Photo of the Week

We have another really great photo this week! To honor those who gave and served to keep our freedom on this Memorial Day, I am posting this old photo of Dad fighting in the South Pacific. Dad joined up to fight in World War 2 when the U.S. entered the war after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. He signed up to be in the U.S. Marine Corps and was assigned to the !st Marine Division who fought hard to end the Japanese occupied areas in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. History .pdf. The photo above is in Dad's collection of old photos and is a priceless photo. It isn't noted to where or when it was taken, but I suspect it was taken in Australia during the division's withdrawn for rest and rehabilitation, having suffered almost 3,000 battle casualties on Guadalcanal. Dad, the guy in the back center of the photo shows signs of fatigue and loss of weight. The other guys must be from his unit. I used a new colorization software to convert the old black and white to the colorize photo below. I am not sure why the software determined that their caps would be gray, but who knows. I would imagine them being olive drab like the uniforms. I watched the documentary "The Pacific" again last night as the documentary is about Dad's war in the South Pacific. Great documentary! These guys fought hard and are all heros. Of course Dad made it safely home, otherwise I wouldn't be here. He hardly talked about his time in war, but at times you could see how it affected certain things about him. His hearing was pretty much gone as the years rolled by. One of the battles on Guadalcanal was the constant cannon fire that the U.S. put on the Japanese that were hiding in the hills. The constant noise took it's toll on everyone's hearing.

Thank you Dad and all those that fought to preserve our and the world's freedom.