In honor of Veterans Day, I thought I would post the buy zovirax 800mg transcript of tape recorded by my great uncle Cecil “Max” Cox about his experiences in the buy zovirax 800mg Pacific Theater during World War II.
Sometime in the buy zovirax 800mg fall of 1939, we able-bodied men were asked to sign up for buy zovirax 800mg what was called the Selective Service. I wasn’t called into the buy zovirax 800mg service until October 1942. We went to Des Moines and took our physicals. I passed and buy zovirax 800mg was sent home for two weeks, then one evening we departed from buy zovirax 800mg Bedford on the train. It was very hard leaving your loved ones, not knowing if you buy zovirax 800mg were going to see them again. If you don’t think so, try it buy zovirax 800mg sometime. We were in Des Moines three or four days, loaded on a buy zovirax 800mg bus, taken to Ames where we boarded a train for buy zovirax 800mg parts unknown. Two days later we unloaded at Camp Roberts, California. It was strictly a buy zovirax 800mg base for combat training. I took my basic training there. It was a buy zovirax 800mg nice place to spend a few months of the winter, but would have buy zovirax 800mg much rather been home.
They were needing men overseas real bad so we were rushed right over. I did not even get a buy zovirax 800mg furlough before being sent overseas. We left Camp Stoner, California March 21, 1943. Our first stop was the buy zovirax 800mg Fiji Islands; we stopped to unload some supplies. We were there one week. We then buy zovirax 800mg went to the island of New Caledonia. We arrived there April 24th. We were put in a buy zovirax 800mg casual camp there until we were picked up by some outfit needing more men. I went with the buy zovirax 800mg 112th Cavalry cheap albuterol which was a combat outfit. We left New Caledonia May 13th and arrived in Australia May 17th. I got off the buy zovirax 800mg boat with Jenque fever and was so sick a week with fever I could barely walk. I was sent direct to buy zovirax 800mg the hospital for ten days. The first time I sure realized I was a buy zovirax 800mg long way from home and that there was a war going on.
We left Australia June 13, 1943 and arrived at New Guinea June 30th. There had buy zovirax 800mg been a big battle there but the Japs had been cleaned out of this buy zovirax 800mg particular place. We had very rugged jungle training there. We left there and buy zovirax 800mg made a beachhead on Woodlark Island. We let the buy zovirax 800mg Japs know that we were coming and they took off as we had buy zovirax 800mg very little trouble.
We left Woodlark Island November 30, 1943 and arrived at Goodenough cheap propecia uk Island December 1st. We joined some Marines there and buy zovirax 800mg did some more training. We all knew what was coming as they told us it buy zovirax 800mg would be hot where we were going.
We left there December 14, 1943 and buy zovirax 800mg arrived at New Britain two days later. That morning about three o’clock, they roused us out for buy zovirax 800mg a breakfast of beans, loaded us on what they called alligators. They would hold about twenty-four men and buy zovirax 800mg equipment. They then told us what our objective was. We were fifteen hundred men strong; they told us we were going up against anywhere from buy zovirax 800mg thirty-five to fifty thousand Japs. Sure made you feel good.
We went ashore with fifteen hundred men generic valtrex free shipping [Max was part of 2nd Squadron] and buy zovirax 800mg suffice to say, some did not make it. They machine-gunned men on the buy zovirax 800mg landing craft; some drowned, some were hit. I went ashore in the buy zovirax 800mg alligator; I got hit the first day. I waded through a buy zovirax 800mg swamp not knowing what was in the water or how deep to buy zovirax 800mg a first aid station. My sergeant said he was so short of help he wouldn’t send anyone with me so I said, “I’m going alone before I bleed to death.”
