Bill Swanson enlisted in the fall of 1942.
He was a California kid, 18 years old and inspired by stories of American boys hitting the beach on Guadalcanal. Considering his options for military service, Swanson preferred the Marine Corps because of its reputation for being the first to fight and its celebrated esprit de corps. Thoughts of excitement and high adventure were foremost on his mind. “The worst of times would come later,” he said of the decision to serve. “But we scarcely gave it a thought.”
In the fine new memoir The View From My Foxhole (Permuted Press, 2022), Swanson, now 98 years old, writes of his tour as a Marine Private fighting in the Pacific. The story is authentic. His style is direct. In about 150 pages, Swanson paints an intimate, firsthand perspective of battle at Bougainville, Guam, and Iwo Jima.
