No lek surveys today... rain.

The heelers and I headed out anyway, just because sometimes the desert is clear and sunny while the Divide is socked in. No such luck today. So they got a quick, wet run in the country and I get to read diaries for a while.

Corky's truck is still there. So is the little white car.

Ran across a diary a little while back where the diarist listed her answers to a 31 question personality profile. It was fun to read. Now I can't find her again, not even in my history. Arkham13 did the same thing recently. I think it would be fun to do, but I ramble too much. A long list of questions would yield an encyclopedia.

For example, her question #28:

What's under your bed?

I cannot speak for the wife's half but, besides the dust bunnies of white and red heeler hair, my side has two long boxes. The first, which is the original manufacturer's box, holds my collection of plastic dinosaurs, started when I was probably less than five.

The second box, also the original manufacturer's, holds my toy soldiers. These are the green American and tan Japanese plastic soldiers from the Iwo Jima set. If you're not a history buff, Iwo Jima is a small island south of Japan. The Japanese had an airbase on it in World War II, and we took the island late in the war "at great cost of life." The pictures, statues and monuments you see of the six men raising the American flag in a small pile of rocks all replicate the second flag raising on Mount Suribachi, the volcano on the south end of Iwo Jima.

In addition to the soldiers, the set includes a tank, truck, several pillboxes, plastic rocks and rolls of plastic barbed wire. Quite a few of the soldiers, mainly Japanese, are melted and scorched because I took up the habit of stripping black powder out of fireworks and adding my own pyrotechnics to my battles.

The most precious toy is the American soldier running with his Colt .45 in his right hand and a small case in his left.

The Medic.

My Dad was a medic on Iwo Jima. I knew this when I got the toy set, although he never talked about it. I did know the reason he couldn't walk far without rest was because he was shot on Iwo Jima, shot trying to save a wounded man.

So the Medic was always the hero in my battles, and always got shot.

Dad has talked more about his experiences in the past five to ten years, and my sister is helping him write down his memoirs.

It wasn't until this winter that he told me what was in the kit they carried. Prior to hitting the beach in the landing craft, each medic was issued 24 vials of morphine. Twenty-four shots of painkiller for 24 casualties. The commanders knew casualties would be high, and warned them the 24 vials would only last two to three days.

Imagine being just 21 years old, well trained but totally inexperienced in either combat or emergency medicine, and being told you are expected to handle two dozen wounded or dying men in the next two to three days.

I watched Saving Private Ryan once. I do not want to see it again. I cried through the beach landing scenes. My Dad actually did that. A different beach, halfway around the world, with fine black volcanic sand. But the same War, the same boats, the same carnage.

My Dad used up all 24 vials in his first three hours on the beach.

Three hours.

My God.