Romus Burgin

Romus Valton Burgin (born August 13, 1922) is a former U.S. Marine and American author.

Born to Joseph Harmon Burgin and Beulah May (née Perry) Burgin in Jewett, Texas.

During World War II, Burgin joined the United States Marine Corps on November 13, 1942, and was assigned to the 9th Replacement Battalion. He soon became a mortar-man in K-Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division (K-3-5), and fought in the Pacific War at Cape Gloucester, then alongside his friend, Eugene Sledge, on Peleliu, and Okinawa. Burgin was promoted to the rank of sergeant upon reaching Okinawa.

He is the author of the memoir Islands of the Damned (with William Marvel). He was awarded a Bronze Star for his actions in the Battle of Okinawa on 2 May 1945, when he destroyed a Japanese Machine Gun emplacement that had his company pinned down. He also was going to be awarded a Silver Star for taking out a pillbox on Peleliu by Captain Haldane (Ack-Ack), however Haldane was killed by sniper fire before he could submit it. He was wounded on 20 May, and received a Purple Heart. He returned to his company after spending 20 days in a field hospital and remained with them for the duration of the battle.

While in Melbourne he met and then later married an Australian girl named Florence Risely in Dallas on January 29, 1947. After the war he went to work for the United States Post Office. Burgin and his wife would have four daughters. He currently lives in Lancaster, Texas.

His younger brother Joseph Delton ("Joe" or "J.D.") Burgin (March 24, 1926-February 17, 1945) joined the U. S. Army, changing his year of birth from 1926 to 1925, and was sent to Europe, as a member of Company "C", 274th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division ("Trailblazers"). Joseph died in Alsace-Lorraine on February 17, 1945 when he was killed by artillery fire near the river Saar and the town of Forbach, as they moved east toward Saarbrücken on the other side of the river, as part of a push against the Siegfried Line. He is buried at the Sardis Cemetery next to his parents.

Burgin is portrayed in the HBO miniseries The Pacific by Martin McCann. Burgin himself appears in documentary footage during the miniseries.