Review of E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed

This was a fascinating but painful read. E. B. Sledge has been in the worst of combat that man can endure (in fact, most cannot endure it) and writes with the quiet, unembellished confidence of a survivor who managed to retain his sanity--and decency. Sledge is one of the few writers I have ever read who exposes the raw brutality of war--and hates war and all its wanton destruction--and yet admits to the sad fact that war is sometimes the only solution.

With the Old Breed tracks the actions of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment of the 1st Marine Division at Peleliu and Okinawa. Once the narrative gets to the actual extended battles, it is a horrific exposition of a meat-grinder beyond what our imaginations are even capable of conceiving. Sledge writes as an enlisted man: the perspective of the jarhead in the foxhole. He manages to convey to the reader the mud, the bone-weariness, the filth, the stench, and the terror of extended battle under constant shelling and nightly attacks from an opponent for whom suicide raids were standard operating procedure.

I understand that With the Old Breed is required reading in officer school--and it should be. It should also be required reading for every politician at the federal level.

May we all come to hate war with the passion, logic, and reasonableness of Sledge--even while understanding that in a fallen world filled with evil, war is sometimes the only way to restrain the worst of men and societies. Five stars, highly recommended.