- After arduous months in Guadalcanal, exhausted Marines are given rest and recreation in Melbourne, where they find the girls friendly and the beer cold.
- After four months of combat on Guadalcanal, the 1st Marine Division is relieved and the men are transported to Melbourne, Australia. Shocked and befuddled by the heroes' welcome they receive, the men soon find that they are in something akin to paradise with plenty to eat, drink and an endless number of beautiful women to keep them company. Sid Phillips meets a young girl, Gwen, whose grandfather makes sure he understands the rules of behavior when it comes to his granddaughter. Bob Lechie meets Stella Karamanlis on a tram and is soon taken in by her family who see in him the son they never had. Bob and Stella are soon lovers but the war and the never-ending pall of death casts a shadow on their relationship. John Basilone is awarded the Medal of Honor and soon realizes that he can no longer act like he did before. He also has to leave his men when he's asked to return to the US to help sell War Bonds.—garykmcd
- Physically and mentally debilitated after the four-month ordeal on Guadalcanal, Leckie, Basilone and thousands of their comrades land in Melbourne, where they are greeted by adoring crowds and viewed as the saviors of Australia. While his buddies carouse, Leckie becomes deeply attached to an Australian woman and her first-generation Greek family. Meanwhile, Basilone is awarded the Medal of Honor and is asked to return home to help sell U.S. war bonds.—HBO Publicity
- Part Three
Melbourne, Australia
The Marines pull up to port, where a joyous throng is waiting to greet them as heroes. Women are declaring their love, waving signs and handkerchiefs and holding streamers aloft. A marching band plays a rousing tune. The men -- filthy, exhausted and still psychologically traumatized from Guadalcanal -- are utterly confused and somewhat put off by the exuberant welcome.
As a truck drives them into town for some R&R, a little boy on a scooter gleefully follows Sgt. John Basilone's truck. "How many Japs you kill, Yank? You kill many Japs?" he asks, wearing a worshipful grin. The sergeant is not amused and returns his question with a tired, resigned stare.
They pull into a strange area and disembark, and once they walk through an underground hallway and up some stairs they realize they've been driven into a sports stadium. They're informed by a voice over a loudspeaker that this is their billeting area. Hoosier lies down for a nap, but Private Robert Leckie sees a few MPs going AWOL. Soon every man is following suit, save for a sleeping Hoosier.
Leckie and his band head into town,and, taking a seat on a curb, enjoy some ice cream. A church bell rings, and one observes it's the sweetest sound they've ever heard.
In a bar, JP Morgan and Basilone sit at a table enjoying beers. A young man in a black jacket and white collar observes them with interest. A bar maid brings them three beers, an empty mug and a shot of every kind of hard liquor imaginable. As Basilone begins emptying all the liquor into a mug she asks what the concoction is called. "A blockbuster," he answers. She grins.
"You're sure going to be trouble tonight," she says. As she walks away, we see one beer has been placed by an empty chair. "Here ya go, Manny," JP says.
"To Manny," says Basilone, as they both clink the ownerless beer. Basilone downs the hard liquor mixture as the man who has been watching them comes up and asks if they have authority to be drinking like that. JP curtly tells the man that they can do whatever they please, and asks him if he shouldn't be fighting Rommel. The Australian man informs them that someone has to keep the peace. Another comes in and they remark that they, and the rest of the Yanks, have made the place feel crowded. They're taking all the beer, the women, the second Aussie says, pretending to joke about it. The first man likens them to roaches.
"Every step we take, bloody hell, there's another Yank under our boot," he says, snarling through a cold grin. JP's temper begins to flare, but when the man pushes it by reaching for Manny's beer, Basilone is the one who gets up and stops him. The man punches Basilone, who reacts by slugging him in the face much harder. The guy goes down and suddenly the bar is split between two kinds of uniforms, Aussie and American. The second man stops the fight and apologizes, ordering another round of drinks for the Americans. Basilone sits back down, drunkenly shakes his head and starts in on his beer.
When night falls, a tipsy Leckie walks through town, flirting with girls and trying to get lucky. Then he sees a sweet brunette get on a tram. He calls to her, "Hey beautiful!" She turns and, seeing him, smiles brightly before disappearing into the car. Leckie drops the bottle he's carrying and runs for the tram car as his buddies dash after him.
Once on board, he finds his lady but trips and falls at her feet as the boys, who have jumped in behind him, laugh. "Proposing already?" she asks playfully.
He replies that he's proposing that she takes a walk with him, and she asks coyly if he knows what take a walk means. (Apparently in Australia, it doesn't refer to an innocent stroll.) He looks at the faces of the ladies around her and blushes as they giggle to themselves.
He begs her forgiveness by way of explaining that he's a foreigner. She's bowled over by his romantic gesture. "You're a bold one sotted," she says, writing down her address and instructing him to collect her from home.
