely off the bus, when our drill instructor met the group andintroduced himself as Sergeant Monty Anderson. I happened to be first inline when he approached us.

"What's your name son?"

He shouted so loud it scared the hell out of me.

"Jim Mathews", I answered timidly.

"Whenever you speak to me, you will address me as Drill SergeantAnderson. When asked, you will state your last name first, followed by yourfirst name.

Do you hear me?" He looked about as mean as a bulldog about to bitesomeone.

He rotated his head from side to side as he spoke indicating he wasaddressing the whole group.

"Yes sir."

We all learned to answer in unison real fast.

"Yes sir, who?"

"Yes sir, Drill Sergeant Anderson."

"I can't hear you", he roared back at us.

We learned to shout the answers to him ... he must have been a littlehard of hearing after all the shouting that went on all the time.