Shredded Meadows

It was hot. It was humid. It was 1:00 p.m when 170 cannons, spread over a line 2 miles long, belched fire and smoke, and vomited iron hail upon the enemy. The defenders answered with cannons of their own…and for two hours, the respective cannons roared. The hills behind the defenders were crowned with flame and smoke, which, while obscuring the battlefield, also indicated that the invaders cannons were overshooting their targets, and thus, were mostly ineffective.

After a couple of hours, the field of battle was covered with billowing clouds of smoke and dust…the cannons lapsed into silence…and the invaders prepared to advance. Did they run, charging across the field, yelling and screaming toward their enemy? They did not. They formed up into a line, an orderly line over a mile long…12,000 men stretched out…and marched…marching silently through the meadow, marching almost a mile to the fight. The defenders, who had not seen this behavior during the entire war, stood and gazed in awe and wonder at the sight.

Of course, gazing at the sight and repelling the invaders were two different things. When the invaders got within range, the sound of cannon filled with grapeshot and rifles and pistols filled the air…ripping and tearing great holes through the once orderly lines. The once majestic line of infantry became a mass of dismembered bodies and bloody dying soldiers that quickly shrank from a mile to a half mile…but the invaders continued on. When they got close enough, the invaders stopped, raised and fired their rifles and commenced a bayonet charge, screaming and yelling.

Hand to hand fighting, close range shooting, stabbing with bayonets…for an hour, the two armies engaged in a raging battle, with hundreds on each side falling, leeching gouts of blood into the shredded greenery of the meadow…the once clear waters of a nearby creek turned pink, then light red as the day wore on. Finally, the defenders were the recipients of much needed reinforcements, and the invaders were forced to withdraw…leaving 7,500 behind, dead and dying.

This skirmish was the last of a battle that had lasted three days…the blood of thousands had watered meadows ripped by horses hooves, running soldiers, cannon and rifle. Total casualties from both sides were over 52,000…good soldiers all. As the invaders retreated, they were forced to leave their dead behind on the field…a field littered with the bodies of the men and 3,000 horses. The dead of the invaders were gathered, transferred the hundreds of miles to be buried by the cultures of the invaders. The defenders bodies were gathered up, laid to rest on the field of glory…and a military cemetery was born.

Four months after the battle, two men arrived at the site to officially dedicate the new cemetery. The first arose, walked to the podium, spoke for two hours of the glory and the honor that had taken place there. He returned to his seat and the second man stood. He spoke for two minutes, and this is what he said:

Today, Gettysburg is a National Military Park. The cemetery contains 1328 monuments and markers, with the remains of thousands of Union soldiers buried there. The Park is re-establishing croplands, pastures and fencing as it was in 1863. Historic Orchards are also being re-planted. On July 3, 1938, during the 75th Anniversary celebration of the battle of Gettysburg, President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Eternal Light Peace Memorial.

Earth Hits Sun…Details at 11

Yashika Ofumi was a normal, happy six year old girl sliding down the slide in the park on that warm summer morning. She was at the playground with her friends and all of their mothers for a morning of fun and relaxation, and she took full advantage of it. Laughing and running, she went from the slide to the swings, back to the slide, laughing all the way. Looking over, she saw Mr. Katsu, the old shopkeeper, out sweeping the walk in front of his shop. Laughing and calling his name, she waved…he looked up, smiled a tired smile, waved, went back to tiredly whisking his broom back and forth.

Giving up on Mr. Katsu, Yashika was looking around for others to play with when she first heard the drone. Looking up, she saw three planes…small dots really…flying far overhead. Happily, she called and waved, hoping against hope that they might see her…but they didn’t. Then, one of the planes hesitated, seemed to stall, hiccuped…and something fell off the plane…a chunk of metal, falling slowly to the earth. The plane recovered, sped away. Yashika watched with delight as the chunk of metal tumbled over and over, falling almost in slow motion…Fifty-seven seconds later, the chunk hit the altitude of 1,900 feet above the earth…and at 8:15:57 AM, the earth hit the sun…

The first indication was a bright light, brighter than the sun…and only 2,000 feet away…but no one below saw that light because with the light came the heat. The area below the blast was immediately bathed in 7,000 degrees of fiery hell…and Yashika and her friends and their mothers and Mr. Katsu and everyone else within a mile…well, their internal organs boiled, their bones turned to brittle charcoal, they were vaporized into dust, and the dust was blown away by winds up to 624 miles per hour…all within a few hundredths of a second…but they left behind reminders…in the initial blast of light and heat, their shadows were imprinted on the asphalt around them…and those shadows are still there…

As mentioned earlier, the temperature instantly went up to 7,000 degrees…melting and liquifying asphalt, concrete, steel…all of which ran in rivers and rivulets across a scarred and charred landscape…that land was totally sterilized…80,000 people vaporized or killed…of which 52,000 were under the age of nine…countless animals…microbes…germs…every living thing was obliterated for a square mile outward from the blast…fires erupted over 4.4 square miles, further destroying people and buildings…90% of the city was destroyed or severely damaged…and above it all, a massive column of smoke and dust and debris and ash and heat and radiation billowed up, soaring 11 miles above the destruction…where if billowed out, flared out, folded back in…forming a gigantic mushroom rising over the ruin and rot and destruction of the city of Hiroshima, Japan…which had ceased to exist in ten seconds. The date was August 6, 1945…

As stated, 80,000 died instantly…and by the end of the month, the death toll stood at 140,000. Several of the survivors decided to leave the city…and so they did. They fled to another city farther south…on the coast…a quiet city…called Nagasaki…where, on August 9, 1945, the second bomb finished the work of the first…

