What makes this blog fun to do: A robust exchange between Hammel and Hunter about the meaning of that Marine photo

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I really liked this exchange
between "Hunter," whom we know to be an Army officer, and Eric Hammel, about
Hammel's guest column Monday about his favorite Marine photo of World War II. I
don't know who is correct, but both made me think. I suspect Hammel may be
right here. I remember a guy who had been an intelligence officer in the
Pacific in World War II recounting how he decoded a message and saw that he was
going to be involved in the planned invasion of Japan. He thought, Well, that's
it, I am going to die this year. Then he vomited.

I wonder if a counterintuitive metric of blog quality is how often the
comments are better than the average post. (Speaking of blogs, wouldn't "The
Burn Pit" be a good name for a blog about daily life while deployed to a
combat zone?)

Anyway, Hunter wrote:

While it's
nice to think well of these folks, and they certainly did their job and did it
well...but I can't help but think, through my cynical eyes, that the thoughts
running through these guys heads were "1) this shit sucks 2) we're all
gonna die 3) we're skylining like mofos." In no particular order.

Sorry it's not
the prettified version, but it's probably pretty real.

Eric Hammel replied:

I thought
about the above comments all day. What I conclude is that you don't think the
way American troops in the Pacific thought during the spring of 1945. This
takes nothing away from your experience, and it adds nothing to theirs. The
times are not the same.

The men in the
photo knew that they were nearing the end of a long war. They thought they
would die on Okinawa or Kyushu or Honshu, so they felt they had little to lose
by rushing across open ground or a skyline. In fact, getting killed or wounded
on any day on Okinawa was better than the pain of living in order to be killed
or wounded later. My father, who had barely escaped the claws of the Holocaust
and had already fought on Leyte, ended eighteen days in the line on Okinawa
with a shattered hand. He felt for the rest of his long life as if, by virtue
of just the last, he had won the ultimate lottery.

The Japanese
on Okinawa had built a hedgehog defense within a hedgehog defense in twisted
hill country composed of one skyline after another. They knew what they were
about. Once the Americans engaged the outer hedgehog, they were all in a war of
attrition. But the Japanese had no recourse to troops--or anything--that wasn't
on Okinawa on the first day of battle. The Americans had unlimited resources to
bring up and bring in as needed, which they did--two army infantry divisions
and a Marine regimental combat team were added to the original Tenth Army OOB.
Both sides knew how the cards had been dealt. The four Marines in the photo
knew it. So the thing I think the four were going over in their heads were: Can
I drop fast enough if the other side opens fire? If not, will it be quick?
Because, with me or without me, we are winning.