Joining the Marines at 17
Chipman talks about when he first heard about Pearl Harbor and joining the Marines at age 17. He speaks at length about different motivations for young people joining the war before being drafted. He also addresses the importance of sharing his war experiences, even when others who haven't been in battle will never fully comprehend the traumas of war.
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Hardening into Marines
Chipman describes the profound effects of boot camp in shaping self-discipline, teamwork and pride. Chipman's childhood in a physically active and very disciplined household ease the transition to the rigors of boot camp.
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Bonding and growing
After boot camp, Chipman's division was assigned to Camp Pendleton for four weeks of infantry training school. They were then transported to Hawaii and assigned as replacements for the 4th Marine Division.

The following excerpt recounts the last period of training when the young Marines met and bonded with the veteran Marines, fresh from battle in the Marianas. The respect and affection between Marines was immediate. After months of training with battle-hardened veterans, the young Marines became veterans, "emotionally and mentally."
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A deafening, deadly battle
In this excerpt, Clayton Chipman discusses his psychological preparation before battle on Iwo Jima and reflects on the difference between being scared and being afraid. He describes the 4th Marine Division's brutal landing on Iwo Jima — a day filled with relentless, deafening artillery.
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Slow, bloody going on Iwo
As the days and nights pass on Iwo Jima, Clayton Chipman and his fellow Marines measured their progress by yards as they crawled across the island's airfields under fire.
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The million-dollar wound
In this excerpt, Clayton Chipman continues to describe the hours leading up to the ninth day on Iwo Jima, the day of his "million-dollar wound." Marines were decimated as they fought to take the "Meat Grinder, " "Turkey Knob, " the "Amphitheater" and "Hill 382."
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Nightmares, gratefulness and guilt
Clayton Chipman was evacuated from Iwo Jima to an Army hospital in Pearl Harbor. In this excerpt, Chipman notes that he and other fellow Marines suffered recurring battle nightmares. He also recalls his painful emotions of gratefulness and guilt. He asks, "How can you be thankful and feel guilty at the same time?"
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Bonds for a lifetime
After his recovery, Clayton Chipman joined a baseball team in Oahu, a team that was actually a ploy to build an MP Company to be sent back to Saipan. Chipman was stationed at Saipan to flush out any enemy remaining on six islands.

In this excerpt, Chipman describes his psychological stages in the battle of Iwo Jima. Chipman describes the elation of returning home and recounts some of the challenges of returning to civilian life. This excerpt concludes with thoughts on his religious faith and the enduring bonds amongst Marines who have fought together.
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Slow, bloody going on Iwo
As the days and nights pass on Iwo Jima, Clayton Chipman and his fellow Marines measured their progress by yards as they crawled across the island's airfields under fire.
audio clip (13:07)

Chipman: … The next morning, D plus 1, or February 20, the thoughts were, ''God, is today going to be like D-Day?'' Total exhaustion, terror, unrelenting, unimaginable noise, the dead and the wounded, and praying. In all that trauma, we were doing what we were taught to do, and that was one of your questions, ''How was your training?'' I think this was just the statement I could make was that our training carried us through, or we would have fallen apart, I'm sure.

The nights, actually one of the problems, you remember vividly everything that happened, but the time sequence gets scattered around. When you go to a reunion and you talk to fellas, all of a sudden things start to fall back in line, you know, time-wise. I think (I'd like to) talk a little about the night on Iwo. Many people have said that as the sun descended, they were thankful for another day, and then immediately they prayed for strength and safety and for morning to come because nights were the worst time. We would memorize every rock, every bush, the few that there were, every little raise, you try to memorize it.

When the star shells would go up from mortars or from ships and it would light up the area like day, but as they came down the shadows would change and you'd swear that rock was crawling. But you had to have, you had to use every ounce of restraint that you had to keep from firing at it because you knew if you fired, then the Japanese knew where the line was and they'd start lobbing in mortars.

While you were on watch, boy, it was just a nerve-wracking situation. The other thing, and this may hurt someone's feelings — I don't give a darn whether they do or not — but another irritation was that you're always strung out in a line and fellas have to smoke. So at night they would put their poncho over their head and they would light up a cigarette. Well, that, the poncho stopped the light, but not around the edge.

People wonder why the Japanese always knew where our weak spots were. That was it. You might was well give them a map because all these guys were lighting up their cigarettes. They knew exactly where we were. And they knew where the division between the units were, and that's where they'd hit. I never had much use for smoking because of that. I'm sure guys got killed because other guys smoked. It's just ridiculous.

On the second morning, the 20th at 0800, K Company, K-323 of the 4th Marine Division, we jumped off with the rest of the division to go across the airfield. We had a wheel, that's making a right turn because the 5th Division was attacking Mount Suribachi, and two of their regiments were attacking alongside of us, and as we started across that airfield — you never run far and you run zigzagged — you may run 15, 20 yards and down you go — well, when their machine-guns opened up on us, I tried to get in a hole about the size of a golf ball on the airfield. You know, airfields are pretty hard. You don't dig foxholes.

When some of the bullets tore through my pack, I decided I didn't need my pack anymore; it was too big of a target. So I kept two things, besides the water and ammo, poncho and trenching tool; that's all we needed. The rest was just left there. I'm not the only that threw it away. Of course, then you could move a little bit better also. It took us all day to cross that airfield. Not so much to cross the airfield but, when we hit their revetments, they had machine-gun nests and pillboxes built into their revetments and we threw hand grenades all day. We used satchel charges and flame throwers and, of course, as a BAR man, it was my job to fire into the aperture or the opening while some Marine would crawl up with a satchel charger. The guy would go up with the flame-thrower, and that's what we did all day until the second night. Of course, you were continually being shelled from two sides of Mount Suribachi. They were above you, the koi, they were above you and in front of you. They're above you, so it was like shooting Marines - -it was like going to the circus and shooting fish in a rail barrel. How anybody got across that beach is just — the only answer I have for that is the Lord was with a few people.

