John Basilone...

Curiously unknown by name to many who owe their very existence to his devotion to duty and self-sacrifice, John Basilone remains an awe-inspiring legend and source of immense pride to members of the US Marine Corps who still draw motivation from what he looked at as simply his job...

John Basilone completed his first tour of duty as a teenager prior to WWII in the US Army...After discharge, and still prior to WWII, he re-enlisted, this time in the Marine Corps because he wanted to return to the Philippines...After landing on Guadalcanal, his 15 man platoon was attacked by a 3,000 man regiment from the Japanese' elite Sendai Division...During the ensuing attack, the Americans were reduced to three men, all wounded including Basilone...

For three days without sleep, food or rest they battled the enemy to a standstill...The Japanese regiment was decimated and forced to withdraw...During this time, Basilone ferried ammunition and water to his two comrades, repaired machine guns under fire, all the while manning his own machine gun emplacement...At times the enemy was too close for machine guns and he killed them with his .45, his knife and his bare hands...At the end only the three Americans were left alive among the thousands of dead Japanese...For this action, Sgt. Basilone was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor...

The stench from the lifeless, gutted bodies of the enemy, combined with the distinct odor of fumes from the many thousands of rounds fired in that narrow draw may not have even been noticed by the combatants until after firing ceased...The smell, which must have been overpowering, may have been removed as a distraction by a phenomenon known as sensory occlusion, in which only the senses important to survival are processed by the brain's intake sensors, and the olfactory input is ignored...

This would be similar to the more widely known auditory occlusion in which surviving combatants have testified they never heard the sounds of gunfire and explosions, although they were battling in the midst of them...Having read many accounts of this, and talked to those who lived to tell of battles both as military members and police officers, I believe one's own desire for life will enable one to concentrate only on the necessary sensory perceptions while forcing the lesser needed ones to the background...

Following a mandatory war bond tour in which he helped raise millions of dollars for the war effort, Basilone volunteered to return to the war and was refused...He turned down a commission as an officer and a chance to be an instructor in advanced combat techniques, all the while asking to be reassigned to combat...His request was eventually approved by reluctant commanders, and after further training was assigned to forces soon to be engaged in the invasion of Iwo Jima...

After landing on the beach at Iwo Jima and fighting their way forward, his unit was pinned down by withering fire from a heavily fortified enemy blockhouse...Basilone, ignoring his own safety, worked around alone to the top of the blockhouse and, armed only with grenades and a satchel charge, neutralized the enemy position and personally killed every Japanese soldier inside the  defensive emplacement...

Afterward, while fighting his way to his company's assigned target, an airfield, he found a Marine tank trapped in a minefield under heavy fire...Working his way to the tank he led them safely out of the minefield at the risk of his own life...After reaching the airfield he was hit by shrapnel from a Japanese mortar and killed...For his actions that day he was awarded the nation's second highest military award, the Navy Cross, posthumously...

Sgt. Basilone was the only enlisted Marine in WWII to receive the nation's two highest military decorations...His wife of seven months, herself a Sergeant in the US Marines Women's Reserve, never remarried and was buried with her wedding ring and memories intact...

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