Oral History Interview with Benjamin Cranefield, November 11, 2011 Page: 20

                                
months...maybe...something like that...and I was going with this girl. We
went to a 4th of July fireworks and...just as it started (explosion sounds)...like
that...just exactly the same sound as an incoming mortar! And I'm scratching
on the ground...trying to make a foxhole...before I realized that...what was
happening. But that was too real...you know. That...that really wasn't
funny. They thought it might have been funny but I didn't. (laughter) But
other than that it didn't bother me, you know. I...I guess I was lucky that
way. Now we had a president of our association that...that drove a LCM and
he didn't take troops; he took jeeps and he took cargo and stuff like that, but
he...and all the coxswains met with the captain at...just before the invasion of
Iwo Jima...the night before and the captain said, "I don't care what else you
do, you're going to follow this order to the letter or...or you're gonna wish
you had of." And so he said, "When you start that run for the beach you're
going to keep that line straight...all the way to the beach. I don't care if
there's...if there's water that's crawling with people, you're still going to do
it!" And so I guess he...I guess he could have just imagined running over
people...or whatever. And when he got to the beach, then he has to drop the
ramp and...if there's somebody down there, he's going to hit them. But...so

that...that bothered him and...as the years go...went by he kept on...he kept
getting worse and worse and worse. I talked to him one day for thirty...forty
minutes and he says, "I don't know what to do." And I said, "I don't know
either," you know...how to handle it. But that got...post
traumatic...whatever...

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