Marines

 

He was slumped in the front row of the Greyhound, looking out the window as I settled beside him in the only empty seat. The wind was cutting, yet he wore only a hoodie and jeans. He barely answered my hello. But eventually, the sun drained from the sky, the groan of the engine drowned out the chatter, and he decided to talk.

He was Blake, home from Iraq, riding from San Diego to his mom's in Wyoming.
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This Rocky Mountain PBS production focuses on the lives of Latinos, African Americans and women who served during World War II on the battlefield and the homefront.
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Enlisting in the Marine Corps when he was only seventeen, native Coloradan Warren Jack O'Brien saw much action in the Second Marine Division. He took part in several dangerous frontal assaults on Pacific islands, including Betio Island and Saipan. Receiving murderous enemy fire, he was lucky to survive when many of his fellow Marines did not leave the beach. A Purple Heart recipient, Warren landed at Nagasaki after the Japanese surrender and witnessed first-hand the destruction caused by the atomic bomb.
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