An island revisited and a time remembered

American veterans are returning to Saipan to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the invasion of island, deplaning on ground where they once fought more than one half century ago. With flower leis placed around their neck by beautiful island hostess they boarded buses bound for lavish resort hotels, many owned by the Japanese and situated on beaches where they bled.

Older men now—with thoughts of youth, of friends long gone, of a yesterday more than twenty-one thousand days distant, of a time remembered. Veterans of the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and those of the 27th Infantry along with air men and Seabees are back on hallowed ground to participate in the sixtieth anniversary of the invasion and liberation of Saipan and Tinian. They didn’t know it at that time in 1944 but their effort on the beaches and in the mountains and jungles of Saipan and Tinian would, in little over a year, lead to the single most important event than would bring the Second World War to an end and return peace to a war torn planet. That event was the launching of an aircraft and the atomic bomb.

Some will listen for the distant echo of the cannon’s roar, the smell of pungent cordite, the scream of shells long ago blown away by gentle trade winds. They will see once again the turquoise of a lagoon once red with blood and erupting white fountains of froth from exploding ordinance. They will remember again the bitter taste of the fear of death. So long ago, so different this time. They will see young, sun tanned Japanese tourists in their late teens and early twenties and wonder if they themselves were ever that young—and they were many thousands of dreams ago. For sixty years they carried a time capsule of memories of an island of mud, death, heat, rain, thirst, hunger, pain, exhaustion and terror. They will pass late model automobiles, well stocked stores, beautiful vistas, luxurious homes and wonder if this is really Saipan or did the airlines fly them to some other island? A glance inland to brooding Mount Tapotchau relieves their time-warped doubts and they remember again the torturous climb to gain the high ground.

Along Beach Road on the way to their hotels they pass local Chamorros and Carolinians, transplanted Americans from the mainland, Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and people from islands throughout the Pacific. All free people under the most precious flag on earth—a flag the returning veterans planted on once foreign soil. They are all heroes—but far too modest to even dare think it. They came from hundreds of different cities and towns across America to a place in the far Pacific that they never thought of as being their own—but it was—it always was—and they really never knew it—until they returned to Saipan in June 2004 some with the wives that had waited for them through years of doubt—others alone.

Checking into comfortable, air conditioned hotel rooms, something undreamed of 60 years ago, they gaze out at the most beautiful flaming sunsets in the world and wonder again if they are experiencing a dream. “Kilroy” was once here. And now he is back, but without the K-rations, olive drab, barking commanders and the fear of a sniper’s bullet. Welcome back you soldiers, sailors and airmen of the greatest country on earth.

Samuel Johnson once said, ” The future is purchased by the present.” Your present was that day long ago in June 1944. This day is the future you purchased. Thank you.