What strikes me about the black and white pictures you chose (and this is nothing on you), is how faceless and hopeless those huddled figures all look.
The "Old Corps" was known for its characters -- Old Gimlet Eye, Hikin' Hiram, Hard Hearted Hannikin, Diamond Lou, Chesty Puller, even Rupe the Stupe, and a slew of others. I think the Corps is best explemplified by brashness and even arrogance. And I bet the Marines that fought the Japs on Tarawa had it all in spades. That artwork doesn't show that. I love the line from the 1974 "Three Musketeers" -- "The King says fight and we fight. Is life worth so many questions?"
And what Pat Cleburne told Govan before the Battle of Franklin: "If we are to be killed, let us die like men."
I don't see anything of that in the artwork you chose (which I bet is official Marine Corps art); that is interesting, but also sad.
The thing to remember about Tarawa and the whole black bloody business of war is what General Patton said (paraphrasing): "Don't cry that such men died; rejoice that such men lived."
Semper Fidelis
Walt