Burgin is an 87-year-old World War II veteran who fought in the Battle of Peleliu, where the 1st Marine Division lost more than one-third of its total ranks in 1944. He also is an author (“Islands of the Damned: A Marine at War in the Pacific,” was published on March 2) and was recently featured in HBO miniseries “The Pacific.”
What is your most vivid memory from the war?
Crossing the airfield on Peleliu on the second day. It was absolutely devastating. We had no protection. We had rifles, and pistols and mortars, but we didn’t have time to use them. They were wrecking us over there. It was the most helpless I ever felt in all the time I ever was in the Marine Corps.
How did you feel watching so many friends die?
Marines are trained pretty good — the best there is — and we know going in that we’re gonna get wounded, maimed and killed. And you just hope it’s not your number that they call out.
What was the most heroic act you witnessed in battle?
I’ve witnessed a lot of guys do heroic things they should have gotten medals for — but never did. Any time you start pulling the wounded out, you go in under fire to get ’em. We’d be crossing the valley, someone would get pinned down, and we would have to throw smoke grenades to go in and get ’em out.
Was it difficult recounting the details of battle?
When I was discharged from the Marines in 1945, I didn’t talk about the war … to anyone. I worked for the post office for 31 years with three other Marines and I never talked about it with those guys. We might recall something that was funny; but the gore, the killings — we never talked about it. In 1991 we did a documentary on Peleliu, and that’s when I decided the story needed to be told and written.
— Hayley Peterson
