With the Old Breed, by E. B. Sledge is remarkable for its focus on the lot of a Marine in the Pacific battles of World War II. Only the barest high-level view is presented, just enough to give the reader the context in which Sledge and his fellow Marines fought. This is not an analysis of the battles on Peleliu and Okinawa, but rather a straightforward description of what it was like for an ordinary American frontline soldier to be in those battles. Sledge was a member of a 60mm mortar team, and spent most of his time in those battles at or immediately behind the front lines.
The prose is neither worshipful nor breathless, and is consequently all the more believeable. I came away from reading this book with exactly what I'd hoped for in a descriptive history: knowledge of what actually happened. The brutality of some scenes from this book are quite shocking, even to someone like me who has read extensively about World War II. At the same time, more recent brutality on display from Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations reminds one that mankind's capacity for such brutality has not disappeared.
Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in learning about the Pacific theater in World War II.
I'm glad my country never needed me to fight in any way that resembles how these men fought – and I'm profoundly grateful that there are men capable of doing so.
This book was made into the recent miniseries Pacific. I have not seen the miniseries myself (I rarely watch television at all any more), but a friend and fellow history buff assures me that it resembles the book in only the most obscure and irrelevant ways, essentially filtering the entirely apolitical book through a progressive, politically-correct lens. That assessment is more than enough to ensure that I will never watch the miniseries!
No comments:
Post a Comment