As she gets off the tram she turns and says, "I'm Stella, in case you're wondering what to call me." A joyful Leckie bows and grins. Juergens commends him on his guts, and thanks him. "That made my night!" he says.
The boys sleep in the stadium bleachers until one of the MPs awakens them at daybreak with reveille blared into a microphone. They fall in, hung over and wasted. One collapses flat on his face. Second Lt. Corrigan, looking fairly green himself, dismisses the company.
Lt Col. Puller gives a hung-over Basilone a dressing down in his office for stumbling around drunk as he stands at attention. Basilone remarks politely that he's not alone in that state.
"You are in one respect," Chesty says, going on to inform him that he is about to be awarded the Medal of Honor. "President Roosevelt found you worthy. Congratulations, old man. You're about to go where few Marines have ever been."
Basilone is so shocked that he grips the edge of Chesty's desk, then retches and throws up in the wastebasket his commanding officer puts in front of him. Chesty pats him on the back, helps him stand up straight again, then orders him to get a good breakfast and some coffee, and to return when he's respectable so he doesn't heave all over his citation. He reminds Basilone that the medal is the highest honor the country can bestow upon its servicemen.
"From now on," Chesty finishes, "you try to act like it's yours."
"Yes sir," Basilone says, standing dazed until Chesty tells him to go. As he leaves, Chesty laughs for a moment before turning his nose up at the puke in the wastebasket.
In a bar, Phillips sits with a girl, Gwen, and her grandfather as the old man goes over his rules for dating his granddaughter. The man succeeds in making Phillips look genuinely afraid. Elsewhere in the bar, Basilone is playing drinking games with a local girl when the MPs come in to bust the Marines of being AWOL. One of the men throws a bottle at the MPs, and Phillips politely and cunningly offers to escort Gwen out the back door. The girl kisses her grandfather and leaves. Basilone sneaks out the front and hops in the MPs' jeep to steal it, but JP reminds him that he can't mess things up now that he's about to be honored. Basilone reconsiders and gets back out of the driver's seat so they can escape on foot.
The next day Abel company stands by as Basilone is awarded the Medal of Honor, but during the ceremony he looks as conflicted and sorrowful as he does stern and humbled. As the Medal is placed on him, he salutes. He and JP are teary. The men march by and salute him per military custom.
Later that day, Leckie calls on Stella. He picks a rose from a nearby garden and, as she opens the door, introduces himself as Bob. "I hope you're hungry," she says with a smile, and welcomes him in. She introduces him to her father and mother, Mama and Baba Karamanlis. Stella warns her mother in Greek that he picked the neighbor's roses. Her mother doesn't react but instead tut-tuts over how skinny Leckie is. They sit him down and proceed to lay a feast before him that rivals American Thanksgiving.
When Stella goes to the kitchen to get more food, Leckie asks Mama about how she came from Greece to Australia. She reveals that when her home was sacked by the Turks, she escaped to a dock, swam to a passing ship and eventually ended up in Australia. She remarks with a good bit of sadness that her home is gone but brightly adds she's managed to work and find love in this new place.
In exchange she asks Leckie about his home and he jokes that he escaped the Leckie household. Leckie tells her that he came from a family of five girls and three boys, that his mother was nearly 40 when he came along. He said he was last -- "last is least." Mama, who thinks of such a big family as a blessing, disagrees. She says that Stella is her only blessing, that she prayed for more but it didn't happen.
Mama asks where the Marines are staying and when he tells her about their camp in the stadium, she insists that he stay in their guest room. Leckie says he can never repay them, and Baba says that he can help clear vines from the roof. That night, Leckie is struggling to sleep when Stella sneaks into the room. To Leckie's great surprise, she disrobes and gets in bed with him. They make love.
As they lay together afterward, she asks Leckie why he fled his family. He says they're not a happy bunch. She asks if his brothers went into the service too, and he reveals that one was too old, and the other died. His father's been crippled in his head ever since, he says. Stella reveals she had a brother, but he died when he was a baby. Her mother got sick and couldn't have anymore. Leckie strokes her arm sympathetically.
The next day as Stella and her mother work in the garden Leckie, who is on the roof clearing vines, sits down for a moment and drinks in the sight: Mama folding laundry, Stella looking up at him and smiling as she sorts the vegetables. He takes a sip from a bottle of water and, for a moment, looks content.
In the stadium, Chesty recruits Basilone to raise money for the Marines by selling U.S. war bonds. He explains that the Marines need money for new supplies and weapons. He tells Basilone to pack his bags and head back home, saying he can't sell war bonds stomping around the Solomons.
"Go on, Sergeant," he says. "Get it done." A shocked Basilone surveys his brothers in arms doing calisthenics and training. The last thing he wants to do is leave them.
Stella and Leckie make love in a field, and he gives her gifts: real silk stockings and a leg of lamb. He roasts the lamb over a barbecue spit later in the Karamanlis' backyard as Baba checks the casualty reports for Greek names. He stumbles upon one, a boy Stella grew up with. Killed in action. Leckie tells Stella that he wants to join her family in paying respect to her friend.
