With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene B. Sledge
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A great read. Straight forward, not overly sentimental or harsh. Just a man who survived two of the worst battles in the Pacific telling us what happened. I think the HBO series “The Pacific” was based on this. As I read it two things struck me.
First, the invasion of Japan would have been the most costly battle in the history of mankind. There are problems with dropping the atomic bombs. After Nagasaki and Hiroshima the world was never the same. As a Christian I am adamantly opposed to civilian deaths. But reading this book one begins to realize that the Japanese had no intention of surrending. The toll on American soldiers, Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilians would have been astronomic if America had been forced to invade. So all the armchair generals who think we messed up by dropping the A-Bomb need to read this book and remember that it took more than 80 days and over 110,000 dead Japanese to get a six mile island named Okinawa. My point here is not to justify the dropping of the atomic bombs, but simply to say that the things are never as cut and dry as we want them to be. It is easy for us to look back and say, “We should have done this or should have done that.” War is hell. Often there are no easy, right, or bloodless answers.
Second, I realized that if our generation (I am thirty-six) was called upon to do what these men had to do there is little doubt we would fail. As a culture we do not have the backbone or courage to fight like those men did. I am not saying there are not brave men in the military. I have family members whom I love and admire who are in the military. So there are individuals and groups, who could do this. But WWII was a sustained effort over many years, by hundreds of thousands of people, that was a huge sacrifice, not just for the soldiers, but for those at home as well. I am not convinced that in our narcissistic, entitled, American culture we could do that again. I am reminded that our generation has not been called upon to sacrifice much. If the moment came where we had to, would we? Would I?
