Pray for Marvin
This is something that happened to my brother during World War II. He was on duty in Okinawa. Here is his story:
Something happened around the date of June 21, 1945 (my date and time on Okinawa) for which I have no real explanation. I received a letter from Aunt Beatrice in late June or early July recounting a very frightening experience to her. She had been sound asleep and was awakened during the night (June 20 in Oklahoma) with the strongest feeling of urgency. She said she could only think "Pray for Marvin, Pray for Marvin". She was really concerned during the rest of the night. Nothing had ever happened to her like that before. She ask me if I could account for it - had I been thinking of her or was there some experience that I had that could have prompted it. Perhaps I had been in some particularly dangerous incident which as closely as I could determine could have coincided with her experience. I don’t think I was thinking of any one person at home though so her urge to "Pray for Marvin" still seems to be a mystery unless God was just using her at that moment to help me.
Here is what happened:
The actual combat for the island was more or less over. There were isolated skirmishes and mopping up going on in several areas but we had established our camp, set up more or less permanent tents and we moved around with little thought of real danger in the immediate vicinity of the camp. Part of the duties we had during the days were to go around the surrounding areas and police it - picking up the spent brass and military debris but in particular we were to search for all live ammunition and explosives or any other items which could still be used by the enemy if he got hold of it. Sgt. Curtain, our Squad Leader, and 5 or 6 of the guys and I had been out for a while when I rounded the top of a hill and there behind a rock ledge I found a Gap Machine Gun nest. There were lots of cartridges and I filled my pockets, helmet and carried all that I could, but there was still more so I went to tell the others to come help but they had all gone down the hill and were on their way back to camp. I caught up with them and needless to say they were less than thrilled at the idea of having to go back but the Sgt. said he supposed we ought to so we all headed back. On the way down we had all passed this ditch or crawl way in which we had seen a couple of dead Japanese soldiers who had not yet been buried.
I wrote Aunt Beatrice this short explanation of what happened next:
"We were up on Jaeju Dake and doing a little policing up, ammunition, dynamite, etc. and one of the fellows saw a Jap and shot him. We all went down to look at him and practically all the rest of the guys had left when another one got up and started after one of our men (me). He was screaming bloody murder and of course scared us all. I started to shoot and pulled the trigger but I didn’t have a round in the chamber. I pulled the bolt back and by the time it was loaded another fellow had shot him. It happened about 5 feet from me and let me tell you I was really scared. Never after that did I ever go around without my gun loaded. I never thought of anyone especially so it couldn’t have been mental telepathy. Something greater than that. I had been in the same area that morning just scouting around all by myself and no gun with me at all. That’s what scared me most after I’d realized what had happened."
My memory of what happened is very nearly the same. I had cleaned my carbine the night before as I had done every night while we were at the front. The reason I didn’t have a round in the chamber is that I had forgotten to put one in after cleaning. I had never forgotten to do that before and have no explanation why I didn’t load the chamber this time - I had put in the loaded clip. I remember that when I pulled the bolt back on my carbine, that it jammed and there is no way I would have been able to fire the carbine soon enough to have killed the Jap. I have always felt that God didn’t really intend for me to kill anyone - at least not to know for sure, since the many mortar rounds that I had fired could have done it or the satchel charges I had thrown in the caves but I have no knowledge of any of the results of them. Why me not having to kill when so many guys had to do it over and over again, I’ll never know.
Marvin Reames - mreames96@juno.com
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