Summary
Kluge details his travel to Saipan together with two-dozen World War II veterans. They visit the island to mark the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Saipan. The highlights of the celebration and the transformation of the island since the battle are also presented.
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Extract
Remembering Saipan
Five hours out of Los Angeles, another seven west of Hawaii-twelve hours of cramped seats and crap food-and now, headed north from Guam, the weariness and claustrophobia depart. I enter a zone of magic, a field of force. The island of Saipan, haunted, handsome, out-of-control Saipan, awaits me, just twenty minutes away. We'll be landing at night but I can picture the place anytime, its beaches and caves, the mountain at its center, the fatal cliffs. Island of dreams and nightmares for me and, even more, for the men I am traveling with, two dozen World War II veterans, some accompanied by wives, a few by sons, and at least one, late actor Lee Marvin, represented by his widow. The greatest generation, they've been called, here to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Saipan.
I first glimpse them at an airport hotel in Los Angeles, men of a certain age, out of place among younger travelers who are watching Lakers duel Pistons and enjoying fajitas and Corona beers at a hotel bar. The old-timers dutifully display their name tags, "Military Historical Tours." For the next fifteen hours, in airport vans and departure lounges, standing in aisles, loitering outside airplane restrooms, I chat and eavesdrop as we travel across time zones and datelines. What I hear at first is random, tentative. How could it be otherwise? One man talks about the discovery of a cache of Japanese saki in the ruins of Saipan' s town of Garapan, another recalls the taste of beer turned skunky in the island's withering heat. A pilot remembers some buddies who built a jeep out of spare parts, just for the fun of it. When ordered to turn the vehicle in, they drove it to a cliff and pushed it into the same waters where Japanese soldiers and civilians jumped to their deaths months before. Another veteran swears he wants to eat barracuda, yet another-a Kansas farmer-longs to find the place where he was shot. There's a deeper vein of memory, I guess, but what comes first are careful, practiced things they've said before. Memories on command. I wonder when-or if-I will hear memories that show up without permission. Still, I like them. They are old, there's no getting away from it. I hear talk of macular degeneration's attack on vision, of impending heart surgery, of hip replacements past and planned.Sixty years ago, death was dispensed on Saipan from ships, aircraft, artillery, tanks, machine guns, flamethrowers, grenades, rifles, pistols, bayonets, swords, bamboo spears, clubs, s...See the full content of this document
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