So Long Joe

There is, of course, nothing romantic or enviable about war. It is something that brings out the very worst and the very best in people - a man's true character is exposed for all to see. I know that war has always been and always will be part of the human condition. In a world without war, considering all human frailty, we would be left with benevolent (or malevelent) tyranny. History has proven, over and over again, that somethimes war is neccesary, sometime it is just and occasionally it is the only option.

There is nothing wrong with children playing at war, so long as someone within the family explains that war is not simply a game. Playing with heroes and villians is an important part of a child developing into a man - so long, as I said they eventually come to see that the world is not so simple as all that.

So we have the venerable GI Joe, a man that I came to know and love as a child. He was a Marine but more than that. In his career after the Corps he performed every sort of exciting, adventurous job imaginable. I recall that he was a smoke jumper, an "Indiana Jones" sort of adventurer and a dozen other things (in the 1970's Hasbrio downplayed his Marine past and released several personifications of Joe performing these other adventurous but non-military functions).

To me these "politics" did not matter, Joe was always a Marine, no matter what other function he might perform. Perhaps I did not understand the technicalities but it was simple to me, Joe could always put on the uniform, no matter what image Hasbrio tried to sell. I owned the original (I guess) version of Joe from the early 1960's - he was a heck of a hero to me in my young childhood.

Now it seems that Joe is just not international enough, he is too American. Paramount would fashion Joe as not a man, but rather some international group of co-ed commando's fighting for world peace and harmony. Stripping Joe of his true historical connection and his identity.

Consider the story of the real Joe, the man GI Joe was fashioned to look like, the man that inspired the true action hero. (from Review Journal)

On Nov. 15, 2003, an 85-year-old retired Marine Corps colonel died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta, Calif., southeast of Palm Springs. He was a combat veteran of World War II. His name was Mitchell Paige.

It's hard today to envision -- or, for the dwindling few, to remember -- what the world looked like on Oct. 25, 1942 -- 65 years ago.

The U.S. Navy was not the most powerful fighting force in the Pacific. Not by a long shot. So the Navy basically dumped a few thousand lonely American Marines on the beach at Guadalcanal and high-tailed it out of there.

On Guadalcanal, the Marines struggled to complete an airfield that could threaten the Japanese route to Australia. Admiral Yamamoto knew how dangerous that was. Before long, relentless Japanese counterattacks had driven the supporting U.S. Navy from inshore waters. The Marines were on their own.

As Platoon Sgt. Mitchell Paige and his 33 riflemen set about carefully emplacing their four water-cooled .30-caliber Brownings on that hillside, 65 years ago this week -- manning their section of the thin khaki line that was expected to defend Henderson Field against the assault of the night of Oct. 25, 1942 -- it's unlikely anyone thought they were about to provide the definitive answer to that most desperate of questions: How many able-bodied U.S. Marines does it take to hold a hill against 2,000 armed and motivated attackers?

But by the time the night was over, "The 29th (Japanese) Infantry Regiment has lost 553 killed or missing and 479 wounded among its 2,554 men," historian Lippman reports. "The 16th (Japanese) Regiment's losses are uncounted, but the 164th's burial parties handled 975 Japanese bodies. ... The American estimate of 2,200 Japanese dead is probably too low."

You've already figured out where the Japanese focused their attack, haven't you? Among the 90 American dead and seriously wounded that night were all the men in Mitchell Paige's platoon. Every one. As the night of endless attacks wore on, Paige moved up and down his line, pulling his dead and wounded comrades back into their foxholes and firing a few bursts from each of the four Brownings in turn, convincing the Japanese forces down the hill that the positions were still manned.

The citation for Paige's Medal of Honor picks up the tale: "When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt. Paige, commanding a machine gun section with fearless determination, continued to direct the fire of his gunners until all his men were either killed or wounded. Alone, against the deadly hail of Japanese shells, he fought with his gun and when it was destroyed, took over another, moving from gun to gun, never ceasing his withering fire."

In the end, Sgt. Paige picked up the last of the 40-pound, belt-fed Brownings and did something for which the weapon was never designed. Sgt. Paige walked down the hill toward the place where he could hear the last Japanese survivors rallying to move around his flank, the belt-fed gun cradled under his arm, firing as he went.

Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley was the first to discover how many able-bodied United States Marines it takes to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat.

On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring.

The hill had held, because on the hill remained the minimum number of able-bodied United States Marines necessary to hold the position.

And that's where the unstoppable wave of Japanese conquest finally crested, broke, and began to recede. On an unnamed jungle ridge on an insignificant island no one ever heard of, called Guadalcanal.

When the Hasbro Toy Co. called some years back, asking permission to put the retired colonel's face on some kid's doll, Mitchell Paige thought they must be joking.

But they weren't. That's his mug, on the little Marine they call "G.I. Joe." At least, it has been up till now.

Mitchell Paige's only condition? That G.I. Joe must always remain a United States Marine.

It took just one tough 'sumbeach' on that hill to hold, that was the minimal number of able-bodied Marines required. I am not a warmonger, but wars happen and a free people - if they are to remain free, occasionally need heroes. Mitchell Paige was just such a hero, among thousands but because of his own character and the cruel combination of fate that placed him on that hill he showed that he was just such a hero- he through the image of GI Joe has represented the sort of hero free people require at times.

Now it seems that is just not good enough....