07-04-2021, 10:27 AM
There was nothing special about Dan Reynolds. He was your average 18 year old. He loved his family, girls, baseball and hanging out with his friends doing nothing pretty much in that order.
The year was 1941 and even though a terrible war raged in across two different oceans the struggles in the Pacific and Europe seemed to Dan living in the rural farmlands of Hamilton, Kansas seemed like they were in a different world.
But all that changed one Sunday morning in early December.
With one quick, deliberate sneak attack the forces of evil had devastated the U.S. Pacific fleet while it lay in anchor at Pearl Harbor.
The world war that had seemed so distant now was brought close to home. Dan and his friends were all of the same mind set. They wanted to do their part. Their country needed them and they were ready to serve. They were Americans. They had heard stories of the exploits of fathers, uncles and grandfathers about serving their country in previous times of war when their country needed them and young Dan Reynolds was eager to do carve out his own mark on that treat tablet of tradition.
It was no surprise to his parents when he returned home one afternoon with the enlistment papers in his hand. His mother hugged and cried the entire evening. But after that day she never showed Dan another tear though she would shed more on his behalf.
His father shook his hand. It was a seemingly simple act but to Dan it was a turning point in his life. Because for the first time there was firmness in his father’s grip and a look of respect in his eyes. It was the look one man gives another where before Dan had always felt his father looked at him as an adult does a child. Dan was perceptive. His father did indeed look at his boy as a man that day.
The few weeks passed quickly and by mid January of 1942 Dan was going through the rigors of boot camp in the United States Marine Corps in Parris Island. He knew it was not going to be easy. He was right. The physical demands put upon his body were extraordinary but the long hours of hard farm work had honed his body quite well. He had an edge over the tough but often softer city boys. Dan excelled and became a favorite of his instructors.
He learned to march (boy did he learn to march), he learned to salute and keep his belongings neat and tidy. He learned to take orders. He learned to fight hand to hand, he learned to shoot he learned the basics of combat. In infantry school he again proved to be a quick learner and soon mastered all the Corps could throw at him. Dan proved to be outstanding and not only learned what was taught him but went out of his way to learn more. The fight his country was involved in was not going well. The Japanese had beaten them back across the Pacific and threatened the allies all the way to Australia.
In fact it was that threat to Australia that brought Dan into the war.
After graduating infantry school there was an immediate need for troops to take part in the first real U.S. offensive of the war. The Japanese were in the process of constructing an airfield on a small island in the Solomon chain. If heavy bombers were allowed to use that as a base of operation they could effectively cut off the main shipping routes to Australia and provide a jumping board to invade the country itself. The name of this island was Guadalcanal.
Allied planners knew this. They knew the airfield was near completion. They had to act before it was finished. They needed a quick strike force. It would have to fast and devastating. The U.S. Army was still growing. It would one day become the mightiest military force the world had ever known but in early 1942 the U.S. Army still lagged somewhere behind that of about a dozen other nations.
The Marines were the obvious choice to make the attack of which Dan Reynolds from Hamilton, Kansas was part.
THE SOLOMONS:
“ If I were king, the worst punishment I could inflect on my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomon Islands. On second thought, king or no king, I don’t think I’d have the heart to do it” - Jack London (Cruise of the Snark)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In the early morning of August 7th 1942 the American invasion force rounded the Northwest side of Guadalcanal know as Cape Esperance and entered a narrow channel of water that would become known as “Iron Bottom Sound” because of the great number of ships that would find it to be their final mooring.
The invasion was not only of Guadalcanal but also the smaller islands across “the Slot” on the islands of Florida and Tulagi. And it was this invasion of Tulagi that Dan was destined to be part of.
Dan didn’t know it but his Marine comrades storming the beachhead at the main objective Guadalcanal met with little or no resistance at all and practically walked into the nearly finished airfield and hoisted the Stars and Strips. The enemy had fled but the battle was far from over.
But for Dan and the rest of his buddies the fighting on Tulagi was vicious. After several days of intense fire fights in the hot, steamy jungle that was as close to a tropical paradise as Boston is to Baghdad the Marines secured most of the island. But it was not without price. Things worth fighting for are seldom free.
