This article first ran July 5, 1995 in the Towson Times and other Patuxent Publishing newspapers in Baltimore County. It is part of a package of four stories marking the 70th anniversary of the biggest battle of the war in the Pacific.

If you weren’t on Okinawa, you just won’t understand what went on there.

That’s how many of the veterans of the battle feel about their experiences, and why they’ve shared them so little, even with wives and children.