In Nagasaki, part two of the A-bomb scenario took place at 11:01:43, resulting in the immediate deaths of 40,000…by the end of the month, the toll was at 80,000…and the destruction was just as complete. The United States planned on dropping another bomb on or around August 18, with three more to come in September, and three more after that in October. After the first bomb in Hiroshima, President Truman announced, “If they do not accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin form the air the likes of which have never been seen on this earth.” He was on his way to fulfilling that promise when Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945…

The survivors of both cities were bathed in waves of radiation that for years afterward caused cancers and other diseases which continued to take lives…memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of names of the hibakusha (‘explosion-affected people’) who are known to have died since the bombings…as of August 2008, more than 400,000 hibakusha have died…258,310 in Hiroshima and 145,984 in Nagasaki.

The bomb? Comparing those bombs to the weapons of today would be like comparing a match to those first bombs…in fact, the force of those first bombs are used today as detonation devices…to set off the weapons of today…why, with what we have today, we could completely obliterate every living thing…wipe the earth clean…sterilize it…and probably not think twice about it…

Red Sands Monday

Monday

“Damn…what a crappy place to have a war…”

Brian Cooper hunkered down behind absolutely nothing and hoped the Japanese were lousy shots.

“No grass…no trees…not even a goddamn rock to hide behind. Who the hell came up with this bright idea, anyway? Nothin’ here but volcanic sand…can’t dig worth crap…can’t hide…shit!”

A bullet slapped the sand an inch from his face, spraying dirt into his mouth and nose. He gasped, coughed, hawked, spat…looked around for something to shoot at…anything at all…there was nothing. Brian was in the second wave to hit the beach that morning in February. The first wave met almost no opposition…which they later learned, to their detriment, was basically a trap. As they advanced off the beach, they were suddenly met with withering fire from concealed bunkers and tunnels, and mowed down like sheaves of wheat. The second wave was a little more cautious.

Brian glanced behind him, saw the carnage, shuddered, moved forward a few feet more through the mud and the sand.

He saw his buddy up ahead, laying stretched out, rifle up, aiming down the barrel, looking for…anything. Brian jumped up, ran a bit, flopped down beside him.

“Joey…how you doin’?’

No answer…Brian looked over, saw his friend sighting down his rifle with sightless eyes, a trickle of red escaping from under his helmet, slithering down his face…Brian turned away, gagged, retched onto the sand beside him. An obliging wave rolled in, gathered up the vomit, rolled away…God, he would kill for a dry pair of socks right now. He reached over, removed Joeys’ dog tags, jumped up, and ran…ran for all he was worth, finally dropping behind a destroyed truck, looking left and right, looking ahead, just looking.

“Goddamn somsa bitches! Gotta get off this damn beach…gotta move up the hill…gotta find me something to kill…”

Ahead of him were jumbled, twisted piles of metal…landing craft, trucks, tanks…scrap metal turned into art…the art of war. He reached down, picked up a handful of sand, idly sifted it through his fingers. The black sand fell away…the red that had soaked into it stayed on his fingers. He brushed off his hands and looked ahead. The shooting stopped…the men started to climb off the beach…up toward the interior of the island…Brian joined them…and began to tour Iwo Jima. It was Monday, February 19, 1945. It was eleven o’clock. Brian stood up, started walking with his comrades up the hill…

Friday

Billy Preston stood at the top of Mount Surabachi and looked down toward the airfield. The Americans held the mountain, but they also knew that there were a couple of thousand Japanese directly below them. A vast network of tunnels crisscrossed the island, and the mountain (ha!…all of 545 feet) was a virtual maze of tunnels and bunkers. Getting the Japanese out of there was going to be a chore.

“Well, hell…here we are in the middle of a major battle, and the Secretary of The Navy shows up…Whasshe think? This is some kind of damn tourist attraction? Idiots! We’re being led by idiots!”

He sighed, picked up his rifle, started walking cautiously down the hill…

“What I wouldn’t give for an effin’ tree…some kind of shade…”

He continued down the hill, knowing, for the most part, where most of the bunkers were…knowing that even after they were cleared, the Japanese could re-man them through the tunnel system.

“Stupid! These people are stupid! This war is stupid! Just one, big, stupid fu…”

He stopped, dropped, aimed down the hill…there was something there. Slowly, he inched down the hill, until he came to…a body…an American soldier. As he approached, a cloud of flies buzzed up, swarmed around, settled back on the body. He turned him over, saw the gaping hole in the guys’ belly, saw the maggots feasting on the juices of his intestines deep in the wound, turned away, retched into the dirt. He reached down, took off the dog tags, glanced at the face…just a kid. Glanced at the tags.

“Brian Cooper…well, Coop, I guess it’s over for you…RIP, Marine.”

He got up, headed down the hill…

FACTS:

The battle of Iwo Jima lasted from February 19 to March 26, 1945. Total American Forces: 110,000 Marines. Total Japanese Forces 22,000. For 35 days the island of Iwo Jima became the most populated 8 square miles on the planet.

Total Japanese casualties: 20,703…1,083 were captured during the fighting. Many of the casualties came from ritualistic suicide rather than surrender.

Total American casualties: 27,909 Marines…300 Navy seamen (from kamikaze bombings on the ships). The number of American casualties was greater than the total Allied casualties on D-Day, and this was the only U.S. Marine battle where the American casualties exceeded the Japanese.

Post Script

The photographs shown were taken by Vic McKee. They are reproduced here with the gracious permission of his daughter, Sherri McKee.