Here is my grandfather, Marine Cpl. John Barclay. He was killed in action on July 23 1944, 9 days before his 27th birthday and three days after the 3rd Marine Division invaded Guam. Although these seem like sharp details, my ideas about my grandfather were always soft focus, like this picture, which was the only one I’ve ever seen of him, carefully mounted in the big leather family album. In watching the second episode of the The War, seeing the coverage of the invasions of the Marianas Islands and of Guam itself, I suddenly thought, “this is what my grandfather was like.” Not soft and rosy cheeked, but hard, a hardened wan warrior (family stories say he had re-enlisted in the Marines, infuriating my grandmother) a sharpshooter who had trained at Guadalcanal, and was walking into a hell of well dug-in and hidden Japanese positions. His military record says he was killed by sniper fire in the hills leading up from the beaches.