In his memoir With The Old Breed, E.B Sledge grants his readers access into his mind, where the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa continue to wage on in memory. Sledge gives a first-hand account of how 'child innocence is lost(156), when boys between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five are collectively crafted by war1. The purpose of this discussion is to analyze With The Old Breed, and comment on the nature of war in terms of the Pacific theatre, specifically Peleliu and Okinawa. Although war was explicitly waged against the Japanese forces, inherent in this memoir is the notion that war was also waged against one's self, and the environment. Sledge describes his time in the Pacific as one where only the dead were safe, and those who had gotten a million dollar wound were lucky2 (125).
Though war is a battle with an enemy, it …show more content…
This was often done under heavy enemy fire, in driving rain, and through knee-deep mud for hours on end. The rain was frequent and chilly; a poncho was the only body protection against the rain. Struggling over slippery terrain with their loads, Sledge voices, they resigned to being soaking wet and shivered in misery. Sledge's description of what nature looks like in war is disturbing. To read that war had choked the environment with the putrefaction of death, decay, and destruction (252) allows one to sympathize with those who endured, but no more than that, as Sledge's readers will never truly understand—only those who were there can41. Sledge describes that the environment took its toll on even the most hardened veteran, as they were “too horrible and obscene;” further stating, that authors too do not write about such vileness, as it is too preposterous that men could “actually live there”42 (260). By day, the battlefield was a horrible scene, but by night it became the most terrible of
Though war is a battle with an enemy, it …show more content…
This was often done under heavy enemy fire, in driving rain, and through knee-deep mud for hours on end. The rain was frequent and chilly; a poncho was the only body protection against the rain. Struggling over slippery terrain with their loads, Sledge voices, they resigned to being soaking wet and shivered in misery. Sledge's description of what nature looks like in war is disturbing. To read that war had choked the environment with the putrefaction of death, decay, and destruction (252) allows one to sympathize with those who endured, but no more than that, as Sledge's readers will never truly understand—only those who were there can41. Sledge describes that the environment took its toll on even the most hardened veteran, as they were “too horrible and obscene;” further stating, that authors too do not write about such vileness, as it is too preposterous that men could “actually live there”42 (260). By day, the battlefield was a horrible scene, but by night it became the most terrible of