entering a private little world of their own, inhabited by the toughest fightingmen on earth. But that was only what they thought to begin with. Later, those who had managed to emerge from the initial training looked at other men not dressed in the same faded khaki as strangers—even though blood brothers—for now they knew. They were Marines, and would so remain until they died. Just what had happened to them since that first day at the recruiting office seems easy to trace. It included days filled with precision drilling under the always angry eyes of an Old Sergeant; hours spent tearing down, then reassembling every weapon used by a Marine—with eyes blindfolded; nights staggering under full combat loads while making forced marches through the swamps of the Carolinas and Virginia, and across the mountains and deserts of California. Through it all ran a constant thread of the lore of the Marine Corps, which is as old as the Republic itself. For many of them it meant taking a liberty week end, and carefully saved paycheck dollars, to visit the tattoo shop in the nearby town, where they had ‘Mother’, ‘Death Before Dishonor’, ‘U.S. Marines’, or just an American flag needled into their biceps or across their chests. And those tattoos were tremendously symbolic of the new, secret man beneath . . . for the words and colors, like their training, could never entirely be erased. The first stage of moving up to the front was no problem, but it was slow. The troop trains were sturdy, wooden-bodied old coaches, leftovers from the days when the Japanese had run the country. Whether from malice or just habit— no one ever seemed to know—the South Korean engineers constantly stopped the trains right along the open track, without town or signal in sight, yet when forced to move ahead—sometimes at pistol point—no other trains were met, nor did any other reason ever become apparent for the delays. The Marines inside showed almost no interest in the slowly passing scenery. They ate their rations, oiled their weapons, slept in the vestibules between the cars with their rifles held close. They were professional men riding to work. 78 l Ⅳ. The Hill This is War!
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