Missing......

..... I remember being taught snippets of the Marine Corps' history when I was in bootcamp..... and the acronyms that they used to help you remember complex answers to questions...... JJDIDTIEBUCKLE, MOOSE MUSS, SMEAC, BAMCIS, and BIGOT...

.... BIGOT, though, I already knew from listening to my Great Uncles and Grandparents tell stories.... BIGOT was the acronym for the major Marine Corps assaults in the Pacific during World War II..... Bougainville, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Okinawa, and Tarawa......

.... Great Uncle Robert had been a Seabee on Peleliu and Okinawa..... and his brother - my Great Uncle Frank had survived five major assaults in 13 months with the 14th Marines...... Roi Namur, Tinian, Saipan, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima.... he was wounded in the foot on Saipan by a shell fragment but was never taken off the line....

.... I remember when I told Great Uncle Robert that I was joining the Corps.... he could not even say the word "Marine" without getting a tear in his eye........ as an old, old man, he told me once that he had spent a week picking up their bodies on Peleliu after the battle..... and all he could think of was his brother, Frank....... the word "Marine" was almost something holy to him.......

.... I remember listening to Great Uncle Frank and my Grandfather talk one Easter at my Great Aunt Sue's house after everyone had been fed.... Grandpa was talking about The Battle of the Bulge and just how cold everyone had been hunkering down in the Ardennes..... almost to the point of turning blue...... and Frank had immediately launched into how most of the Marines who had landed on Iwo Jima WERE actually blue...... the Marines had been issued some sort of blue cream that acted as as sun screen and a flame retardant.....

.... you can see a blue-faced corpsman tending to a wounded Marine at 55 seconds here in this clip if you wish.... how odd it must have been to have run into battle painted blue......

... hell, how odd must it have been to have exited your LST and seen that wall of black sand?..... just knowing that mortars were soon to be on the way....... good god.......

.... after I graduated from bootcamp and was sent out into the fleet, I called Great Uncle Frank often..... I really didn't know him that well, come to think of it....... and I can probably count on both hands how many times that I actually conversed with him face to face as an adult.... but there was always something so absolutely disarming about him.... he smiled readily, laughed at the drop of a hat, and could make anyone feel like whatever they were saying was well worth listening to...

.... when I'd get lonely for my family, I'd always call him to chat..... whether I was in Alaska or Scotland, he was the friendly voice that I always enjoyed hearing...... I guess that since he had left Tennessee for Ohio himself after the war, I kinda felt that he might be a little homesick just as I was.....

.... but whatever the case, he always listened to me...... and he always cheered me up...... he told me once that I called him more than his grandchildren did - which, of course, made me feel like a complete shit for not calling my OWN only surviving grandmother more often than I did........ then again, perhaps that was it?..... both of my own grandfathers had already died...... had I somehow latched onto him as a sort of surrogate grandfather and brother Marine all rolled into one?.....

..... I just don't know, really...... but I do know that he was a pleasure to talk with..... he was quick-witted and sly..... always ready with a joke or a challenge to a game of pool.... and he was always, always smiling....... I've got a photo around here somewhere of he, my cousin Tommy, my Father, and I all out in the back yard of my Mom's house..... three generations of jarheads all standing underneath a dogwood tree...

.... two years ago I asked him about his fire missions on Iwo Jima - knowing that he was an artilleryman by trade....... I was shocked to hear that all of his battery's cannons were lost before they ever made it ashore..... the LSTs carrying the men & cannon were either hit, capsized, or swamped before ever reaching the beach....... he and others swam ashore and then spent their time on Iwo fighting as infantry......

.... he told me once that he was less than 500 yards from the famous "flag raising" on top of Mt. Suribachi..... and that he saw it go up........ hard to believe that a young Marine like myself would have a relative who was there.... AND who chanced to meet the nephew of Ira Hayes - one of the five who hoisted the flag that day........

..... sadly, though, I hate to report that one of my heroes is dying........ after having fought off many different illnesses over the past decade, word came down through the family that he has been taken off dialysis due to being diagnosed with cancer in both lungs and in his spine..... he is 85 years old....... a good long age, I guess........ but still too short, if you ask me........

.... I called last night and spoke to his wife for nearly an hour...... she was strong, he was asleep, and I cried like a baby trying to tell her all of the things that I wished she would say to him when he awoke.....

.... he is a relative, of course......... and as I said before, I really don't know him that well........ but knowing that he has less than two weeks to live has tweaked something in me........ he was a good man - I do know that....... and he was a kind man......

...... and he was a warrior, a brother, and a friend when I needed one....... he must have thought that I was crazy when I called him from so far away to talk about history, Tennessee, my Grandfather, and The Marines.........

.... I don't really know what he thought..... but he always let me ramble....... and he always listened....... and he always laughed and shook my hand at every family reunion...... and I always called him sir.....

..... I am going to miss him so....... and it breaks my heart..... it truly does......

.... there are some people that I have met that I truly wish could live forever...... and he was one of them......