August 17th, 1944

It’ll be five years next month. Five long, bloody years we’ve been in this.

Five is a pretty small number, contrasted to the rest of those associated with this. Thirty cities in ruins. Ninety-one ships sunk. One hundred seventy-eight planes downed. Three hundred one thousand, six hundred fifty-six men MIA. More than double that KIA. And by tomorrow, I’ll be back here, writing again, scribbling out those numbers, and replacing them with the new tallies.

My division has been in the jungles for fifty-one days now. Well, at least what’s left of the jungles. What once was revered as being a place of beauty and solace, has now become its’ bitter foil. Trees and other plant life crushed and burned lines the jungle floor, speckled with the occasional human or animal corpse, in various conditions. It really goes to show how bitter our race has become.

I’ve gotten used to the smell of bodies, at least. There’s some who still haven’t, and boy do I feel sorry for them. Almost every day I see a group of them off in the bushes, puking their guts out. There’s been lot of mental breakdowns, too. Almost every day the companies have to send men back to the psych ward at Fort Grey. Makes you feel lucky.

Speaking of lucky, we lost another platoon last night. They were out on a night raid, about 2km south-east, at a UE encampment. We lost radio contact with them at around 2345h, and found their bodies, along with an empty camp, this afternoon. May they rest in peace.

Anyways, it’s getting real close to dinner time, and I think we get those fancy MRE’s with the meatloaf tonight. I’ll try and write tomorrow.