With the Old Breed by E. B. Sledge is a World War II account of a private, E.B. Sledge, and his experience on Peleliu and Okinawa.  Sledge started out in college to be an officer, but decided to enlist as a private in the United States Marines .  His first battle was Peleliu which was a bloody engagement in the Pacific theater.  These days there are many historians that believe Peleliu could have been skipped.  The things I really like about this book are the fact that Sledge speaks not only to combat, but the thoughts he had during combat, the food he ate, and his raw opinion of the Japanese.  Sledge was convinced that at one point during the battle God spoke to him and told him he would make it through.  It is also clear that these soldiers believed the law of averages said they would either get that “million dollar wound” or be dead soon.  It takes special training and people to push on when those are your everyday thoughts.

As Sledge heads to Okinawa for the next invasion, they can’t help but wonder statistically what their odds of making it are.  On Okinawa, the soldiers had to deal with mud that at times could be up to knee depth.  Carrying ammo to the frontlines was a real nightmare.  There were also times that the fighting was so intense that marine dead had to stay where they fell.  This is not the practice of the Marine Corp and you can tell the agony of the other Marines that had to leave their comrades lying in those positions.

One interesting thing was the Japanese’s use of something called a spigot mortar.  The spigot mortar is a 320mm mortar equipped to fire a 675 pound shell.  They are incoming with a “terrible screaming sound”.  Another interesting item is that there were incidents of the Japanese throwing back American grenades because replacement Marines were never trained in the proper use.  A shocking number of the casualties in the 5th Marines were replacements who were taken down before anyone even got to know their names.

Sledge wrote this book from notes that he kept in a bible during his campaigns.  This book is an intense read outlining the true feelings and thoughts of a combat soldier in the Pacific Theater.