Dan’s best friend a 19 year old from Philadelphia named Tony had fallen, two bullets in his lean stomach. Dan held his friend and cradled Tony’s head on his lap. Small trickles of blood escaped the teenager’s mouth who only a few months ago had no more worries than what movie he would take his girl to and which girl he would take. Now he lay dying in a south Pacific hell hole. But he never once shirked from his duty. But Tony sucked it up and bore the intense pain of the two hot chunks of metal in his guts and clenched Dan’s hand tightly. Tony never managed to speak but no words were needed. Dan and Tony shared a bond that only those in combat could possibly understand.
Several days after Tony’s death Dan was on sentry duty. The fighting that had been so vicious was now sporadic. Tulagi had been virtually conquered but across the Slot the battle on Guadalcanal was only beginning to heat up. Dan knew he and his platoon would soon be reassigned there. Till then he carried out his duties here with the professionalism he had been taught in Boot camp.
A snapping of a twig a few meters off caught his attention. He called out the first part of the pass word, “Kings” and awaited the proper reply of ‘button’. When that did not come Dan tensed up. Another twig snapped and Dan raised his rifle to fire in the direction of the incursion.
But the advance scout team of Japanese soldiers was not about to let some American kid spoil their recon patrol that was going amazingly well. They were experienced jungle fighters and one had managed to sneak in behind Dan before one of his comrades broke the twig and alerted the young Marine.
Before Dan could squeeze the trigger the forward Japanese dove in behind him and wrapped a small but strong arm around Dan’s throat and plunged a 7 inch blade into the small of Dan’s back.
Dan groaned as the cold steel punctured his body but grabbed the attacker around the back of the head and back flipped him over and planted him at his feet.
Dan grabbed his own K-bar (that’s a big ole knife folks) and fell forward sticking it right through the center of the attacker’s chest. The young Japanese soldier groaned as blood spewed from his mouth.
Dan had no time to watch the man die. He stood up only to be attacked by the other two. One tackled Dan with a shoulder and forced him back. Dan grunted as his stabbed back hit the earth with force while the Japanese landed on top of him.
The second Japanese had his bayonet at the ready and dropped down beside them.
The struggle had hiked Dan’s shirt up and his hard 6-pack abs were exposed to the night air. Unfortunately for Dan they were also exposed and vulnerable to the third Japanese who wasted no time in plunging his 7-inch bayonet into Dan’s belly just above the navel.
Dan felt the cold steel deep inside his warm guts and grunted in pain and fright but threw his knees back knocking his stabber away. Dan fought like an enraged and wounded animal and raked his fingernails across the right eye of the soldier that had tackled him. That soldier fell away and held his bleeding eye.
Dan looked quickly for his rifle. It was several feet away and he knew he would never get to it in time because the soldier that had stabbed him was leaping back at him still holding the blade that now dripped with Dan’s own blood.
Dan’s gut ached like mad and his back hurt even more but he swung his boot up and whacked it across that soldier’s chin practically knocking that man out as he fell to his back.
But the soldier with the hurt eye was now coming at him. Dan turned to face him but this time Dan was not quite fast enough and as they closed together the Japanese got his blade between them and for a second time Japanese steel punctured Dan’s lean American belly. This time the weapon drove to its hilt with the soldier’s fist making contact with the flesh below Dan’s deep innie button as the blade parted the thick line of hair that spilled downward from the boy’s navel.
The Japanese soldier drew Dan close by wrapping one arm around his back and withdrew the knife only to plunge it into Dan’s bleeding stomach a third time, this time lower, just above the teenager’s lush pubic bush.
Dan shuddered and somehow deep down knew he would soon be dead. But he was in the middle of combat. And he was a Marine he was not about to give up as long as he drew breath.
The enemy pulled the blade free but before he could stab Dan again he was met with a perfectly placed head butt right between the eyes.
That solder fell back and Dan gripped his K-Bar with his right hand and his badly bleeding stomach with the other. He staggered around and saw the other soldier coming back at him and with one quick flick of his wrist his K-Bar hit the young man in the center of his milky white chest and the hilt came to quivering stop with the blade deep inside the breast. The K-Bar severed the aorta and the Japanese feel straight back landing spread eagle with blood pouring from his mouth.
Dan collapsed forward and grasped his rifle just as the man he had head butted was coming back at him.
The Japanese had his shirt wide open and Dan clearly saw his deep dark innie button and the two dark red nipples. Dan barely had time to raise the weapon let alone aim it. He fired and the bullet stopped the advancing soldier in his tracks.
The enemy looked down his slender Asian body and fingered the red hole just below his left ribcage that was leaking bright red blood in a watery stream. The shot soldier fell back and clutched at his abdomen.