Stella and her family head over to the fallen soldier's home, where neighbors are gathered to honor the boy. That night, Leckie lays in bed and plays with his dog tags. Stella peeks her head in and he looks hopeful but she tells him that her mother is still up.
Leckie puts on his clothes and goes out to talk to her. Mama tells him the Greek boys are gone, all the boys Stella grew up with. Mama asks if he goes to church, and he tells her he's Catholic. Mama tells Bob that they need prayers. She goes on to say that they're lucky to have him in the house, that they always wanted a son like him. She says that she's going to pray that he comes back to them. "That's a good thing to pray for," Leckie tells her. She gets up and gently squeezes his shoulder as she heads back inside. Stella, eavesdropping on them from a window, suddenly looks sad.
The next day Leckie heads back to the stadium and finds his fellow Marines packing their gear. R&R is over, time to head out and get back in shape. He doesn't have a chance to tell Stella.
The Marines get on a train and head into the countryside. A few men that aren't in Leckie's company decide to engage in target practice, and succeed in picking off a cow in a field as they pass. Leckie gets up and chastises them for killing some poor farmer's cow. The man shrugs, saying that it's just going to be steak anyway.
"Not if it's a dairy cow, you idiot!" Leckie angrily shouts. The Marine stops but smiles to himself as a friend congratulates him for the great shot.
When they get off the train, Corrigan passes along the orders: Each man will get a sack of raisins and a sack of uncooked rice. He tells them Japanese soldiers can live on that for three weeks. Then they will march 100 miles back to Melbourne, and they will be in the arms of their Aussie girlfriends in three days. With that, the men move out.
Cut to daybreak: The Marines are roused and Leckie discovers he can barely walk due to the blisters on his feet. Hoosier gets up and is in a similar state. He comes over and, taking Leckie's foot, stabs the blister with a knife to relieve the pain.
Days later, they return to the stadium worn out. Leckie dons his dress uniform and returns to Stella, who waits for him on her stoop and has a strange expression on her face. She tells him that he has to go away and never come back. She says she's told Mama and Baba that he got his orders and he couldn't say goodbye.
"You lied," Leckie says.
Stella looks at him sadly and says, "I'm fairly crazy about you, Robert. I think you know that." But, she continues, she doesn't want to have a baby with him. She says that she's not pregnant, but that she and Leckie aren't going to have a family, and they're not getting married, and he's never coming back to Melbourne. He's flabbergasted. She's dumping him because she thinks he's going to get killed.
"Bob, if you don't come back to us, I don't just lose you. Mama does too. I can't do that to her, and I won't let you," Stella tells him.
As he turns to go she adds that Mama has lost so much already, and she's praying for him to come back to them. "She can save her breath," Bob snaps at her. He walks away as Stella starts to weep.
Leckie heads to a bar to drown his sorrow in mugs of beer, then weaves his way back to camp, where he encounters Juergens on guard duty. Juergens desperately has to use the bathroom and forces Leckie to cover for him while he goes, even though Leckie is wasted. Leckie refuses, due to his drunkenness, then takes over as Juergens runs off.
Leckie slumps against the wall with Juergens' sidearm as Corrigan walks up and demands to know what Leckie is doing. Cursing and yelling, Leckie draws the pistol and begins waving it around angrily until Juergens comes back to disarm him and throw him aside. Corrigan orders him to stand at attention, and Leckie tearfully curses at him. Corrigan throws Juergens and Leckie in the brig, where Leckie sits staring hollowly at his hands as the scene fades to black.
On a sunny day in an idyllic park, Phillips is enjoying a picnic with Gwen when an MP rolls up and orders him to report for duty. Gwen, realizing he'll be leaving soon, suddenly looks very worried and brokenhearted.
When Juergens and Leckie emerge from the brig, Corrigan tells him that he received orders to reassign Leckie to the batallion intelligence section. Juergens' jaw drops and Leckie looks defeated.
Phillips and Gwen check into a hotel room and spend their last moments together in bed.
JP walks Basilone to an aircraft on a tarmac. Basilone promises JP that he'll look up Katie, JP's girl, first chance he gets. JP says he's been sending his poker winnings home to her. "Good thing about leaving, I won't lose any more money to ya," Basilone jokes. Then they get serious.
"Wish you were coming with me," he tells JP. Both men have tears in their eyes as the plane's propellers rumble to life. JP extends his hand, and they shake. For a beat they don't move, and they say nothing. Then JP salutes his friend. Basilone returns the salute before getting on the plane.
The next day, the same civilian crowd is back on the on the dock giving the Marines a joyous send-off. This time they cheer back at them. Phillips looks at Gwen who stands in front, smiling. Leckie, brokenhearted, can barely hold it together. Nobody is seeing him off.
The episode ends with Basilone staring glumly out of the window of his plane as it flies him over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
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