Our two-week period of intense field training - commonly but inaccurately called Boot Camp - is over and we have managed to field a unit of performers and volunteers who have the exciting look, feel and spirit of World War II era U.S. Marines. We worked day and night in a heavy jungle environment near Daintree in Tropical North Queensland managing to survive and thrive on an average of only three (mostly uninterrupted) hours of sleep among the snakes, spiders, stinging plants and bunker rats that populate the area. Providing nighttime interruptions and stiff resistance to all of our field excursions was a platoon of local Japanese volunteers under the leadership of Warriors Inc. Lt. Brad Hartsell (a WW II IJA expert) with Sgts. Izumihara and Nagashima who turned our honorable enemy into serious Imperial Japanese Army soldiers. During training phase we organized and operated as a Marine Heavy Weapons Company as most of our main characters (Basilone, Leckie and Sledge) were 1st MarDiv heavy weapons Marines. We mastered employment of such weapons as the M2 37mm infantry AT cannon, M1917A1 water-cooled machineguns and 81mm and 60mm mortars as well as all the individual weapons of the period. The field phase of our training culminated with an attack on a Japanese fortified position on a jungle mountaintop and an opposed beach landing from the Coral Sea via LVT-4s and LCVPs (Higgins Boats). We survived and thrived with only one man lost to light duty and another who required medical evacuation from the field. Now we are into the attack phase of the mission and beginning to get the early history of the Division on film as we start our saga with Guadalcanal in August 1942. It's genuine magic for those of us who served with the 1st Marine Division in later periods to gaze up at the star-studded Australian night sky and spot the Southern Cross that is featured so prominently on our division insignia. Stand by for more from the battle front. Semper Fidelis!