American Valor Quarterly Issue 10 - Summer 2013 | Page 30

Top: Courtesy of R.V. Burgin; Bottom: New American Library

you he was a very dead Japanese And home I came.
soldier when he hit the ground. That
People sometimes ask me about the
was a horrifying night.
Bronze Star that I received for the
They would talk to you. Some of them battles in Okinawa.
knew English. I remember one specific
incident early in the night. One called It was something totally unexpected.
out he said, “Raider, Raider, why you I didn’t even know I’d been put in for
no shoot?” Well, Raider was the a Bronze Star until February 1946. The
machine gun sergeant. Raider said to recruiting station sergeant is the
one of his machine gunners, “ give him person who presented it to me. I
a short burst of about 200 rounds.” brought my mother and dad up so they
And he did and we didn’t hear any could see it presented and I bought a
set of blues, the only
more “Raider”
set a blues that ever
talk that night.
owned. I think I had
to pay $40 for that set
Despite the
of blues. It was a
ambushes, I
proud
moment.
never thought I
wasn’t going to
In February 2008 I
make it out of
was hospitalized and
there.
had a pacemaker put
in and decided right
I had the
then that I was going
mindset that I
to write the book
was coming
that I had been
home. And I
procrastinating about
kept
that
for 20 years. So I got
mindset all the
busy and I wrote
way through. In
The author, RV Burgin.
Islands of the Damned:
fact on that
very ridge where we had those bonsai A Marine at War in the Pacific. One thing
charges, my buddy Howard McCarthy that drove me to write that book was
said, “Burgin, if anything happens to to let people know that there was a
me I want you to have my watch.” I battle on Peleliu and we had over
said, “Howard, there’s no way 8,000 casualties. No one ever knew
anything’s going to happen to you, about it. I wrote it for that educational
you’re OK.” He said, “I’m not kidding. purpose for one thing and then, for
If anything happens to me, I want you another thing, I wanted people to
to have my watch.” And sure enough, know was that there was a war going
McCarthy got killed that night. He had on in the Pacific as well as in the
a premonition that it was his time. And European Theater. I had an 18-yearI saw several guys like that and every, old brother who was killed in France
single one of them that had that on February 17, 1945, and we got a
lot of publicity back in the States
premonition got killed.
about the European Theater but there
I wouldn’t allow that kind of thinking. was very little publicity about what
was going on in the Pacific. You know,
I wanted no part of that. I always had the island- hopping thing. And I guess
a mindset that I was coming home. that’s one reason that we didn’t get
coverage. Just like Peleliu there

weren’t any media there because all
of the high-ranking officers who
programmed that battle to begin with
all said that we’d have the Japanese
off the island and have it secured in
two, three days at most. And the battle
lasted over 90 days. How wrong can
you be?
When I reflect back on the Pacific
campaigns, I must say there was damn
little joy out there for over the two
and a half years that I was there, but,
you know, it’s a funny thing, even in
combat, there’s something funny that
happens that you can remember, even
laugh about in the heat of the battle.
I’ll give you an example. Jim Burke
and I were inseparable almost. We
were tight as brothers. And normally
when you’ve seen one of us, you’ve
seen the other one. We used to double
date in Melbourne when we were
there. Then, on Suicide Creek, there
was a five-gallon water can sitting
there under a tree and, of course, there
were trees everywhere, and it had a
canteen cup sitting on top of it. Well,
I walked down there, about 30 steps
or so and poured me a drink of water,
had it and set the canteen cup back
on top of the 5-gallon water can. Jim
decided he also wanted a drink so he
went down there and, just as he
reached for the canteen cup, a
Japanese sniper in the trees shot the
canteen cup out from under him. He
took about three steps backwards and
looked at me and said, “I don’t think
I’m that damn thirsty.”
RV Burgin is
author of Islands
of the Damned: A
Marine at War in
the Pacific.
AVQ

AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY - Spring 2013 - 30