Triplett enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1943 at the age of 17. “I said 'give me a weapon and put me in the Fleet Marine Force' — that's what I went there for, to fight a war.”
“That's what I looked like when I was 22 — wild and woolly!” joked Triplett.
It would take the country boy from West Virginia to get the fires going on Emirau Island in the South Pacific. Triplett, bottom left, blows on the fire to get it going.