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After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, millions of young American men were eager to join up and defend their country. William Swanson was among them.
The View from My Foxholetells William Swanson’s story of fighting in the jungles of Bougainville and Guam and the ash heap of Iwo Jima. Through it he maintains his sense of humor and thanks his lucky stars for every day he survives.
FromTHE VIEW FROM MY FOXHOLE:
We move past the torn bodies of our buddies, hoping and praying that we will be spared, yet knowing in our hearts that many will not. Fear is on me again—fear of death, of course—but I have found that it is relatively easy to resign oneself to death and, on occasion, even welcome the thing. It is really the violence, the pain, the suddenness, and unpredictability of events that tear our insides. We cannot be sure of anything—not the next step or the next second—and that is the real terror.
William “Bill” Swanson was born in August 1924 in Taft, California. His parents, William E. and Helen Sall, were first generation children of Swedish immigrant farmers. Helen died tragically a couple of weeks after the birth of their second son, Glen, in 1926. Then in Glendale, California, a single father with an infant and young son, William tried desperately to provide for his boys and keep his job, hiring housekeepers and neighbors to watch the boys. Ultimately raised by their loving grandmother, Bill and Glen remained there until the outbreak of WWII and Bill’s enlistment in the United States Marine Corps.
After the war, Bill returned to Glendale where he met his future wife Rita Dolores Rockefeller. They married in Santa Barbara and took their honeymoon along the coast to San Francisco. They bought a small house in the orange grove suburbs of L.A., raised two children, and later had two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Bill retired from the City of Los Al£.
![The View from My Foxhole: A Marine Private's Firsthand World War II Combat Experience from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima [Hardcover]](/itemImage/2/4/0/7/2_5380007.jpg "The View from My Foxhole: A Marine Private's Firsthand World War II Combat Experience from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima [Hardcover]")