The year was 1942. The month was November, nearly making it the marker of the one-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor. The pitter-patter of raindrops transformed into a heavy downpour, shaking the leaves clinging to their flimsy branches as twenty-year-old Einew Haling trudged through the door to his father’s house. “I’m home!” he called. He heard no reply. Einew hung his gray coat that was damp from the misty autumn rain on a hook. As he did, he glanced outside, observing how the weather seemed to effortlessly match the mood of everyone Einew knew; everyone was fretting over the war in some way or another. Before one could finish saying, “Let’s make Hitler and Hirohito feel as bad as Old Benito,” all of Einew’s friends had left the country, traveled overseas, and entered the mysterious world of war. About a year ago, Einew, accompanied by his grandfather, had gone to register him in the war. Surprisingly, his notification letter informing him of when he’d be ready to serve the country never came. Einew haphazardly placed his highway designs onto the kitchen table and anxiously looked through the mail just as his father opened the back door. “How’d the fellows like your new designs, son? Oh, this came for ya’. I took it out of the mail pile,” informed his father, handing Einew an ash-colored envelope. The letter’s recipient was Einew, and its sender was the U.S. Military. “Slow down, son,” his father said as Einew tore through the firm cover. His hands shook with excitement as he read the letter over and over to himself. “Well?” his father asked. Einew beamed at his father. “I’m officially in! I just have to tell em’ where I’ll be serving, whether it be the Air Force or the Navy or-” His father cut him off, “Marine Corps no doubt. You’ve always been fascinated by their pictures since you were a boy.” “You bet! I better go tell Grandpa! After all, he was the one who walked me through this process!” Einew could barely contain his childish excitement. But little did he know about the nightmare he was about to enter. * * * I stop in my interview and look at the present day Einew, in 2012 not 1942. For a ninety year old, he’s pretty healthy. He’s wearing a black Marine Corps baseball cap. Tears are starting to form in his eyes as he’s telling me about his experiences. “Killing people isn’t anything happy. We were all eighteen, nineteen, twenty-year old kids being drafted into service. Teenagers today don’t know how lucky they are,” He hands me a navy green colored book with yellowing pages. It’s dedicated especially to the War in the Pacific. “Go ahead, skip all the literature. Get to the pictures,” he says. I browse through the black and white pictures as he briefly explains what is going on in the picture. One picture shows numerous young soldiers on Parris Island, South Carolina. On the topic of how he felt about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Mr. Haling replies, “Well, it’s a lot to think about. President Roosevelt had a meeting with the Japanese people and he said that if they didn’t get out of China, we were going to blow them off the face of the Earth. So what choice did they have but to bomb us first?” I gently close the old book. “Did you notice any discrimination of different ethnic groups in America?” I ask Mr. Haling. He pauses for a few seconds before answering. “It wasn’t too bad. Of course, we mistreated the Japanese of the country. Put ‘em in jail. But you didn’t put the Italians or Germans in jail! But the Japs, we picked on them. They were innocent! Just like the ones in the Hawaiian Islands. Those Japs, they were innocent Japs! They didn’t like Japan, they hated the place!” He pauses again before continuing, “They were good, but mistreated.” * * * Einew stood ramrod straight in his freshly ironed Marine suit. He, along with the other two hundred-some men in the platoon, stared straight ahead as their right arms poised into a salute. The drill instructor Sergeant Baker walked back and forth through the rows of the silent Marines, producing an awkward metallic clink with each step of his boots. Soon he was in Einew’s row. He marched toward Einew and inspected him. Einew did not dare avert his gaze to risk an odd punishment. He once heard a story of how one soldier had to pick seven hundred blades of grass into a bucket because he crinkled his nose. “Alright cupcakes, your combat fitness test is in a few weeks. It’s been three weeks since this batch came here. You better train harder than this if you want to make your family proud. Let’s go! From the beginning! Position of attention!” Einew and the other trainees knew better than to groan or mope around; the punishment was running three miles around the Recruitment Building. Every morning, they would run a mile before breakfast. After, they’d eat a protein rich meal, fix their beds, and clean up around their living quarters. On Fridays, they’d run another five miles with their forty-pound army pack. But on every other day, each soldier had a jam-packed schedule that included nearly three hours of drill practice, an hour or two of weapons training, personal hygiene and cleanliness training, and basic marksmanship. Then, they’d march for miles to seemingly nowhere until they reached a complex obstacle course. To finish the long day’s hard work, Sergeant Baker would inspect Einew and his fellow platoon members before lights-out at around 10:45. “Alright boys, let’s finish up by running two miles. Haling and Gate, you two take the lead,” the drill instructor commanded while pointing at Einew and a fellow soldier a few