Then I glanced behind me at the four to five foot beach grass, being from Illinois I had no idea what the true name of that type of grass is called but I imagined there had to be similar type grass along the beaches of the south pacific.  During the battles, there had to be platoons of Japanese soldiers waiting for those Marines to cross into the kill zone before they opened up with all the fire power they had.  There had to be hundreds of men killed within moments. 

It was probably as peaceful an afternoon as today was up until the moment when the shooting and killing began.  There may have been a young Marine, like me from Illinois or Iowa or another prairie state.  No doubt he was keenly aware of what dangers were lurking, but maybe for a split second he may have heard the sound of the surf, saw the palm trees against the blue sky with puffy white clouds in the distance and the warm sun on his face that his last thought might have been what a beautiful afternoon this is, before the rain of hell opened up and death filled the afternoon.