John Basilone

When I drove down to the Oceanside Tea Party on April 15th, I thought about Camp Pendleton differently than ever before. It's interesting to see John Basilone, who is memorialized across the Marine base, featured as one of the key heroes of Spielberg's "The Pacific." From Wikipedia:

The Marine Corps has named infrastructure for him on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, including an entry point onto the base from Interstate 5 called "Basilone Road"; a section of U.S. Interstate 5 running through the base called "Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone Memorial Highway"; and a parachute landing zone called "Basilone Drop Zone".

Some of the first episodes are playing on rerun right now on HBO. Not as good as "Band of Brothers," but needed nevertheless, over-theatricized or not.