That night, because I had an automatic weapon, I was put on the end of the airfield in a Japanese gun emplacement. They had dual pom-pom guns for antiaircraft and, of course, other purposes. That night I was in the hole with two of my friends, and we talked about the 23rd Psalms, was religious. That night we talked a little bit. Every couple of minutes the Jap's artillery piece would hit the bottom of the hill — we were up and the airport was built up above the rest of the land, maybe 40, 50 feet — and then the next shell would go over our heads. They must have had that artillery piece registered in so that it missed their gun emplacement, and one would be at the bottom and one would be over the head.

We didn't sleep at all that night because, boy, one would hit down there and then would go zoom, you know, over your head. That's how the second night ensued. We were lucky to get one K-ration a day. First priority was ammo and second priority was water. And if they could get food up, they would get some food up to us. As we left the first airfield, Motiatima #1, each morning we'd attack someplace around 0800, 0830, and we measured progress in yards, a few yards.

Their pillboxes were supported by machine-gun emplacements. One blockhouse would cover a pillbox, and they'd just be covering each other; they're intersecting fields of fire and that's what we had to get rid of. If it wasn't a pillbox we were attacking, it was a machine-gun, or a trench, or a cave.

One of the incidents in that few days as we were going between Motiatima #1 and #2, I got excited once, and I just shot a whole clip of 20 rounds at once and ducked down back in the shell hole and no more than 30 seconds later, you know, as a shell explodes it makes a soft arch of dirt along the side. A mortar, Japanese mortar shell landed in that soft dirt, and it was a dud so you knew the Lord was watching over me. You can't make a mistake. I mean, I made a mistake and I got away with it only because the Lord was with me.

On the fourth morning, we were on the line and it was still dark and I had three replacements with me. I was sleeping at the time, and someone jumped on my head and it was another Marine. Of course, you had your helmet on; you don't take your helmet off for too much in a battle. It was another Marine, and he apologized. Evidently the Japanese saw movement, and they opened up with a machine-gun and this kid jumped on me and, of course, well, what outfit are you with? 3rd Division.

So we knew that the 3rd Division has reinforced us. Before it got light, their 3rd Division men moved through our lines and attacked, and then we went back to the beach for a rest, after three or whatever it was, three days in the line and not sleeping much at night and not getting much to eat. So we went back to the beach for a rest, and one of the first things that happened was Bill Compton, I mentioned before, Indian boy from Oklahoma, he came up looking for me and he says, ''Oh, man. This is great. They hump up just like a deer when you hit them.''

We talked for a while and then he went back for his outfit. Well, the next time I heard about Compton, he was what we'd call a ''warrior,'' not a Marine. There's a difference between a warrior and a Marine. A warrior loves to fight; a Marine is just there because he's patriotic I suppose, or something. Anyways, he was the first guy to charge in a morning charge and some Japanese was laying a few yards in front of him and shot him through the groin, so we lost a dear friend. …

When the night came, instead of having every other guy awake, we had like one in four guys awake because we were back off the front lines. All of a sudden, and you sleep with your helmet on, you don't take it off, and all of a sudden there was one heck of a racket and I, oh, boy, here's that bonsai charge they're always talking about.

So I tipped my helmet and looked out, and it looked much greater than any Fourth of July you've ever seen. The Japanese hit an ammunition dump. My reaction, and we were maybe 75 yards away at the most, I would say, being generous, I looked at that and I thought oh, ammunition dump, and I went right back to sleep. You don't sleep. You're in that hazy. You're aware of every noise that goes on, but you're still not 100 percent awake. So that was our rest and relaxation in reserve.

But before dawn we were up and back, they took us back in the lines before light so that we wouldn't be shelled as we — anytime that you get a group of people together, they're going to shell or if an automatic weapon goes off, they're going to put mortars or something on it — so we moved out. Again, we hadn't gotten to the second airfield yet. We were ordered to move out, and I think this was sometime around midday —incidentally it rained off and on several days which made it that much more miserable —we started to move out and, of course, you're up and you're running and you're down and you're up and you're running and you're down.

When we hit the main Japanese defense line between the two airfields, a Jap officer in total dress uniform and his men got up and they charged at us. I think you'd say, if you were a hunter, that they flushed. Of course, everybody shot, our whole line shot, their whole line shot. And before I could stop, I landed right next to that Jap officer. And I mean next to him. We were that close.

As soon as I hit I heard one of our officers, I recognized his voice, he says, ''Pix on that Jap officer.'' In other words, touch him and we're going to shoot you in the back or something like, maybe that wasn't it, but he wanted that samurai sword. And of course I had made a deal with myself that I just wasn't going to take souvenirs. But that just kind of sticks in your head, that somebody would do that.

Another experience we had in between the airfields was three of us were down in a kind of ravine and the ravine pitched up over maybe 200 yards or so or 100 yards, and they had a Japanese 37 millimeter artillery piece they couldn't locate. So they order us three to move up that draw to draw fire, and of course we'd only moved once or twice before they saw the flash of this gun, and then they called us back.

Well, when they called us back I think they realized that, you know, it was kind of traumatic to charge up a valley like that looking for an artillery piece, so they called us back up to the top of the hill there and they gave us K-rations. We looked around for places to eat, and there was no place to sit down except a pile of Japs about as high as this table that were lined up. We sat on them. It was kind of gory, but you're looking for baseline information. …