In Footsteps of the Marines
“Fall in, goddammit, on the double!”
We were off on our first hike in New Zealand.
‘A half-mile to the camp gate, then two miles down the highway and a right turn up the slowly winding dirt road. It twisted in a slow rise for nearly four miles. We called it the Little Burma road. From the top, fifteen hundred feet up, we could see the rolling green hills, small dotted farms, and in the distance the ocean. Then we raced over the hills … and through the woods until we wound up in back of Camp Mackay, and Paekākāriki, which we could see far below us.’
From Battle Cry by Leon Uris
Leon Uris served in the South Pacific, where he was stationed at Camp Mackay, and fought as a radioman in combat on Guadalcanal and Tarawa from 1942 through 1945. In his first novel, Battle Cry, Uris described his war experiences. His most famous book was Exodus. Both were filmed.