Thanks for the reminder. I have enough books I can do that next year. I have a special place in my heart for those folks. I qualified as an Amphibious Warfare Specialist during the Vietnam era, was on sea duty all my four years and never went more that four months without serving with them. My younger son is a former Marine and was wished well by a family friend who landed in the first wave on Tarawa.
By all accounts, Tarawa was a meatgrinder. Everyone got hammered, but the second wave, having to wade ashore from landing craft hung up on the surrounding reef, must have been especially horrifying.
One wonders if current generations of American kids could manage something like that, but it seems that our servicemen (and women) are doing great things in the Middle East and Afghanistan.