The Long Road of War

the long version

James W. Johnston was a self-confessed small-town youth, who like so many others patriotically stopped what he was doing and enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbor. Johnston chose the Marines, a decision that sent him to years of bloody combat through the Pacific, as Allied troops fought their way toward the Japanese home islands. Johnston was a line company machine gunner, one of those who do the dirty work of war, who fight "in the face of the enemy." Many did not come back; of those who did, very few have told us what it was like. Johnston tells us directly and honestly, taking us with his First Marine Division through New Guinea, New Britain, Peleliu, and Okinawa. Johnston is still angry. At the stupidities of some military regulations, at the incompetence of some officers, at the people who weren't there but are sure they know all about it, at the rear-echelon troops who had plenty of everything yet bellyached about their tough times, at medals and promotions awarded for luck, showboating, and favoritism, while nearby brave and good men struggled and bled and died, unnoticed and unheralded.