Known as the Boys of ’45, Marine veterans of the Pacific island-hopping campaigns included eighteen- to twenty-one-year-olds and career Marines who had served in every clime and place. They included the 3d, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions and support units, as well as sailors, corpsmen, surgeons, Seabee, and airmen, and the 5th Fleet and its support units. All were there on or offshore of Iwo Jima, where they fell on the black sand beach and on the terraces, on the flat land and in the quarries, on the high ground and in the gullies, and some went down with their carrier. They were all there and then no more, crossing the threshold of duty for their country into the crucible of the ages. 6821 were killed in action or died of wounds, and the dead are remembered with dedication to all who never returned.
