My father was a racist but I can understand it.
I only got two out of him.
He felt very lucky because he was on the bridge of the ship standing between the Captain and First Officer when it was strafed by a zero and the the captain was killed and the first officer seriously wounded, he didn't have a scratch.
He went in with a battalion of marines at Tarawa and he survived along with a handful of marines; A battalion is about 800 men.
My uncle, father's brother, served in the 82nd. He had another brother that I never met that also served in Europe. When he came back I guess he just "disappeared."