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Guam:Island Paradise
Guam sits like a jewel in the tropical Pacific, a paradise ofbeauty and contrasts. Roughly shaped like a boot thirty mileslong and ten miles wide, the island contains high cliffs, whitebeaches, and swaying palm trees. Jets spew vapor trails in thebright blue sky as waves topped with white foam break away fromthe sea, washing ridges in the sand of the beaches. The Pacificlies beyond, a deep blue, untinged by gray or green.Sometime every day, some part of the island receives rain. Oneresident may find rain pouring in his backyard while the sunshines in the front. One neighbor may work in his yard whileanother watches a shower from his window. A short time later,skies clear over all the isle.Across the road from the outer edges of the housing projectsstand the boondocks, a tightly woven mass of vegetation, theisland jungle. At night the mating call of the wild bucks can beheard, followed by the pounding of hoofs and antlers as twoamorous males fight over one doe. The snort and bellow of thewild boar echoes in the late dark hours of the tropical night.The beach glistens under the warm winter sun as bodies ofdifferent shades of brown, black, white, and sunburn parade inand out of the water. Native Guamanians swim side by side withmilitary and civilian personnel from the military bases. A coralreef nearly one mile toward the ocean separates large waves fromthe beach. At each end of moon-shaped Tumon Beach, a toweringcliff stands guard. Away from the sunny area of the sand, palmtrees stir in the gentle breeze. If one looks closely, nativehuts can be seen far back in the trees.With little warning, the serene blue skies and calm sea can turninto an inferno of wicked winds, pounding rain, and black skieswhen a typhoon hits. The rain seems forced through the walls bythe fierce winds that whip, that drive the storm. The typhoon,the enemy of the islands, sweeps over and through with extremedestruction, laying waste all that does not yield before itsfury.Guam portrays calm seas and whipping waves; jet trails and wildboar; native huts and housing projects; white sands and militarybands. The paradise, a place of beauty, a place of contrast,lies like a jewel in the Pacific.
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