and realizing that he may be permanently crippled, Ken asks Moe to kill him. Doubting that they will ever get back to the U.S. Because Ken is still unable to walk, Moe begins to resent his dependency on him, causing tension between them. Ken begins to worry that, seven months after the invasion, the army considers them dead and tells Moe that his wife has probably already been notified that he has been killed. After Moe buries the soldiers, they move into the camp and check the radio, but find that it is not functioning. Early the next morning, Moe carries Ken on his back to the ridge above the Japanese compound, but before they can attack, they witness the Japanese committing mass hara-kiri, causing Ken to wonder if, perhaps, the war may be over and they will be rescued. Ken then suggests that they destroy the Japanese camp with the few grenades they have left and pick off any survivors with the rifle. When Moe becomes even more disturbed by the killings, Ken discusses a play, William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, in which he appeared while in school and quotes the line, "Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret." Having calmed Moe, Ken asks him about the "whistle" he wears around his neck and Moe explains that it is a mezuzah, a Jewish good luck charm. ![]() Later, as Moe is burying the soldier, two others spot him and shoot at him, but Moe manages to kill them. The soldier is about to shoot Moe when Ken sees him and throws a knife, killing him. Two days later, on his way back to the cave from catching some fish, Moe is followed by a Japanese soldier. He is filled with remorse that he, a thirty-five-year-old accountant with a wife and child, has become a killer. Back at the cave, Moe, affected by the fact that this was the first man he has killed, gets drunk on sake. After Moe discovers a lagoon on the deserted side of the island, he carries the still-immobile Ken there, but they are discovered by a lone Japanese soldier whom Moe is forced to stab to death and bury. Ken is impressed by Moe's ingenuity and grit, but Moe makes light of it by saying that he does not want Ken to die because then he would be alone. Using only a bayonet, Moe manages to remove mortar fragments from Ken's back. As Ken is in great pain from his wound, Moe returns to the camp that night, breaks into a hut and takes food, medicinal supplies and a rifle. ![]() While Ken sleeps, Moe explores the island and locates the Japanese camp half a mile away. ![]() The other soldier, Ken, tells Moe that he was a Class C baseball pitcher before the war. Upon coming across another soldier, wounded in the back but still alive, Moe carries the soldier inland and finds a cave for them to hide in. When a Japanese patrol checks the bodies, one uninjured soldier, Moe Malamuth, feigns death and, after the patrol moves on, Moe makes his way along the beach. Their landing craft comes under heavy fire, however, and consequently, most of the soldiers are killed. During Word War II, twenty American soldiers are assigned to reclaim a small, strategic Pacific island from the Japanese.
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