Omega Delta Sigma, National Veterans Fraternity Inc.

In 1945, during World War II, thousands of American and Japanese men lost their lives in what is known to be one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps History – Okinawa. Okinawa is a Japanese island located in the southern most point of the Ryukyu Island Chain about 400 miles south of main land Japan. The amphibious assault on Okinawa began at 0830, Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945. Eighty-two grueling days later the Okinawan campaign was officially declared over. British observers spoke of the Battle of Okinawa as “the most audacious and complex enterprise” – more ships were used, more troops put ashore, more supplies transported, more bombs dropped, more naval guns fired against Okinawa 1945

shore targets than any other operation in the pacific. But not without a severe price for both sides. Nearly 170,000 died, over half were civilians. After the atomic bombings on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945 and Okinawa became a territory of the United States. Shortly after the end of the war, the United States built bases along the coast of Okinawa giving residence to more than 50,000 American troops. It wasn’t until 1972 that the United States returned ownership of the island to the Japanese government. In 1996 It was there on that very island and on those very beaches where so many men lost their lives, that I found an unspoiled paradise.

During the last year of my military contract I had a chance to visit the historic island of Okinawa. The first thoughts that came to me once I received my PCS (Permanent Change of Station) Orders were not the historic significance of this place but the graphic stories that Marines passed on about the island’s inhabitants and their pesky persistence to please American GI’s in bars and clubs. They also warned me about the exhaustingly hot climate and the humidity that reached 100% on normal days. I imagined that my one-year of duty on the island would be the longest 365 days of my life. I reached the island after what seemed to be the longest day on earth. I stepped out of the plane and I was welcomed by the Okinawan humidity. The temperature was about 88 degrees Fahrenheit but it felt close to 1000. The sky was over-cast. After being in a plane for fifteen hours I was unsure of the time and the date. I couldn’t remember if Japan was fourteen hours ahead or behind our Eastern Time. It appeared to be around 15 or 1600. Right then nervousness hit me, I was 10,000 miles away from home. How would I have felt fifty years ago if I was 10,000 miles from home and in addition to the humidity I had bullets, grenades, and mines for a welcome?

In the following months I became familiar with the island and what it had to offer. Okinawa is an island with a population of over one million. It’s major city is Naha and it is located on the south tip of the island. All the bars my friends told me about were still there as well as all the exotic and somewhat disturbing shows. Most of the Okinawans were friendly but there was the occasional protesters outside the several US bases wanting us to pack our camouflaged utilities and head home. For the first few months I hated being there. The weather was too hot, there was too much traffic, and worst there was a shortage of blondes. I did everything I could to pass the time away, keeping my self busy with work and sports thus permitting very little free time so as to allow no opportunity to remind myself of just how far I was from home. Encouraged to go snorkeling with some friends, I visited the northern part of the island, which was free of city smog and noise. Far away from civilization I discovered the beauty of the island on its coastal waters and fell in love with it. After witnessing the splendid view of wild flowers, calm seas, cool breezes, and crystal-clear waters I became a certified diver.

On a warm summer day I visited one of the many ideal diving sites the island has to offer. This place was Onna Flats. It was Located in the northeast side of the island which, unlike the rest of the island, was very secluded and hardly populated. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky but it wasn’t extremely hot either. There was a gentle breeze blowing from the south which would help us cool off once we donned our wet suits. We got off the highway, a four-lane road, onto an unpaved and winding road sometime around 0900. From that point it was only a couple of minutes until we reached our destination. We parked in the middle of what seemed to be a small jungle of trees and insects. The ocean was not visible from our current location so we decided to take the short walk down the coral rocks to make sure the surf wasn’t too choppy and to see if a beach entry would be safe. Once I caught the first view of this place from the top of one of the rock formations they call the fingers, I was in awe. The way the calm ocean seemed to meet the sky and in only but a few places broken up by distant mountains, was absolutely breath taking. I wanted to sit there and absorb the moment but at the same time history kept retelling its self to me. I kept contrasting Onna Flat’s beauty to how bloody and gruesome it must have been fifty years ago. I imagined WWII Marines half wet climbing the volcanic rock that made up most of the island with their packs, rifles, and bayonets being shot by enemy forces.

My senses were very active that day. I remember the smell of salt in the air and the vast shades of blue. The ocean was the only thing making a sound as the gentle breeze cooled our bodies in the summer heat. We donned our wet suits and helped each other with our BCDs (buoyancy control device) and our air tanks. We went over all the safety checks

and calculated how long we would go down for. The walk down the tall coral rocks was much more challenging now that we had all of our diving equipment on. Once we reached the bottom there was a small beach with many different shells and no one there to steal them from this holy place. The water was refreshing, my guess is that the water temperature was about 75 degrees Fahrenheit. We secured our masks on our faces and we began to snorkel out to deeper waters. There was so much ocean life close to shore but the farther we went out the more life we encountered. Many different small fish would swim up to us just to see what we were. They were just as curious as we were. The visibility was incomparable, maybe 100 to 150 feet. Every few minutes I would take my head out of the water to compare two different worlds, each in its own beauty. We snorkeled out maybe 100 yards but the water depth stayed shallow, ranging from 3 feet to 5 feet. We suddenly came upon an underwater cliff and the waters below became an intimidating deep dark blue. It was time to submerge. I was a little nervous to be going down in waters that seemed to have no bottom, regardless, we began our descent. It was the strangest sensation to be going down a cliff I’ve never climbed. The bottom became more clear as we fell from shallow waters into the depths of the China Sea. There were schools of fish every where I looked. Clown fish were specially curious but became aggressive when we got too close to their home. It seemed so quiet and peaceful but at the same time there were hundreds of sounds from lobsters, crabs, and other crustaceans. Every breath we exhaled through our regulators seemed to be as loud as thunder from a distant storm but the fish around us seemed unaffected. We finally hit bottom at about 110 feet. I looked up but couldn’t really distinguish if the surface was in that direction. I felt lost in this world but not scared. I was lost from my self and from my everyday life. I didn’t want to surface. I was in an enchanted forest under the water and nothing seemed important nor did anything bother me.