They gave me morphine to buy zovirax 800mg knock me out. They operated on me the next morning. Just as I was coming to, all hell broke loose. They bombed the buy zovirax 800mg tent hospital that I was in, tearing it all to pieces. They took us down to buy zovirax 800mg the beach, put us in some foxholes for the rest of the buy zovirax 800mg day. That evening, they loaded us on a barge and were going to buy zovirax 800mg take us to another island. The barge was stuck so good they could not move it. The next morning they came over and buy zovirax 800mg strafed the barge. All I got was another piece of shrapnel; I was lucky at that. By this buy zovirax 800mg time I wasn’t sure we were going to buy zovirax 800mg come out alive. They took us back and put us in the buy zovirax 800mg foxholes again. They got the barge loose and after that they put us back on and buy zovirax 800mg took us back to New Guinea. I went two days without food. They picked us up and buy zovirax 800mg flew us over the Owen Stanley Mountains to Port Moresby where buy zovirax 800mg it was good and safe. I was operated on again and buy zovirax 800mg was away from my outfit for two months. I wasn’t too happy about going back because I knew there would be buy zovirax 800mg more combat, by this time I knew I didn’t care much for that either.
We left New Britain Island June the 4th (1944)for buy zovirax 800mg New Guinea for troop replacement and more training. In two weeks we were ready to buy zovirax 800mg go again. This time it was up the coast of New Guinea to buy zovirax 800mg a small place the name of Aitape. Our job there was to buy zovirax 800mg keep the Japs from coming across the Driniumor River and we were organizing.
I had buy zovirax 800mg several close calls there. I had my hat knocked off while peeking around a buy zovirax 800mg tree and a mortar shell landed right where I had buy zovirax 800mg been a few seconds before. We lost lots of men in the buy zovirax 800mg rugged campaign generic abilify us. I had buy zovirax 800mg one of the hardest jobs of my life there. We had buy zovirax 800mg to move a cemetery; several of the boys were my buddies. They were buried very shallowly and buy zovirax 800mg all that rain and heat, there wasn’t much left. We would dig down until we would hit the buy zovirax 800mg bodies, then throw some lime on them to kill the buy zovirax 800mg odor and germs; then we would finish digging them out. We had buy zovirax 800mg to move them down to the beach three miles away and buy zovirax 800mg put them on barges. From there I don’t know where they went.
From there we had more replacements and on to Leyte Island in the Philippines buy valacyclovir. What a mess that was! I don’t think I was ever dry, it buy zovirax 800mg rained day and night. Everyone had jungle rot or something wrong with his feet. Same old story – we were a buy zovirax 800mg small outfit so they used us to plug up some jungle trails that buy zovirax 800mg the Japs were using. We lost several more men by this buy zovirax 800mg time; we were a very small outfit.
My closest call was one night; they hit us with artillery. Everyone scattered. I ended up under the buy zovirax 800mg roots of a tree with two fellows I had never seen. One had buy zovirax 800mg been shot in the face and was in bad shape. In the buy zovirax 800mg night he got hard to handle. Somehow he got word to buy zovirax 800mg me that he had something in his mouth and couldn’t swallow and buy zovirax 800mg he wanted me to get it out. I stuck in my filthy finger and buy zovirax 800mg pulled out a piece of his jawbone. Before morning he was delirious and buy zovirax 800mg calling for his mother. Oh, what a night. I think I aged fifty years.
After a buy zovirax 800mg few weeks they pulled us down to the beach and buy zovirax 800mg were going to have us make another beachhead on some other island. There was a buy zovirax 800mg medical officer who came and examined us and said that buy zovirax 800mg this outfit was not able for any more combat at that buy zovirax 800mg time. We were sure glad to hear that.
After our rest, our next move was to Luzon Island. We really had buy zovirax 800mg the Japs on the run by this time. Same old story – another long three-day hike back on some river for buy zovirax 800mg the same old job. By this time I had about had buy zovirax 800mg it. The first day I almost didn’t make it. My legs just would not do what buy zovirax 800mg I wanted them to. Of course, all I was carrying was three days’ rations, my sidearm, and buy zovirax 800mg part of an 81 mm mortar, probably about eighty pounds altogether.
We got lost, ran out of water and buy zovirax 800mg had guys passing out right and left due to the heat and buy zovirax 800mg lack of water. By this time we were a very small group and buy zovirax 800mg according to the report, we killed between two and three hundred Japs and buy zovirax 800mg did not lose but three men. When we left our positions, we dug them up and buy zovirax 800mg carried them three days back to where they would be picked up with the buy zovirax 800mg trucks. Luzon was very dry and more like the U. S. When this buy zovirax 800mg was over, they moved us back and more replacements.