rows in front of him. The weeks rushed past as the soldiers fell into the hum and drum of boot camp. It was slowly beat into each soldier to loathe the enemy. Discipline weighed down each soldier’s shoulders as they learned the importance of teamwork. Before Einew could realize it, week seven arrived. It was time for the Physical Fitness Test and the Combat Fitness Test. Weapons handling, sight alignment, and trigger manipulation were suddenly the new harbingers of whether of not each soldier in training would be able to meet their goals. Einew had received his own weapon, an M1 rifle, shortly after his health check up. He carried the rifle everywhere, and its 10.6 pounds slowly became part of Einew's own body weight. Little did he know how much extra weight he would gain with each life taken with that rifle. * * * The year was 1944, and it was the thirteenth day in January. Einew was officially a U.S. Marine. Now he was waiting for the Navy ship to take him across the Pacific from Maui, Hawaii to the Marshall Islands. In Maui, he’d begun his official job as an aerial operator/mapmaker; Maui was also the base and rest stop after battles. Einew stood on the dock, watching the mysterious ripples of the deep blue water. The waves stretched over the beach until it filled the horizon with its aquamarine aura. The seagulls circled to and fro as they emptied their repulsive cries into the never-ending sky. As he strained his eyes, Einew could make out the silhouette of a ship nearing the shore. “They’re here! We’re headin’ to Marshalls!” Einew shouted to his fellow division members. Everyone rushed forward as they waved to the ship. The officer that accompanied then to the dock hollered, “Alright boys, don’t get seasick on the trip. You’re know yer gonna be fightin’ down in the Marshalls first. Should take around eighteen days to get there. You boys will really enjoy the beautiful ocean trip, it’s very picturesque,” And with that, Einew and his fellow division members slowly treaded up the gangplank. In a span of twenty minutes, all of the ship’s crew was finally situated and ready to sail away to Maui. Einew and his fellow shipmates waved goodbye to the on looking crowd of officers, photographers, and family members. Soon, the ship sounded its horn as the gangplank slowly rose up. Now it was time to focus on the first key battle necessary to winning the war in the Pacific. If they captured the Marshall Islands, then they would prove the effectiveness of island hopping, a method of bypassing heavily fortified Japanese positions and concentrating the limited resources on strategically important islands that were not well defended but capable of supporting the drive to the main islands of Japan. * * * “And so we went down to Marshalls. We got there on January thirty-first and fought there ‘til February first, 1944. It was the easiest battle we fought. Only one hundred and ninety killed and five-hundred forty-seven wounded,” Mr. Haling says. I ask, “Was it because the enemy was taken by surprise?” “Yes, and the Japanese didn’t have a lot of troops down there. Also, there were pillboxes made for us. Pillboxes are small underground concrete structures you live in. The only way to break in was to use a flame-thrower,” Mr. Haling answers. “Where were you and your regiment sent to next?” I question. “After we went back to Maui for some rest and training, we went to Saipan and Tinian. There, we fought challenging battle. In fact, it was the longest operation in the Pacific," he says. * * * The date was June fifteenth of 1944, and it was the beginning of a brutal battle. Einew pressed his nose against the cool, glass windowpane of the large Navy ship. Seven other ships were about to drop the Marines off at Saipan. Then they’d go by ship again to Tinian. Einew slowly replayed all of the battle tactics and techniques in his head. He and nearly everyone else in his division were in charge of shooting gasoline down caves. Then, they’d light it on fire. That was the cue for Einew to retreat back to cover his assigned area on the battlefield and start firing away. He had used this tactic in the Marshalls and had concluded that it was ambiguous to tell whether he was firing at the enemy or not. Within minutes, the ships quietly docked in front of the hilly, sandy beach of the island. This was it, he thought. Einew followed his other fellow Marines as the raced to the deck of the ship, waiting for the signal to jump into the shallow waters and plod their way to Saipan. The signal came. Hundreds of Marines dove into the cool waters as each lugged a fifty-pound pack. They treaded through for three hundred yards before trekking onto the beach and through the forest. No enemies were present yet. The Marines went in their separate routes after spreading the gasoline through the caves. Einew was asked to cover a spot in the dense tropical forest more inland than the beach itself. No pillboxes were prepared for them here. He took out his shovel and started to dig his foxhole. He was not even halfway done when he heard what sounded like gasoline truck exploding. Barrage filled Einew’s ears as mortars were shot from the enemy side. He froze in terror as a mortar shell was launched toward him almost five feet away. As he prepared for the worst, the shell just lay there. He looked around and caught sight of nearly ten other shells that failed to detonate. It was a miracle! They were all malfunctioned shells! Einew set up his mortar launcher, loaded it up, and fired the mortar shells away. He could barely make out the Japanese front men in the smoky