Dan wanted to lay down and rest his aching and sadly, dying body. But as long as there was an enemy still alive there was a threat to his fellow Marines. Dan grabbed his K-Bar and staggered over to the wounded man.
But as Dan approached he saw the writhing figure on the ground before him was not a “man” at all the gut shot soldier looked to be no more than 16 years old.
The wounded boy held his bullet punctured gut with one hand and made the universal sigh for help with the other. Dan was hurting badly too but he was filled with compassion for the boy soldier he had shot.
But as soon as Dan lowered his K-Bar and reached out to stroke the head of the boy the injured Japanese reached behind him and brought a knife up and plunged it into Dan’s upper abs right below the sternum.
Dan’s eyes bulged at the brutal stab and quickly raised his own knife and slammed it straight down into the sneaky boy’s chest piercing his heart with one quick jab. He may have been just child but he was fully capable of fighting and killing. The true villains here were the boy’s government that would place one so young in such a dangerous environment.
Dan had successfully dispatched all three of his attackers and could rest at last.
He fell over to his back and leaned his head against a tree. He looked down his body and saw blood flowing from numerous wounds on his abdominal area. His back was hurting and bleeding too. Dan gently cupped his heaving stomach and swallowed hard but he could not stem the glut of blood that was pressing its way up his throat.
Blood trickled out the sides of his mouth and he knew death was almost upon him.
As is often the case when a young man is about to die he thought of his mother. For some reason the scent of her blue ribbon winning apple pie filled his mind. In fact it was that scent that filled Dan’s nose as he closed his eyes for the final time.
Dan’s heavy breathing continued for a few minutes but soon his punctured stomach rose and deflated one final time and failed to raise again.
He was found as the relief for his post arrived. It didn’t take much to piece together what had happened. Dan had killed three of the enemy single handed in hand to hand combat.
No, there was nothing special about Dan Reynolds. He was just a young man that did what he needed to do and paid the ultimate price in the service of his country and indeed the rest of the world.
Dan was a United States Marine. He joined a long line of tradition that protected the weak, guarded the defenseless, liberated the oppressed and destroyed the forces of evil. It is a tradition that continues to this very day.
To all you guys past and present. Thank you so very much and SEMPER FIE!
The year was 1941 and even though a terrible war raged in across two different oceans the struggles in the Pacific and Europe seemed to Dan living in the rural farmlands of Hamilton, Kansas seemed like they were in a different world.
But all that changed one Sunday morning in early December.
With one quick, deliberate sneak attack the forces of evil had devastated the U.S. Pacific fleet while it lay in anchor at Pearl Harbor.
The world war that had seemed so distant now was brought close to home. Dan and his friends were all of the same mind set. They wanted to do their part. Their country needed them and they were ready to serve. They were Americans. They had heard stories of the exploits of fathers, uncles and grandfathers about serving their country in previous times of war when their country needed them and young Dan Reynolds was eager to do carve out his own mark on that treat tablet of tradition.
It was no surprise to his parents when he returned home one afternoon with the enlistment papers in his hand. His mother hugged and cried the entire evening. But after that day she never showed Dan another tear though she would shed more on his behalf.
His father shook his hand. It was a seemingly simple act but to Dan it was a turning point in his life. Because for the first time there was firmness in his father’s grip and a look of respect in his eyes. It was the look one man gives another where before Dan had always felt his father looked at him as an adult does a child. Dan was perceptive. His father did indeed look at his boy as a man that day.
The few weeks passed quickly and by mid January of 1942 Dan was going through the rigors of boot camp in the United States Marine Corps in Parris Island. He knew it was not going to be easy. He was right. The physical demands put upon his body were extraordinary but the long hours of hard farm work had honed his body quite well. He had an edge over the tough but often softer city boys. Dan excelled and became a favorite of his instructors.
He learned to march (boy did he learn to march), he learned to salute and keep his belongings neat and tidy. He learned to take orders. He learned to fight hand to hand, he learned to shoot he learned the basics of combat. In infantry school he again proved to be a quick learner and soon mastered all the Corps could throw at him. Dan proved to be outstanding and not only learned what was taught him but went out of his way to learn more. The fight his country was involved in was not going well. The Japanese had beaten them back across the Pacific and threatened the allies all the way to Australia.
In fact it was that threat to Australia that brought Dan into the war.
