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February 19, 2009, marks
sixty-four years since the landing of
Marines on Iwo Jima, which resulted in the bloodiest battle of
the Pacific, and the
capture of that strategic island that played
an essential role in saving
the lives of many pilots and their
crews.
Arvy A. Geurin was a 20-year old Radioman 3rd
Class,
assigned to the USS
NAPA/APA 157 Beach Party Battalion
and landed with the Fourth
Marines on that island on
February 19, 1945. Although
he does not consider himself a hero,
what
he did that day 64 years ago saved lives.
(The USS NAPA/APA 157 was
named for Napa County,
California.)
Every year, thousands of
World War II veterans leave this world,
many without their family,
friends, and the world knowing of their
heroic deeds that freed the
world from the horrific and
barbaric dictatorships of
Hitler of Germany, Mussolini of Italy,
and Hirohito of Japan, who
formed the Triparte Treaty designed
to
take over and divide the world among them. Although the
battles and victories are
well known by now, most of the individual
deeds
are not. Battles are not impersonal, but are about the
individual soldier, Marine
or sailor, who put his life on hold to go
overseas
so that the battle would not come to our shores.
Mr. Geurin
was one such sailor.
What has not been well
known before is how the then-young
men went from high school
seniors planning their lives after
graduation to
battle-hardened fighters in places like Guam,
Okinawa and Iwo Jima. As Mr. Geurin
said: “We weren’t action
heroes or extraordinary men. We were farm boys and city jocks;
scholars and drop-outs; rich and poor. We were
just young boys
brought together by a common goal. Just a year before how could
any of us imagine going off to war like this Yet, here we were
all
together in an amtrack moving toward
the hungry jaws of war,
to what would become the bloodiest battle of the Pacific.”
In looking back, one has to
marvel at how these young men,
not old enough to legally
vote or drink, went on to win battles and
disrupt and unseat three of
the most evil of the world’s
dictators
and restore freedom to much of the world. They became
known
as “The Greatest Generation” for very honorable reasons.
This was the last war that
was totally undisputed as just.
In December 2005, the US
Navy presented Mr. Geurin a plaque in
honor
of his service on Iwo Jima. He has also
been honored by
the US Navy Radiomen
Association (www.radioman.org ),
the USA Veteran’s Page (www.veteranspage.com),
and the VFW,
as well as being listed on
the National World War II
Memorial (www.wwiimemorial.com).
Mr. Geurin,
who currently resides in Capitola, has had the honor of
having his war memoirs
published by McKenna Publishing Group
of San Luis
Obispo (www.mckennapubgrp.com), Walking Through
Fire: An Iwo
Jima Survivor’s Remembrance.
His book is available through Amazon.com (www.amazon.com),
McKenna Publishing Group (www.mckennapub.grp.com),
USA Veteran's Page (www.veteranspage.com),
Pearl Harbor Books (www.pearlharbor.net/books/.world-war-ii-iwo-jima-books.asp),
History Edition: Historical Books and More - Asian
History: Iwo Jima
(www.historyedition.com.) The
preferable method is Amazon.com.
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