Bissinger first learned of the Mosquito Bowl by chance, through a passing mention he found while working on another book. “It sounded ludicrous to me and totally unimaginable,” he says. A program survived, with both teams’ rosters, and then he learned that all but one of the men on them had since died. The lives behind those names emerged from what their families had kept: letters, report cards, pictures drawn in childhood.
The game stemmed from an argument. The former college players in the 29th were sure they could beat the former college players in the 4th. The rosters held three All-Americans, seven former captains, and close to 20 men who had been drafted by NFL teams or would go on to play in the league. By December, the regiments had drilled for months, and the drilling had gone stale; men were getting antsy, Bissinger says, and antsy men “get this thousand-yard stare.” The division’s commander, Major General Lemuel Shepherd, was looking for a way to lift their spirits. “When morale flags, Marines get worried,” Bissinger explains, reconstructing the general’s reasoning. “They preoccupy themselves with death, and we need some diversion.” Shepherd approved the game, and the Marines worked hard to make it resemble the real thing. “This was about joy,” Bissinger says. “It was about doing something that they loved, that for many of them would be the last thing they would ever do that they loved.”