Letter: Wartime memories abound

During World War II, I had the privilege of serving in the South Pacific. The tropics did have a way of getting in one's blood. The balmy tropical moon as it shone above the palm-fringed isle, the music of the sea and those native celebrations with their incredible singing.

The wartime memories, well, you never would forget those. There was a little isle named Betio and upon the white coral stands a small military cemetery with its crosses and those brave souls who rest beneath "Old Glory" as it flies so gracefully above.

This is the cemetery of the officers and men of the Second United States Marines Division, who fell in action on this atoll, Nov. 20-24, 1943:

So there let them Rest

On their seen scoured atoll,

The wind for their watcher

The waves for their shroud

Where palm and pandas

Shall whisper forever

A requiem fitting for heavens so proud

Dick Marquette

Sutter