Pavuvu

Once ashore, the light raiders suffered from their lack of organic transport as they struggled to manhandle supplies from the beach to inland dumps.

During the battalion's subsequent four-week stay on Pavuvu, the diet of field chow and the tough tropic conditions combined to debilitate the troops.

Fully one-third developed skin problems, all men lost weight, and several dozen eventually fell ill with malaria and other diseases.

Although it was not entirely the fault of planners, the hard-hitting capabilities of the Marine Battalion were wasted on Clean Slate.

I hope they will approve my efforts.

I began writing this account immediately after Peleliu, while we were in camp rest on Pavuvu Island.

I outlined the entire story with detailed notes as soon as I returned to civilian life, and I have written down certain episodes during the years since then.

Mentally, I have gone over and over the details of these events, but I haven't been able to draw them all together and write them down until now.

Then came more last-minute training, now on the island of New Caledonia, with ominous emphasis on bayonet and hand-to-hand techniques.

Sledge and his buddies were shunted into the 5th Regiment of the 1st Marine Division, replacing people killed and wounded on Guadalcanal and at Cape Gloucester, leaving Sledge proud to be a member of this distinguished unit which fought at Belleau Wood in the First World War and was later to fight in Korea and Vietnam.

When Sledge joined, it was recuperating and training on the miserable island of Pavuvu, north of Guadalcanal.

Sledge was assigned to the 16mm mortar section of Company K, commanded by Captain Andrew A. Ack Ack Haldane, remembered by Sledge as the finest and most popular officer I ever knew.

A career will feed you and create your future.

Now, the future without AI, there is no future, unless you wanna live in, in, in Pavuvu, wear a grass skirt, and drink umbrella drinks all day long, and put on a hundred pounds.

And even then, I'm sure the blender in the bar has some AI component by then.

Question is: How do you get there? What do you learn? A lesson to the wise.