After graduating infantry school there was an immediate need for troops to take part in the first real U.S. offensive of the war. The Japanese were in the process of constructing an airfield on a small island in the Solomon chain. If heavy bombers were allowed to use that as a base of operation they could effectively cut off the main shipping routes to Australia and provide a jumping board to invade the country itself. The name of this island was Guadalcanal.
Allied planners knew this. They knew the airfield was near completion. They had to act before it was finished. They needed a quick strike force. It would have to fast and devastating. The U.S. Army was still growing. It would one day become the mightiest military force the world had ever known but in early 1942 the U.S. Army still lagged somewhere behind that of about a dozen other nations.
The Marines were the obvious choice to make the attack of which Dan Reynolds from Hamilton, Kansas was part.
THE SOLOMONS:
“ If I were king, the worst punishment I could inflect on my enemies would be to banish them to the Solomon Islands. On second thought, king or no king, I don’t think I’d have the heart to do it” - Jack London (Cruise of the Snark)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In the early morning of August 7th 1942 the American invasion force rounded the Northwest side of Guadalcanal know as Cape Esperance and entered a narrow channel of water that would become known as “Iron Bottom Sound” because of the great number of ships that would find it to be their final mooring.
The invasion was not only of Guadalcanal but also the smaller islands across “the Slot” on the islands of Florida and Tulagi. And it was this invasion of Tulagi that Dan was destined to be part of.
Dan didn’t know it but his Marine comrades storming the beachhead at the main objective Guadalcanal met with little or no resistance at all and practically walked into the nearly finished airfield and hoisted the Stars and Strips. The enemy had fled but the battle was far from over.
But for Dan and the rest of his buddies the fighting on Tulagi was vicious. After several days of intense fire fights in the hot, steamy jungle that was as close to a tropical paradise as Boston is to Baghdad the Marines secured most of the island. But it was not without price. Things worth fighting for are seldom free.
Dan’s best friend a 19 year old from Philadelphia named Tony had fallen, two bullets in his lean stomach. Dan held his friend and cradled Tony’s head on his lap. Small trickles of blood escaped the teenager’s mouth who only a few months ago had no more worries than what movie he would take his girl to and which girl he would take. Now he lay dying in a south Pacific hell hole. But he never once shirked from his duty. But Tony sucked it up and bore the intense pain of the two hot chunks of metal in his guts and clenched Dan’s hand tightly. Tony never managed to speak but no words were needed. Dan and Tony shared a bond that only those in combat could possibly understand.
Several days after Tony’s death Dan was on sentry duty. The fighting that had been so vicious was now sporadic. Tulagi had been virtually conquered but across the Slot the battle on Guadalcanal was only beginning to heat up. Dan knew he and his platoon would soon be reassigned there. Till then he carried out his duties here with the professionalism he had been taught in Boot camp.
A snapping of a twig a few meters off caught his attention. He called out the first part of the pass word, “Kings” and awaited the proper reply of ‘button’. When that did not come Dan tensed up. Another twig snapped and Dan raised his rifle to fire in the direction of the incursion.
But the advance scout team of Japanese soldiers was not about to let some American kid spoil their recon patrol that was going amazingly well. They were experienced jungle fighters and one had managed to sneak in behind Dan before one of his comrades broke the twig and alerted the young Marine.
Before Dan could squeeze the trigger the forward Japanese dove in behind him and wrapped a small but strong arm around Dan’s throat and plunged a 7 inch blade into the small of Dan’s back.
Dan groaned as the cold steel punctured his body but grabbed the attacker around the back of the head and back flipped him over and planted him at his feet.
Dan grabbed his own K-bar (that’s a big ole knife folks) and fell forward sticking it right through the center of the attacker’s chest. The young Japanese soldier groaned as blood spewed from his mouth.
Dan had no time to watch the man die. He stood up only to be attacked by the other two. One tackled Dan with a shoulder and forced him back. Dan grunted as his stabbed back hit the earth with force while the Japanese landed on top of him.
The second Japanese had his bayonet at the ready and dropped down beside them.
The struggle had hiked Dan’s shirt up and his hard 6-pack abs were exposed to the night air. Unfortunately for Dan they were also exposed and vulnerable to the third Japanese who wasted no time in plunging his 7-inch bayonet into Dan’s belly just above the navel.
