I was fortunate I was able to spend some time with guys like this at a little gun range one day in about 1982. They were out shooting their CMP M1 Garands, we struck up a conversation and were invited to shoot the Garands and hear some stories. They charged us $1.00 a clip for ammo after the first free one, I think I fired 8 clips at 100yds. and kept most of them in the black. My eyes were better then LOL.
If you were to call them Hero’s, they would have blushed and shrugged you away. 
I love these recounts. I hope I am half as cognizant as this guy if/ when I get to be 100 years old. And so nonchalant! So matter of fact! Imagine what he witnessed behind his BAR. To top it off he went to both theaters. May not have fought in Japan, but he HAD to be thinking about it the whole way over. This guy is/was Superman!
My Korean War era father, upon arriving in Korea in 1951, traded his M1 Garand and the 120 rounds they were required to lug around – way too heavy to walk around with – for an M1 Carbine. Then, after experiencing a Chinese wave attack that the fended off with a 50 cal machine gun ('cause the M1s could not reach out far enough), he traded his M1 carbine for a BAR.
Since he was a sergeant (he was promoted because at age 21, he was the oldest in his unit), he was assigned a driver and a jeep, so lugging around a BAR was not an issue. When it came time to leave Korea, he traded it for an M1 Garand to turn in. The guy he traded it to complained that the barrel was rusted shut, so my Dad never had to fire the weapon.