July 18, 2024:

One of the hut areas we were in was across a high fence from an aircraft factory where big B-24 Liberator bombers were made. There was an airstrip, too, and the big four-engine planes came and went low over the tops of the huts. Once one belly-landed, going through the fence near our huts. No one was hurt, but several of us ran down to see the crash.

— E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed

At the time Sledge was in boot camp there at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot my grandmother was working in that B-24 factory. Rosie the Riveter, of Clinton, Arkansas. She would have worked on those very planes which took off so low over the trainees' huts.

That was December of 1943. One year later, in December of '44, Sledge was at Pavuvu for rest and rehabilitation with the 1st Marines after the battle of Peleliu. At that moment the father of my grandmother's child was in snow on the northern front of the Battle of Bulge, with the 84th Infantry Division. My grandmother's child, my mother, eight years old, was locked in a closet in a house in El Cajon.

Sledge grew up comfortable, in a warm Alabama home with two parents who loved him and African servants who took care of them all. His trauma was later, with the Old Breed.

July 17, 2024:

His friend has been cold, very cold, since their last time together.

Perhaps she was offended by him, where he was in truth trying hard to at least mimic going through the motions. Since then he doesn't think he cares enough to care. People change, and it's been years since he truly liked her enough to be patient with her judgmentalism.

He wants to leave work but he feels trapped. Disrespect of the leadership. But, so? It's all so easy, and he spends the days reading.

He stopped drinking months ago. Stopped eating weeks ago apart from egg drop soup. Shed 12 or 13 pounds. He likes himself better without the belly.

He is very concerned for the country and the world. It's all so very very sad.

July 16, 2024:

Our teacher, Mister B., told us, his 5th grade class, in tones of great seriousness, that our skill at chin-ups would save our lives.

The enemy, presumably the Russian one, would get us unless we were able to hump it over walls unassisted.

I assume his earnestness was meant for the boys. Not the girls. Thoughts of the girls would have been unlike him.

I became very good at chin-ups.