Dan felt the cold steel deep inside his warm guts and grunted in pain and fright but threw his knees back knocking his stabber away. Dan fought like an enraged and wounded animal and raked his fingernails across the right eye of the soldier that had tackled him. That soldier fell away and held his bleeding eye.
Dan looked quickly for his rifle. It was several feet away and he knew he would never get to it in time because the soldier that had stabbed him was leaping back at him still holding the blade that now dripped with Dan’s own blood.
Dan’s gut ached like mad and his back hurt even more but he swung his boot up and whacked it across that soldier’s chin practically knocking that man out as he fell to his back.
But the soldier with the hurt eye was now coming at him. Dan turned to face him but this time Dan was not quite fast enough and as they closed together the Japanese got his blade between them and for a second time Japanese steel punctured Dan’s lean American belly. This time the weapon drove to its hilt with the soldier’s fist making contact with the flesh below Dan’s deep innie button as the blade parted the thick line of hair that spilled downward from the boy’s navel.
The Japanese soldier drew Dan close by wrapping one arm around his back and withdrew the knife only to plunge it into Dan’s bleeding stomach a third time, this time lower, just above the teenager’s lush pubic bush.
Dan shuddered and somehow deep down knew he would soon be dead. But he was in the middle of combat. And he was a Marine he was not about to give up as long as he drew breath.
The enemy pulled the blade free but before he could stab Dan again he was met with a perfectly placed head butt right between the eyes.
That solder fell back and Dan gripped his K-Bar with his right hand and his badly bleeding stomach with the other. He staggered around and saw the other soldier coming back at him and with one quick flick of his wrist his K-Bar hit the young man in the center of his milky white chest and the hilt came to quivering stop with the blade deep inside the breast. The K-Bar severed the aorta and the Japanese feel straight back landing spread eagle with blood pouring from his mouth.
Dan collapsed forward and grasped his rifle just as the man he had head butted was coming back at him.
The Japanese had his shirt wide open and Dan clearly saw his deep dark innie button and the two dark red nipples. Dan barely had time to raise the weapon let alone aim it. He fired and the bullet stopped the advancing soldier in his tracks.
The enemy looked down his slender Asian body and fingered the red hole just below his left ribcage that was leaking bright red blood in a watery stream. The shot soldier fell back and clutched at his abdomen.
Dan wanted to lay down and rest his aching and sadly, dying body. But as long as there was an enemy still alive there was a threat to his fellow Marines. Dan grabbed his K-Bar and staggered over to the wounded man.
But as Dan approached he saw the writhing figure on the ground before him was not a “man” at all the gut shot soldier looked to be no more than 16 years old.
The wounded boy held his bullet punctured gut with one hand and made the universal sigh for help with the other. Dan was hurting badly too but he was filled with compassion for the boy soldier he had shot.
But as soon as Dan lowered his K-Bar and reached out to stroke the head of the boy the injured Japanese reached behind him and brought a knife up and plunged it into Dan’s upper abs right below the sternum.
Dan’s eyes bulged at the brutal stab and quickly raised his own knife and slammed it straight down into the sneaky boy’s chest piercing his heart with one quick jab. He may have been just child but he was fully capable of fighting and killing. The true villains here were the boy’s government that would place one so young in such a dangerous environment.
Dan had successfully dispatched all three of his attackers and could rest at last.
He fell over to his back and leaned his head against a tree. He looked down his body and saw blood flowing from numerous wounds on his abdominal area. His back was hurting and bleeding too. Dan gently cupped his heaving stomach and swallowed hard but he could not stem the glut of blood that was pressing its way up his throat.
Blood trickled out the sides of his mouth and he knew death was almost upon him.
As is often the case when a young man is about to die he thought of his mother. For some reason the scent of her blue ribbon winning apple pie filled his mind. In fact it was that scent that filled Dan’s nose as he closed his eyes for the final time.
Dan’s heavy breathing continued for a few minutes but soon his punctured stomach rose and deflated one final time and failed to raise again.
He was found as the relief for his post arrived. It didn’t take much to piece together what had happened. Dan had killed three of the enemy single handed in hand to hand combat.
No, there was nothing special about Dan Reynolds. He was just a young man that did what he needed to do and paid the ultimate price in the service of his country and indeed the rest of the world.
Dan was a United States Marine. He joined a long line of tradition that protected the weak, guarded the defenseless, liberated the oppressed and destroyed the forces of evil. It is a tradition that continues to this very day.
To all you guys past and present. Thank you so very much and SEMPER FIE!
