American Valor Quarterly Issue 2 - Spring 2008 | Page 16

picked up off a dead officer, but that was it. So I was practically
alone.
We picked out a shell hole to jump into, watched as I saw the
Japanese coming at me. I wasn’t really afraid—I had seen combat in Guam and it didn’t bother me, so I started shooting. I used
Blanchard’s ammo, and he’d hand me a clip which I’d have in
there in about two seconds. It was a good thing we had a lull
every once in awhile, though, because the rifle got so hot that the
metal was expanding and it was getting hard to pull the trigger.
From time to time, they would stop, which would give us a
breather, but pretty