Eugene Bondurant Sledge’s personal memoir With the Old Breed follows his combat experiences on the islands of Peleliu and Okinawa. On those islands unspeakable horrors would unfold, changing this young man's life forever. It would take several decades for Sledge, to finally decided on writing With the Old Breed about his experiences. The book was originally intended to be a private novel for his family, however despite its initial intentions this memoir has since been heralded as one of the finer works about the pacific theatre of war. In recent history E. B. Sledge’s work has gained such recognition that With the Old Breed along with other works been used as source material for the HBO mini series entitled The Pacific. Even though there are …show more content…
In doing so, the description is a vivid yet eerie, and almost dreamlike picture. With the Old Breed is full of descriptive passages that draw the audience in, even the simplest of things like the author describing what he was thinking about at the time. Such descriptions make it seem like the reader can see this man from a third person point of view lost in thought moments before his encounter with the enemy. Other events that the author experienced can only be described as horrific, seeing men, women, children, soldiers, and event the enemy maimed or killed due to negligence stuck with him for a very long time. Seeing the dead body of the enemy for the first time made Sledge remember a time when he would go hunting back home. Sledge writes, “The corpsman was on his back, his abdominal cavity laid bare. I stared in horror, shocked at the glistening viscera be-speckled with fine coral dust. This can’t have been a human being, I agonized. It looked more like the guts of one of the many rabbits or squirrels I had cleaned on hunting trips as a boy. I felt sick as I stared at the corpses.” (Sledge p. 70). With the amount of detail that is given, readers can see that Sledge's viewpoint on the war is a disheartened one, yet out of pride he continued to serve his country. Comparing the dead body of Japanese soldier to that of …show more content…
Readers are also given a biased view that shares the untold truths about war, this opinion is delivered in such a way that that stays true to the melancholy tone that war novels are known for, hence the message about war is easily understood by a broad audience and not only those that are interested in stories of combat. In conclusion Eugene Sledge humanizes the american soldier by taking the audience into the battle field, to experience would could only be deem as hell on earth. In doing so readers can understand the frustration with some superior officers not delegating the correct orders, the incorrect utilization of personnel, the complete disregard for human life both civilian and soldier, and the trauma that was experienced first hand by those who felt the need to
In An American Soldier in World War I, David Snead examines account of George Browne, a civil engineer who fought as part of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I. Snead shares Browne’s account of the war through the letters he wrote to his fiancé Martha Ingersoll Johnson. Through Browne’s letters and research conducted of the AEF, Snead gives a concise, informative, and harrowing narrative of life as a soldier serving in the camps and front lines of the Great War. Snead attempts to give the reader an understanding of Browne’s service by focusing on his division, the 42nd Division, their training and preparation, combat on the front lines, and the effects of war on George and Martha’s relationship. As Snead describes, “Brownie’s letters offer a view of the experiences of an American soldier. He described the difficulties of training, transit to and from France, the dangers and excitement of combat, and the war’s impact on relationships.” (Browne 2006, 2) Furthermore, he describes that despite the war’s effect on their relationship, “their
As he immerses his audience into combat with the soldiers, Shaara demonstrates the more emotional aspects of war by highlighting the personal lives of the men fighting. For example, when Shaara reveals the pasts of James Longstreet and Lewis Armistead’s, I started to picture them as the men that they were and not as soldiers out for blood. After suffering a devastating loss of three of his children to fever, Longstreet is tossed into battle. In Armistead’s case, he not only suffered the loss of his wife, but also of a friend fighting on the Union side, General Winfield Scott Hancock. Shaara saves his readers a front row seat to the inner turmoil of General Chamberlain regarding his hindering duty as a soldier clashes with his duty to family as he strived to serve the Union as well as protec...
Many times readers lose interest in stories that they feel are not authentic. In addition, readers feel that fictitious novels and stories are for children and lack depth. Tim O’ Brien maintains that keeping readers of fiction entertained is a most daunting task, “The problem with unsuccessful stories is usually simple: they are boring, a consequence of the failure of imagination- to vividly imagine and to vividly render extraordinary human events, or sequences of events, is the hard-lifting, heavy-duty, day-by-day, unending labor of a fiction writer” (Tim O’ Brien 623). Tim O’ Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” examines the correlation between the real experiences of war and the art of storytelling. In O’Brien’s attempt to bridge the gap between fiction and non-fiction, the narrator of the story uses language and acts of violence that may be offensive to some.
Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed is a memoir of a junior soldier during the island hopping campaign in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. Written over thirty-five years after VJ-Day, his narrative carries the weight of emotion while brilliantly depicting the struggle of the individual soldier at the tactical level. As Sledge recounts his experience, he writes like a patriarch attempting to preserve his legacy through the account of his physically arduous and morally dubious ordeal. Already an established classic, Sledge’s memoir has resurged since becoming one of the narrative mainstays for the television mini-series The Pacific.
O’Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003. p. 420-429.
Another unique aspect to this book is the constant change in point of view. This change in point of view emphasizes the disorder associated with war. At some points during the book, it is a first person point of view, and at other times it changes to an outside third person point of view. In the first chapter of the book, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien writes, “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity (2).
The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of O'Brien's predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O'Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(O'Brien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(O'Brien 39). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order back within the group. O'Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror; therefore fulfilling O'Brien's purpose, to convince the reader of war's severely negative effects.
