The Pacific and the books that inspired it

I would like to discuss Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge, and the Pacific, but I feel the need to preface it.

When I was thirteen-years-old, I was very interested in World War 2. We spent a lot of time learning about it during my history class and it was one of the few topics that actually held my attention. As I got older, I stopped reading about it. Books based on the war, whether fiction or non-fiction, were off limits because it honestly scared me. On more than one occasion, I had nightmares because I was so paranoid that another war would happen, that we would be attacked. And then September 11th happened, and...That's another post in itself.

I watched The Pacific strictly because Joseph Mazzello was in it and I think he is one of the most incredible younger actors around today. I knew how talented he was even way back when Jurassic Park was in theaters. I didn't realize at first that The Pacific was based on the lives of real marines until the end of the first episode. That first episode hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn't get it out of my head. The more I watched, the more interested I became in these men. That's why I decided to read their books.

The Pacific, I think, was very fair in showing both sides of the battles. Yes, the Japanese were ruthless. But there were some marines who delighted in torturing them. There are good people and bad people all over. I sincerely doubt that every Japanese soldier was evil and wanted nothing more than to destroy us, just like not every Marine took part in torturing them. I actually would like to read or watch something presented from their side. Clearly, what happened at Pearl Harbor was awful, but that wasn't the decision of everyone in Japan. And I'm sure not every Japanese soldier who was fighting in that war wanted to be part of it. They wanted to get home to their families just as much as the Americans did. But I'm just rambling now and I've lost my point entirely.

It should be pretty clear where I stand on the subject of war. I think it's pointless, no good comes from it. This isn't a meant to be a lack of respect, nor am I being ungrateful to the people who defend our country. I truly just don't understand the point in fighting each other. Humans, as a whole, don't learn from their mistakes. We keep fighting, and for what purpose? What do we accomplish? A moment of peace, and then we're back to killing each other again. Whether it's over land, or race, or religion...Isn't there a better way to resolve our problems? After all this time, hasn't anyone thought of a better way? I'm baffled by it. Stupefied. Amazed.

So. Now that my personal feelings are out of the way. Onto Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge.

Robert Leckie

Eugene Sledge

Both men wrote books based on their experiences in the Pacific. Helmet For My Pillow is about Robert Leckie's time on Guadalcanal, New Britain and the brief period he was on Peleliu. With the Old Breed discusses Eugene Sledge's experiences on Peleliu and Okinawa. In case you're curious, no, the two men never mention each other. I'm not even sure they knew each other, regardless of the scene in The Pacific where Eugene talks to Robert on Pavuvu.

Their books couldn't be more different. With the Old Breed reads like a text book, it's very factual and filled with military terminology that went right over my head. Helmet For My Pillow reads more like a novel, if that makes sense. Sledge became a professor at a university, while Leckie was a professional writer, and it definitely reflects in their books. While Sledge mostly stayed to the point and detailed the battles he faced, Leckie spent a good portion of his book relaying stories of the hijinks he got into. Eugene Sledge gives you the facts and Robert Leckie tells you a story.

I prefer Helmet For My Pillow, only because it wasn't so to the point and I was able to understand it better because there wasn't an abundance of military terms used throughout the book. Leckie told tales of stealing food from the army, lying his way onto navy ships in search of coffee and candy and being put into a psych ward while receiving medical treatment for a completely unrelated condition.

Maybe I remember more of Sledge in The Pacific, but I think the mini series stayed very true to his book. They did add scenes that were never written in his book, but they could have heard about those instances from his fellow marines, or maybe he had even told of them in interviews. I did notice some rather dramatic changes in Leckie's story in The Pacific, however. Specifically, the women he was involved with in Australia and how those relationships ended. (And why they ended.) They definitely seemed to take some creative liberties there, as well as the story about the gun he supposedly found on a dead Japanese soldier. His friend was actually the one who found it, and he asked him to hold onto it because the captain was trying to take it from him.

I didn't know them personally, so my basis for this is just off of what I read in their books, but Eugene seemed like a gentleman and very well-mannered. Robert seemed a bit rough around the edges. I don't mean that in a bad way, mind you. He even admits at one point in the book that he was hot-tempered.

Both books are informative and interesting to read, but which one you'll get the most out of depends on the style of writing you prefer.

Select quotes from With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge:

War is such self-defeating, organized madness the way it destroys a nation's best.

I had just killed a man at close range. That I had seen clearly the pain on his face when my bullets hit him came as a jolt. It suddenly made the war a very personal affair. The expression on that man's face filled me with shame and then disgust for the war and all the misery it was causing.

He was a good friend and a fine, genuine person whose sensitivity hadn't been crushed out by the war. He was merely trying to help me retain some of mine and not become completely callous and harsh.

None of us would ever be the same after what we had endured. To some degree that is true, of course, of all human experience. But something in me died at Peleliu. Perhaps it was a childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that man is basically good. Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war's savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.

Select quotes from Helmet For My Pillow by Robert Leckie:

It is the quartermasters who make soldiers, sailors and marines. In their presence, one strips down. With each divestment, a trait is lost; the discard of a garment marks the quiet death of idiosyncrasy. I take off my socks; gone is a propensity for stripes, or clocks, or checks, or even solids; ended is a tendency to combine purple socks with brown tie.

I was now a number encased in khaki and encompassed by chaos.

A soldier's pack is like a woman's purse: it is filled with his personality. I have saddened to see the mementos in packs of dead Japanese. They had strong family ties, these smooth-faced men, and their packs were full of their families.

Two men do not need a leader, I suppose; but three do, and four most certainly, else who will settle arguments, plan forays, suggest the place or form of amusement, and generally keep the peace?

Being expended robs you of the exultation, the self-abnegation, the absolute freedom of self-sacrifice. Being expended puts one in the role of victim rather than sacrificer, and there is always something begrudging in this.