We were getting ready to buy zovirax 800mg make the invasion of Japan itself. We were getting ready for buy zovirax 800mg bed one night when it came through that Japan had surrendered; sure was a buy zovirax 800mg happy bunch of people. I had a farewell letter written to buy zovirax 800mg my loved ones in my barracks bag because I was sure that buy zovirax 800mg I would not come through this thing alive.
We went ashore in Japan just where buy zovirax 800mg we would have landed if we had been making our invasion. We were to buy zovirax 800mg take this airstrip at Tateyama, Japan. It was so full of gun emplacements; it buy zovirax 800mg would have been a slaughter I’m sure. I was there twenty-six days when buy zovirax 800mg one Saturday noon they called us all out. We were so disgusted because we thought it buy zovirax 800mg would be a work detail. Instead, they were sending all of us older fellows home. We were on the buy zovirax 800mg first troop ship to be sent home from the Pacific.
I was in the service three years – thirty months of that buy zovirax 800mg being overseas and practically all in the combat zone. I had buy zovirax 800mg no furlough in all the time I was there.
I will close by saying that buy zovirax 800mg the good Lord was looking after me or I would never have buy zovirax 800mg made it. Since then we have had the Korean Conflict and buy zovirax 800mg now the Vietnam War. I lost my nephew, Howard Max Cox, in this buy zovirax 800mg conflict. He was a Marine at the time. It hurt me terribly as I knew what buy zovirax 800mg he had gone through. I would like to add this poem in his memory:
If you followed your orders whatever went wrong
And did not stop your work until it stopped you
The Escorts march across the cemetery
Not in a civilian fashion, of course
But first a hundred and eighty degrees on the compass
To ___________ walkway; they formed a column left
And then marched to the grave space.
The color guard led you today; the family followed you today
The officer at the graveside saluted you today.
The soldiers carrying your casket followed their orders, too
But no one obeyed social or military degree
Only to fulfill duty today.
We respect you today
You followed your orders whatever went wrong
And did not stop your work until it stopped you
To that marine, “We salute you.”
Whether you satisfactorily executed those orders
Or whether you ever began to execute, does not matter now
In the call of duty, and even above and beyond the
Call of duty, you obeyed at dear cost.
Whatever you suffered, before you forced all you could
From your body, no one but God and you shall know.
The color guard folded the flag that covered your casket.
The lieutenant presented the flag to your next of kin.
The bugler sounded the ageless refrain.
The firing squad cracked three rifle reports into the air.
Magnificent response to the comment made here.
Today we salute you, Marine.
Traffic still grinds along the nearby highway,
Oblivious to the consecration of emotions here.
A plane climbs into the sky, unaware.
Perhaps we should appropriate these as a salute to you, Marine.
Work will continue, war will continue; there will be
Soldiers as good as you who can finish the duty you began.
But there will be no other soldier who can replace you.
All is well, so to rest, God is nigh.
I will close now. I hope you buy zovirax 800mg have received some information from this little talk that will do you buy zovirax 800mg some good. As I said before I’m a poor speaker. I thank you.
Max did not like to buy zovirax 800mg talk much about his experiences during World War II, but I am buy zovirax 800mg glad that he made this recording so that he could share the buy zovirax 800mg type of story that doesn’t always make it buy zovirax 800mg to books, or shows on the History Channel. He has buy zovirax 800mg since passed from this world, but he lives on through all the buy zovirax 800mg lives he touched working in the Bedford, Iowa Schools. Aside from buy zovirax 800mg this story, I also remember him through the American Flag that buy zovirax 800mg draped his coffin that I am honored to have in a buy zovirax 800mg special case in my house. It is through sacrifices of those like my Great Uncle Max that buy zovirax 800mg we are able to share ideas freely on blogs like this buy zovirax 800mg one. If you know anyone that serves or has served their country in the buy zovirax 800mg military, tell them thank you.