With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge

¶ … E.B Sledge starts with his marine training in company K. in the 3D battalion in the 5th regiment of the 1st Marine Division. The memoir is based on two horrific battles which ultimately destroyed the Division. The initial one of these battles was fought at Peleliu. There were over 8769 Americans killed, wounded or missing in action in 10 weeks of battle. Almost the whole enemy garrison on the island was cleared. About 11,000 Japanese perished in the battle. The main concern that Sledge has is to do with his 235 colleagues who survived in company K. His company lost 150 people declared dead, missing or wounded. There is no ill feeling about the mistake that was made to take on Peleliu. The next operation dubbed operation Iceberg that was conducted the following year and meant to capture Okinawa came with worse outcomes. This particular mission was the most disastrous of the missions undertaken before in the Pacific war. The war claimed over 50,000 Americans. 12 500 soldiers were among those killed. This toll was the greatest ever recorded of American fatigues in any mission (Hanson). The author begins his memoir by reminiscing over the deep felling of wanting to explore overseas in combat before the war ended (Sledge 5). This, he joined the marines to accomplish his mission and realize his dreams. Yet, it is the feeling of just being a marine that's most fascinating. Sledge calls it esprit de corps. Sledge along with his friends in company K. tried their best to live up to the expectations of the life of a marine (Hiatt).

The Author's Experiences

The style adopted by Sledge in writing the Old Breed is graphic and rather awful. The company that Sledge fought in did so in the same jungles for many days. He narrates how they witnessed corpses decaying in a variety of terrain and weather. Peleliu was extremely hot while Okinawa was always in the rains. He describes having watched corpse being feasted on by huge blowflies. The accounts are gory and really disgusting to read. He admits having been ordered to dig a fox hole in the same spot as one of the Japanese soldiers had been buried. He discovered the fact when his tool started slicing through the corpse's body. He was commanded to proceed even after making the discovery. Many such incidents suffice. Sledge has done a good job at giving the details of the occurrences. Combat is clearly not glorified (Hiatt).

Sledge narrates a number of incidents in which his colleagues extracted gold teeth from the mouths of the Japanese corpses. Sledge points out that he witnessed one incident in which a Japanese was snatched off his gold teeth while he was still alive. One marine that Sledge was not familiar with, budged in and took a share of the spoils. Sledge narrates that as the marine drove his knife into the mouth of the Japanese soldier that was still alive, Sledge, along with others in company K. shouted him down. In the meantime, another marine went over and drove bullets into the Japanese soldier. The marine that was interested in the gold teeth scooped his target and left in a huff (Sledge 120). He cursed the rest of the company for showing humane feelings. Sledge stopped extracting gold teeth from the mouths of Japanese corpses. However, he tried it yet again. He thought that his father who practiced medicine would be fascinated by the teeth. He pulled out his KABAR knife and leaned with the aim of extracting the teeth. He felt a hand pull at him from the shoulders and pushed him to his senses. Doctor Caswel made strong points of humanity. He was enraged but tried desperately to stay calm. He looked intently at him. Caswel warned Sledge that if he extracted the teeth he would easily pick up some dangerous germs. Sledge discovered that his friend did not really mean germs but that he was only driven by the humane element that stayed uncrushed by the war. He was trying to help him retain an amount of the humane feeling too (Sledge 124).

Sledge recounts the details of the savagery of the war using notes he carefully kept in his copy of the New Testament. His language is modest. The analysis of the battle presents eerie images. Sounds and feels like a dream. The bare descriptions given in a modest fashion heightens the impact of the savagery on the reader's mind. Sledge gives details of a dead medical corpsman ripped apart by American shelling. He recounts the horror of the scene. His abdomen was ripped apart. He says he, for once, thought that it couldn't have been a human being. He compares the dead body with the carcass of a rabbit; one of those he had captured and flayed back in the early boyish escapades in hunting. He narrates how the whole encounter made him feel sick (Hanson).

How can a decent man such as Sledge have endured the sufferings and horrors of such a gory war and still reemerged unscathed to take us back memory lane with details of the horror of the war. The ground theater of war that was the Pacific during WW; all the way from Guadalcanal to Okinawa almost got the better of Sledge. It consumed thousands of American youths. It was a disaster unlike any other ever experienced by America at war. Sledge describes the war as an existential struggle with annihilation perspective. The killings were powered by political, social, and racial tendencies which none was given or even asked. The turmoil across the sea, the huge and intimidating fleet of the Japanese army and the all more important priority for America to defeat the Nazi Germany signaled that the odds were against the Americans. In several specific places of war, the Japanese outnumbered Americans. They also had better choice of the terrain they were fighting from and supplies. Although we may not recognize the technology of the wartime in terms of Japanese equipment, the fact is that their technology was sometimes superior to the one Americans used. Sledge recounts smart Japanese mortars and artillery that fired from behind steel doors and retreated back to safety (Hanson).

There were many strange experiences that Americans were never used to. The rugged reefs, the constant war rain and the foreign diseases piled up lots of stress on the American war companies. Crabs and sheer rot of the land smothered leather boots, flesh and canvas. Sledge witnessed the transition from killing, to decaying to maggots infesting dead bodies with bones partially exposed. It looked more like some biological clock that marked the passage of time. There was always a sick odor because of so many decaying bodies. The oddity was manifold. The zeal and determination of the Japanese to resist American onslaught forced many American marines; pushed into conscription by the economic depression, to kill in instances where they could have captured or just wounded their adversaries. It disturbed the American soldiers when they thought about doctrines and ideologies that could have generated such immense hatred for Americans. When it was announced that the Japanese had surrendered after the Nagasaki and Hiroshima attacks, Sledge was still puzzled. It was thought by many on the fighting front that the Japanese would never, from the field experience, surrender. It remained unbelievable and indeed many declined to accept that they had surrendered. Sledge and his colleagues remembered their dead colleagues. Many died. A lot more were maimed. There was a sharp contrast between the future and the past (Hanson).