Old Breed Is a Memoir

¶ … Old Breed is a memoir by a Marine who fought on the South Pacific front during World War II. World War II is often called a good war, or a justified war, but the recollections of E.B. Sledge and his experiences fighting in the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa, two of the most critical conflicts of the Eastern Front demonstrate that no war is truly 'good.' Sledge enlisted in the Marines immediately after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Then, he was an idealistic college freshman, delighted to embark upon an adventure like his boyhood heroes, and reared on a doctrine of patriotism and hard work in his home state of Alabama. On his way to boot camp, after enlisting, he writes, "everyone was in high spirits, as though we were headed for a picnic instead of boot camp -- and a war." (7) Along with the other recruits, Sledge proudly cashed his meal ticket in for his first fancy dinner, perhaps, he ruefully recalled, his last good meal before the dehydrated "chow" on the sweltering Eastern Front, where provisions were scarce and intestinal poisoning was a constant danger to the soldiers from contaminated water or food. (167)

Basic training in San Francisco robbed Sledge of many of his illusions that he could easily become a natural soldier, although he learned quickly in comparison to some of the other men. "We believed that the Japs couldn't kill us if he didn't scare us to death," he wrote of one of his boot camp trainers. (14) Later, he described the group he trained with as chafing at the bit, after all they had learned, to embark upon war. However, Sledge's bravery began to ebb as he embarked upon the real work of fighting. Stomach in knots, waiting in a cold sweat amidst bursting shells and clouds of shellfire, he lived in constant fear in the reality of war. (55) Kill or be killed was the rule of the day.

In his account, Sledge brings insight as to how the different sides of the war were viewed, even by the American military officers. Sledge was instructed during basic training that if fighting "Japs," he should "kick him [a Japanese soldier] in the balls before he kicks you in yours," and was counseled that knives were especially effective fighting the Japanese because of their underhanded tactics. (18) The Japanese enemies were seen as less ethical and more desperate combatants than the Germans, because of their kamikaze warplane tactics. The idea of the Germans as more compassionate adversaries seems ironic in light of the revelations of the Nazi death camps in the aftermath of V-E day, but Sledge's account shows how, at the time, racial views of 'the enemy' permeated even the American side. The eyewitness depiction of this attitude also shows why Japanese-American's patriotism was called into question by the American government over the course of the war, unlike German-American's patriotism.

Sledge's book even contains photographs of dead Japanese soldiers, lying on the fields of combat, which seem disrespectful from a more distanced eye, but understandable, if not excusable, given what Sledge had been through, and the ideology into which he had been indoctrinated. His experiences shook him to the core of his being. Throughout the conflicts he witnessed, to keep his sanity, Sledge tucked his recorded thoughts into the pages of a New Testament, which he kept with him always.