“We learned about savagery from the Japanese. Those men had years of on the job training. But those sixteen to nineteen year old kids we had on Guadalcanal were fast learners.

Example: on the Matanikau River bank after a day and night of vicious hand to hand attacks, a number of Japanese soldiers and our guys were killed and wounded. At daybreak, a couple of our kids, bearded, dirty, skinny from hunger, slightly wounded by bayonets, clothes worn and torn; whack off three Japanese heads and jam them on poles facing the Japanese side of the river.

Shortly after, the Regimental Commander comes on the scene. The colonel sees the heads on the poles and says, ‘Jesus, men. What are you doing? You’re acting like animals.’

A dirty, stinking young kid says, ‘That’s right, Colonel, we are animals. We live like animals, we eat and are treated like animals, what the f**k did you expect?’

– Private Ore Marion. US Marines. World War Two.
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As we always say here at Battles and Beers (TM) Every soldier has a story, and every story deserves to be told.