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My decision to write The Quack Corps began upon the birth of my first grandson. While driving by a local cemetery, I realized he wouldn't know much about my life. I might not live until he became old enough to understand what I would like to tell him, particularly the five-plus year gap in my life while serving in the United States Marine Corps. I realized too that my sons, brothers, sisters, and other descendants, wouldn't know those war-years' details because World War II mail censorship was extremely tight. Seldom could I write about my activities or location. I didn't return postwar to my home area to live so visits with the brothers and sisters were infrequent. They didn't ask for wartime details and I didn't volunteer them. That realization triggered the writing my life story and placing it in a loose-leaf-folder for them and my descendants.
Later, I realized I had participated in, and survived, many historical events and my personal knowledge about them should be passed on to younger generations. I realized too that much of history is written by people who hadn't participated in or helped during the making of it and, in many cases, hadn't yet been born. As a result, some historians relied on inaccurate information recorded about some of those events that had been included in media or battle-action reports, perpetuating those errors until they became considered as historical fact.
I decided that the military portion of my experiences would be of most interest to a larger number of readers of military history and narrowed the scope mostly to the war years, with a short postcript at the end. Preparation of the manuscript began on a manual portable typewriter. Relating an event or incident triggered others and I felt compelled to complete the manuscript as soon as possible. As a consequence, I worked many nights until 5:30 a.m. My goals were to have the information accurate and written in such a way that young people and women would read and relate to the events as I had described them. Apparently, I was successful because numerous high school and older students I have worked with over the Internet for many years have e-mailed that information. Many books about war dwell on the blood and gore that a person is exposed to in wars, to the extent readers become bored or feel revulsion and quit reading them. I decided to keep that type of information to a minimum and to include humor where possible. Also, to cover other events and incidents that happened during and between battles. Some of them are almost unbelievable. I also tried to revert to the mind set I had during my 18 to 23-years of age.
During my almost five-and-one-half years as a Marine, I had a wide diversity of duties that few Marines could match during service in a like number of years; Each of them contributes many tales to The Quack Corps, A Marine's War – Pearl Harbor to Okinawa.
Arthur W. Wells