The letter arrived on a calm Saturday morning folded between the bills, I stood there for five minutes in shock of the letter I had just received. I… had just been drafted to join the Marines.

I broke the news to my wife later that day, she just burst into tears asking me, "how am I going to look after our son on my own?"

I stayed up all night thinking how am I going to get out of this. A few weeks later, I got onto the bus taking me to Point Clear Marine Training Command in Baldwin County, Alabama, for basic training.

After training camp finished we got put onto the boat and started to head off to Hawaii. We refueled and went off to Iwo Jima. The A company commander told us to get into the briefing room where we were told what sector of the beach we were going to storm. I was petrified but I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to be seen as weak.

Tomorrow morning we will be storming the black beaches of Iwo Jima and then once we've captured the beaches we will wait before pushing the hill. I was terrified to hear this, I think we all were secretly.

We woke up and got into our gear and went to the deck to pray before we got into the landing craft. We started heading off to the beach with mortars exploding all around our boat. Then the ramp dropped and a barrage of bullets zipped through the people at the front of the boat.

I stormed out tripping over the bodies trying to get to a sand bank for cover then, ZIP…