For instance, “smell of gunpowder” (Magnus, 6), which is repeated multiple times, is a demonstration of how much the soldier values his war memories, for the solder describes the smell as “stimulating” (Magnus, 8) and “life-giving” (Magnus, 7). At the same time, as the soldier describes war in an enumeration towards the end of the poem, the audience learns his sadness and regret in face to the fact that “No one comprehends a soldier’s work anymore” (Magnus, 28). This enumeration, however, is used to recreate the images that the soldier experienced during his service so that the audience would feel the intensity of war. In addition, the assonance in “knobby bones” (Magnus, 4), on top of emphasizing the bold character of the soldier despite his age, evokes an image of an old, forceless man, which fits well with the beginning of the poem, in which the soldier is portrayed as weak and unenthusiastic.
Sledge has had a major transformation in his thought and role of war: from being a rookie thinking war would be a walk in the park, to being a leader among his peers and knowing what to expect and how to channel his fear. War is never an easy thing, but through his experiences Sledge was able to find the good in things and come out successful. Even with the extreme terror he always faced in battle, his mindset was more realistic and was an accurate representation of reality. One thing I have learned is that war is truly brutal but the brave men and women who devote themselves to this country keep the United States a country worth living in.
The men stationed in the Pacific Theatre of World War II faced many challenges and hardships. The fighting that occurred with the Japanese far surpassed the level of brutality in the European theatre. Some American military units faced relentless fighting throughout the entire war, while other units waited for the entire war for orders to deploy into combat, and never actually saw any action. Only a few stories surrounding both ends of the spectrum of men in the Pacific Theatre exist, and even a fewer number do the men and women that served during that time justice. One of these authors who captured the nature of life during World War II in the Pacific Theatre, James Michener, did so in the novel Tales of the South Pacific. Michener not only offers an in-depth perspective of life during the time, but also brings up key themes of issues that existed during that period. He introduced a new outlook on the South Pacific during World War II, showing that a variety of people scattered around the Pacific joined for the common goal of a successful military operation. The primary purpose for this collection of tales from around the South Pacific focused on telling the tale of everyone who spent the war there. Michener used varying points of view within the plot line to strengthen this point. Within the main focus he brings up three themes: the first being of camaraderie and fellowship, the second the issues of power struggle, and finally racism in World War II. Michener utilizes diction to help characterize individuals to help literary convey these three themes. James Albert Michener brings up the issues of racism and power struggle in the South Pacific, while portraying the men that lived there during that period and the fellowship they s...
The two classic war novels ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller both provide a graphic insight into the life of soldiers serving their country in the historic world wars. One distinct theme of interest found in both books, is the way in which war has physically and mentally re-shaped the characters. Remarque creates the character Paul Baümer, a young soldier who exposes anxiety and PTSD (commonly known as Shellshock) through his accounts of WW1’s German army. ‘Catch 22’ however, is written in the third person and omnisciently explores insanity and bureaucracy in an American Bombardier Squadron through its utter lack of logic. The two novels use their structure, characters, symbolism and setting to make a spectacle of the way war re-shapes the soldiers.
War as seen through the eyes of Ambrose Bierce in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge depicts it as truly gritty. The author successfully sends a message of how death is a part of war, and it is not as noble or glorious as one would think it is. Due to popular media, we have this attitude that the protagonist is going to go down in a blaze of glory, and while it may be true for some, it is not like that for everyone. War is rough, dark, and gritty but no one ever wants to talk about those parts of war because it would ruin the fantasy of it.
O’Brien’s unique verisimilitude writing style fills the novel with deep meaning and emotion. Analyzing the novel through a psychological lens only adds to its allure. Understanding why characters act the way they do helps bring this novel to life. The reader begins to empathize with the characters. Every day, the soldiers’ lives hang in the balance. How these soldiers react to life-threatening situations will inspire the reader. Life has an expiration date. Reading about people who are held captive by their minds and who die in the name of war, will inspire the reader to live everyday as if they are currently in the
Though the book is a novel, it gives the reader insights into the realities of war. In this genre, the author is free to develop the characters in a way that brings the reader into the life of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The novel frees the author from recounting only cold, sterile facts. This approach allows the reader to experience what might have been irrelevant facts if presented in a textbook. This book is written from a perspective foreign to most Americans.
Stories of wars and the resulting victories are usually told in highly elaborated narratives that seek to cover the grim realities of war as much as they aim to arouse emotion in order to ensure support for any future wars among the masses. However, war, by its very nature, is neither desirable nor its outcome praiseworthy. Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front lays bare the gritty, gruesome and ultimately self-defeating nature of wars. As Paul Baumer and his soldier comrades enlist and join the German Army in order to defeat the enemy, they themselves are slowly vanquished, first psychologically and finally physically through death. As the soldier members of Paul Baumer’s company are slowly killed in battle, he becomes more and more disillusioned with the war, especially since he and his friends had enlisted with idealistic aims fed to them by their teacher Kantorek. Instead of patriotic glory and poetic war victories, Paul and his friends found defeat and ephemeral triumphs; instead of honor, they encountered dishonor; instead of personal growth and advancement, they found stagnation and watched their youthful dreams die. Through the war experiences of Paul Baumer as depicted in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the ultimate tragedy of war is revealed; it destroys the lives of its very agents – the soldiers – by crashing their dreams and claiming their lives for little discernible overall gain.