{"id":9936,"date":"2023-02-06T18:52:10","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T01:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/?p=9936"},"modified":"2023-08-10T11:01:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T18:01:04","slug":"my-guadalcanal-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/my-guadalcanal-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"My Guadalcanal Diary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Unspoken Word<\/em><\/strong><\/h1>\n

— L.S. Collison<\/p>\n

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This work-in-progress is inspired by the personal wartime service album of Harry M. Collison, Jr. – my father — a kind and patient man with a good sense of humor; a man who, after the war, married, worked many years for Egli & Gompf, a Baltimore engineering firm, and fathered three daughters. I am the middle one.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Field Notes…<\/h3>\n

I am a stranger in this jungle<\/h2>\n

but so is the Enemy<\/h2>\n

Miles from our homelands<\/h2>\n

neither of us belong<\/h2>\n

we have that in common<\/h2>\n

Me and my brothers, sons of Devil Dogs, we<\/h2>\n

were sent out here<\/h2>\n

to the South Pacific, the Solomon Sea<\/h2>\n

a continent and an ocean away<\/h2>\n

from Dad, Muz, sister Suze<\/h2>\n

safe back home (I pray)<\/h2>\n

where I grew up and learned a draftsman’s trade<\/h2>\n

Suddenly Pearl Harbor appeared on the map<\/h2>\n

and off to Parris the Island was I<\/h2>\n

a green recruit<\/h2>\n

They taught me how to kill a man and how<\/h2>\n

to save his life<\/h2>\n

They made me strong, they broke my ass<\/h2>\n

USMC Private First Class<\/h2>\n

then off to Lansing where I learned to draw<\/h2>\n

maps<\/h2>\n

Now armed with pencil, notebook and<\/h2>\n

M1941 Johnson<\/h2>\n

I’m following the barefootsteps of a native scout<\/h2>\n

Coastwatcher<\/h2>\n

he knows these hills and ravines<\/h2>\n

his backyard for fifteen years<\/h2>\n

Cock-sure as I was his age<\/h2>\n

Now I’m old at twenty-one<\/h2>\n

Alert and on point, he can wield that knife<\/h2>\n

Wary of the invaders —<\/h2>\n

crocs, snakes, japs, joes<\/h2>\n

aussies, kiwis, poms, mosquitoes<\/h2>\n

This kid has never heard anyone speak<\/h2>\n

Balmoreeze<\/h2>\n

But<\/h2>\n

he knows his way up the Tenaru<\/h2>\n

the real Tenaru, not Alligator Creek,<\/h2>\n

he reads it like the palm of his hand<\/h2>\n

Me and Johnson we’ve got his back<\/h2>\n

on this hellish field party upriver<\/h2>\n

to chart the jungle<\/h2>\n

to make a map<\/h2>\n

– lsc<\/h2>\n

<\/h2>\n

copyright 2023 Linda Collison<\/h2>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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Unspoken Word — L.S. Collison           […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[673,413,671,94,511,678,623,672],"tags":[676,674,677,675],"class_list":["post-9936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-nonfiction","category-fictional-memoir","category-guadalcanal","category-history","category-maritime-history","category-my-guadalcanal-diary","category-poems","category-world-war-ii","tag-creative-nonfiction","tag-guadalcanal","tag-narrative-poem","tag-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9936"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10329,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9936\/revisions\/10329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}