Essay on With the Old Breed Book Report

became extremely involved when it came to tank warfare. He continuously tried to look for

The author points out various examples of the Corps short-comings throughout history. With the Marine Corps already struggling to stay atop its game, it didn’t shed positive light on the situations. With that said, it’s hard to point out the flaws of the Corps without also showing its achievements and how we can overcome any obstacle we are faced with.

While I wish I was strong enough, honorable enough, and brave enough to serve the United States, I know that I will find a way to contribute to the success of those who do.

The subject of this book has affect my life by serving as a reality check of what my Marine predecessors went through in order for me to be able to obtain the deep-rooted fighting tactics today. I will never have to deal with and survive the adversities that the Marines of Fox Company did. It also affected me by teaching me that as a Marine, no matter what struggles may present themselves, I will always thrive and keep fighting.

I liked how things are already I thought as I was getting ready for bed to think about re-enlisting. Paine 153 says “Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right but “TO BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,’ and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon Earth.” If we don’t win this war, our lives are going to be full with expensive government that rule without pity. “Tyranny, is like Hell, is not easily conquered , yet we have this consolation with us,” also said by Paine 153. You're worried about your aging mom and you miss you friends and family. If you quit and go back home, you get to live with taxes, tyranny, and fear. You and everyone you care about will be under this life. Far off, possibly unlikely, there is victory. The reason victory seems far, is because there are few soldiers that are fighting. I want to fight to make victory closer. This reason is pushing me to re-enlist because of what life would be back home. The choice to fight or not can will change on how you and the people you care about live. I fell asleep so sure of my

I see it as what you see in your life and what you do does affect you no matter what it is and that is exactly the same with this book. These men are subject to constant physical danger, as they could literally be blown to pieces at any moment. This intense physical threat also serves as an unceasing attack on the nerves, forcing soldiers to cope with primal, instinctive fear during every waking moment. Additionally, the soldiers are taken back home, to life they can never live normally or be the same person they once were. The war had mentally abused them to having fear every single moment of their life.

There are several facets of Eugene Sledge's book, With the Old Breed, that makes it a particularly compelling read. For those who have never been formally acclimated with war and the combat situations and peculiar perspectives on life that it offers, this work of literature will prove particularly insightful and, perhaps, a little bit harrowing. Essentially, With the Old Breed chronicles the involvement of the author in World War II as a United States Marine stationed in Japan. However, this dramatic experience allows for Sledge to make a number of incisive observations about human nature that are of value to virtually anyone, regardless of what his or her station in life is. The author is able to utilize the backdrop of war to emphasize two primary themes that are integral aspects of humanity and are somewhat polarized (although Sledge demonstrates the link between them). The first of these is the intense loyalty and love of one's comrades that the war was able to foster. The second of these is the graphic nature of the violence and horror of war, which has the noxious ability to sap the humanity from its participants. It is quite interesting and one of the testaments of Sledge's accomplishments as an author that he can detail one set of circumstances (the war) that both typifies the best and the worst that humanity has to offer.

Instead he dives right in to his reasoning behind the book and entails of the mythological pictures of the war which left individuals with a distorted memory. For example, there is the myth of the citizen soldiers, describing them as the average guys who answered their country’s call to arms, fought bravely and cleanly, and made easy transitions back into civilian life. (Hansen) In actuality, alcoholism and venereal diseases had significant impacts on troop’s strengths, and a surprisingly high proportion of those troops did not engage in combat. Soldiers of all nations performed deeds of courage, but they also shot prisoners, machine-gunned defenseless enemies in the water or in parachutes, and raped women, including their own personnel and afterward had nightmares about what they had seen or done. (Adams, 7)

This disassociation allows for the whole sale slaughter of people with moral justification. The unforeseen byproduct of this disassociation, as Cameron points out, can be seen in the 1950’s and 1960’s, when many veterans consigned their wives to the kitchen. The intended product of this disassociation, however, was to kill Japanese soldiers. The Marines would reap the benefits of this first in the Guadalcanal campaign of 1942. With the U.S. Marines of First Division engaged in a life or death struggle against their Japanese opponents, the cartoonish portraits of four-eyed, slow Japanese soldiers burned into the American Marine’s mind kept them from thinking about the enemy as men who are carrying pictures of their families eerily similar to the pictures that were carried by Americans. Using the invasion of Peleliu as a backdrop for his analysis, Cameron expands upon his analysis of the individual Marine to the collective thought of the organization. The U.S. Marine self-image caused Marine units on Peleliu to charge head-first into the waiting Japanese defense with foolhardy, head on assaults which they stubbornly pressed. The Marine Corps, even through their hyper-masculine indoctrination, had not prepared their Marines any better than their U.S. Army counterparts on the island. Before Peleliu, the perception of combat had been that of a clean affair due to the romanticized images of World War I. After, due to Tom Lea’s reporting of events, the

He rings “a few doorbells” for Gene McCarthy (an anti-War Senator from Minnesota, where the narrator goes to College, who ran for president in 1968 opposed to Vietnam War), composes a few “editorials for the campus newspaper”, but is not radical in campaigning against the war, partly due to his belief that it is never an “impending crisis”. Therefore, he is particularly shocked and dismissive when the draft notice appears in his mailbox. He imagines himself “dead,” or doing things morally unacceptable to him, such as “charging an enemy position, ” or “taking aim at another human being.” He is afraid to do just about anything. He fears he would no longer be the self that he once

At With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa is a World War II memoir by Eugene Sledge, a United States Marine. The text commences with Sledge's induction into the marines, follows his training through boot camp and Infantry Training Battalion, and describes his pre-combat deployment to Pavuvu. As the story continues Sledge describes the difficulties of living in the frontline, or in the war zone. The war zone life was described as constant fear, fatigue, and filth. The book describes how they found bodies of their fellow Marines mutilated and what some of the Marines did to the enemies corpses. Special emphasis is placed on the mental and moral aspects of warfare. Surprised to be offered the choice, Sledge opts to specialize in 60mm mortar

Both Sledge and Marlantes did a wonderful job and attempting to convey the complexities of war. However, I personally found that Sledge’s memoir did a better job at accomplishing this task. Although the two novels covered similar aspects of war and did so exquisitely there were some slight differences in narrative styles that can force one to choose one book over the other in regards to understanding the life of a soldier. On one hand, Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn had more of an in depth look at the racial conflicts that come along with being a part of the war. On the other hand, Sledge did a absolutely wonderful job as going in depth in regards to the physical environment that can make a soldier completely loose his mind. E.B Sledge has a wonderfully

His purpose for the book is to give readers a glimpse of the horror experienced by the people who were part of the Pacific war. He focused on how and why the Americans and the Japanese did their actions during that war and their purpose for doing it (Kort, 2010). He also gave his opinions about the behavior of the people, especially the leaders, in making the decisions that led to a lot of unnecessary casualties and deaths during the war (Schilken, 2009).

"Read this book if you are a true patriot. I am a retired First Sergeant from the US Army. I served during both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Kenneth takes on the hard issues and does a superb job. Our government let us down and Kenneth brings it to the forefront. If you doubt my patriotism look at the medals on my chest." G. Gonzalez

Reading this book kept me on my toes. It made me feel like I was in that situation too. This book is worth reading. It's an exciting book that makes you feel like you're the one who has to make all those tough decisions, and that you control what happens next. One of the best war books I’ve ever