Today I learned that the name of the place where I lived 52 years ago actually has significance.
While my dad served a year in Okinawa, we moved off the main Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune to one of the base’s adjunct housing areas called Tarawa Terrace during his absence from June 1973 to June 1974.
Fast forward to today, and I’m reading Flags of Our Fathers by James D. Bradley with Ron Powers, which is about the 6 men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, and which is an upcoming book in our Mostly Social Book Club.
of the American flag over
Iwo Jima, taken by Joe Rosenthal
on the Island of Iwo Jima, Japan.
By Phan Lee McCaskill, USN
And lo and behold, this passage appears in a section talking about World War II: “And from the Pacific, the radio commentators had been sending stirring reports of U.S. Navy and Marine victories with names such as Midway and Tarawa.”
I had no idea there was a “Battle of Tarawa” and that’s what the Tarawa Terrace housing area was named after. Also, with regards to “Midway,” there was also a housing area, just off the base for the low-ranking enlisted soldiers’ families, called Midway Park, which I now know was named after the Battle of Midway.
As Bob would say, “I wonder what else I don’t know I don’t know.”
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