With the Old Breed

[AcePylut]

Either way - such acts by US soldiers were not portrayed in 1950's media.  

[SuluSea]

I wound up buying China Marine, Islands of the Damned, and Guadalcanal Diary (I enjoy reading about the 'canal and haven't read it yet) to surpass the $25 free shipping threshold on Amazon.  Speaking of Helmet for My Pillow, awhile back I bought the title but have misplaced it somewhere, it'll turn up. [;)]  

[jmalter]

'Goodbye, Darkness' by Wm. Manchester is a good memoir, too.

[Knavey]

I met a China Marine once...on an Honor Flight trip to Washington DC to visit the WW2 memorial. The first thing I noticed was the China Marine wording on his hat. The next thing I noticed was Bataan POW on the other side of the hat. Spoke with him for a few minutes. Amazing man...and always had a smile on the whole trip. Wish I would have gotten to speak with him longer.

As for the Old Breed...I got the book for Christmas. Its on my list of things to read but haven't gotten to it yet.

[jmalter]

a nice section in WtOB - after a battle, Sledge is ready to go pull some gold teeth for himself. But a corpsman tells him, "No, there could be germs," & Sledge cools down. Later, he realizes that the corpsman helped preserve his humanity, not by appealing to his better nature (which wouldn't have worked in that post-combat situation), but by scaring him away from doing something that he might've had trouble living with, later on in life.

reading his memoir, you get the sense that Sledge didn't look down on his comrades who took grisly trophies, but was grateful that he was dissuaded from doing so.

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

I just finished With the Old Breed by E.B.Sledge . What a great read! I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. I'm wondering if any who have read both would like to share their thoughts on China Marine by Sledge. I have many books in the well to be read but enjoyed WTOB so much I'm thinking of buying China Marine first.[:)]

According to himself, Prof. Sledge originally wrote Old Breed for private consumption only. I would imagine the subsequent editor omitted what later became China Marine because it's - frankly - a rather boring "I went to China and nothing happened" over a 150 pages. Hence the arupt ending of Old Breed. Easily the most interesting part is his description of returning home to 'bama and the ignorance and apathy he encountered there. The finish is a "Deer Hunter" scene which is interesting on a number of levels. I would think that OUP only published China Marine on the back of Old Breeds success - which predates that series mind.

In a way it's a shame that (if) "China Marine" was cut off of "Old Breed", 'cos if you read them in continuum the flat, rather dull description of Sledge's time in China becomes a numbness coming right on the back of his haunting, horrible description of infantry combat on Okinawa. Paul Fussell's memoirs comes to mind, the second part of which describes his life post-war and are rather dull really - and perhaps that's the point.

In any case it's worth pointing out that the great majority of WWII memoirs come to an end with the end of combat, and, IMO that's a shame 'cos I think that this would only have been the end of the beginning for many of these people, and by comparison we don't really have a lot testamony about the experience for returning to "normality" post-combat in the second half of the '40's.

btw, Stud Terkels 1980's (?) interviews with Sledge should be out there somewhere on the interweb.

[SuluSea]

ORIGINAL: timtom

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

I just finished With the Old Breed by E.B.Sledge . What a great read! I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. I'm wondering if any who have read both would like to share their thoughts on China Marine by Sledge. I have many books in the well to be read but enjoyed WTOB so much I'm thinking of buying China Marine first.[:)]

According to himself, Prof. Sledge originally wrote Old Breed for private consumption only. I would imagine the subsequent editor omitted what later became China Marine because it's - frankly - a rather boring "I went to China and nothing happened" over a 150 pages. Hence the arupt ending of Old Breed. Easily the most interesting part is his description of returning home to 'bama and the ignorance and apathy he encountered there. The finish is a "Deer Hunter" scene which is interesting on a number of levels. I would think that OUP only published China Marine on the back of Old Breeds success - which predates that series mind.

In a way it's a shame that (if) "China Marine" was cut off of "Old Breed", 'cos if you read them in continuum the flat, rather dull description of Sledge's time in China becomes a numbness coming right on the back of his haunting, horrible description of infantry combat on Okinawa. Paul Fussell's memoirs comes to mind, the second part of which describes his life post-war and are rather dull really - and perhaps that's the point.

In any case it's worth pointing out that the great majority of WWII memoirs come to an end with the end of combat, and, IMO that's a shame 'cos I think that this would only have been the end of the beginning for many of these people, and by comparison we don't really have a lot testamony about the experience for returning to "normality" post-combat in the second half of the '40's.

btw, Stud Terkels 1980's (?) interviews with Sledge should be out there somewhere on the interweb.

Good description TimTom, I finished it off a few days ago and I see it more as the few ending chapters to WtOB as well.. That said, I still enjoyed the reading and have no regrets on the purchase.. [:)]