distance. The fighting continued on for approximately five weeks. A majority of the Japanese civilians living on the island committed suicide by plunging to their death from the cliffs of the island. Einew was told that it was there custom to do so rather than surrender to the enemy. It was gruesomely appalling. Many of Einew’s close friends who served medicine in the Navy (Navy hospital corpsmen) were killed in battle. He mourned their deaths with the remaining members of the division. Altogether, the combat on both Saipan and Tinian lasted for forty-five days, finally ending on July twenty-ninth. * * * After returning back to Maui to rest and train, rebuilding the division, and regaining weapons, Einew was near Iwo Jima, once again aboard a large Navy ship in February, 1945. Einew’s friend and fellow comrade Frank spoke to him, “This should be easy. The Italians said this was going to be a sandy beach. Plus, we have pillboxes,” “I agree, but I find it ironic that Iwo Jima translates into ‘Sulfur Island’. The wet sand should make it easier for the tanks to travel across,” Einew replied. But as the ship came closer to the island, both men noticed that the sand looked paler than usual. Perhaps it was because of the ongoing battle that started in June, when the U.S. first arrived there. Eventually, the Marines made their way ashore. Each Marine took in a sharp intake of breath as they realized that they were not standing on sand. They were standing on hot volcanic ash. Every time someone stepped forward, he sank ankle deep into the ash. “This is going to be harder than we thought. Let’s lay out the metal mesh on the ash so the tanks can go faster. The four wheel drive is going to fail miserably here,” a general commanded. However, the mesh quickly ran out within four hours. Who knew they would need so much? The battle on Iwo Jima was one of the toughest Einew ever fought. Not only did the mesh run out, the island was terraced in a way that the Japanese knew exactly where to bomb them. Einew was injured a few times, but that didn’t stop him from covering his area, this time with his trusty rifle and machine gun. The whole conflict was tense, nerve racking, an event to fill those fighting with dread once it was over. Suddenly, a shell exploded within Einew’s radius. He felt warm blood gushing down his forearm as a case of dizziness fell over him. The last thing he remembered was a corpsman dragging him off to a medical tent. * * * “How was the surgery experience?” I ask Mr. Haling. “Not good. It took a long time. It was horrible and painful. The anesthesia was in great need so everyone had to use it sparingly. After I got better, I helped deliver the flag that was to be raised on Iwo Jima. Along with three other people, I gave it (the U.S. flag) to one of the people who appeared in the famous flag-raising picture. It was a remarkable moment, ” he answers. “What were the causalities?” I question. Mr. Haling looks down at a small piece of paper. “290 alone killed only in my division, 1,515 wounded. Overall, 6,822 killed and 19,216 wounded,” he says. It slowly sinks into me how many lives were taken throughout the war. 27,000 American lives were affected only in one battle. Combined with the total deaths on Iwo Jima, 28,000 lives were taken. That is near the entire population of the British Virgin Islands. Next, I switch to a different topic. “Do you agree or disagree with FDR’s decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?” “He (FDR) got us in the war. That’s all I can say about him,” he answers after pausing to recollect his train of thought, “I don’t know if I agree or disagree. I was in Pearl Harbor when the bomb went off. I was in a brand new division and ready to board a ship to go to Honshu. We had to take the beaches for the army. But, a lot of innocent civilians were killed.” “Would you have picked a different solution if you were in FDR’s place?” I inquire. “I think it’s impossible to end the war when they [Japan] started it. I guess the bomb was the only solution. After ninety percent my division was eliminated, I thought we had to end the war as soon as possible. There was barely any room and time for a more diplomatic solution though I would have favored one,” he responds. “What did you do after Victory in Japan Day?” I inquire. “Obviously our Honshu mission was cancelled. I went home and went back to designing highways. Working with a team of highway consultants, I helped design highways I-70 and I-79. So, I just designed highways my entire life. But before that, I joined the Pennsylvania National Guard. I became First Sergeant then. I trained a couple of young soldiers. And they were good, just a couple of punks like I was. I trained them and they listened to us. They were very obedient. Then I got married,” he states. “Do you think war is necessary for human life? If not, how do you think we can avoid it?” I query. “I think it’s necessary. It’s part of human nature. It’s not anything good or happy but we just can’t seem to avoid it,” I relate back to a quote from writer George Orwell: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” It’s odd how Mr. Haling’s experiences seem to defend this statement. After I configure the interview and notes onto paper and asking a few more questions here and there, I conclude the interview. I cordially thank Mr. Haling for taking time out of his day to sit down and relate his valuable experiences to me. He has just finished helping me preserve a pertinent part of history that cannot be found in any social studies textbook. Due to that, he is a true war hero.