With The Old Breed -- by Eugene Sledge

 Devastated.

Yes, I've read, seen, and heard many things in my years. My first step-father graphically sharing his WWII European combat experiences as an Army medic must be included. I still wasn't prepared for Eugene Sledge's personal story with the Marines on Peleliu and especially Okinawa. Okinawa was exceedingly grizzly.

I will skip the graphic details here, but it is in the book for those who feel a need to explore that path.

Okinawa was a joint Marines-Army endeavor. The Marine commander took over command when his Army higher up Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner was killed by Japanese artillery.

Sledge, who would eventually get a Ph.D. and teach Zoology at Alabama-Montevallo, summarized the statistical part of the battle.

"Total American casualties were 7,613 killed and missing, and 31,807 wounded in action. Neuropsychiatric, 'non-battle,' casualties amounted to 26,221 -- Probably higher than any other previous Pacific Theater battle. This latter figure is attributed to two causes: The Japanese poured onto U.S. troops the heaviest concentration of artillery and mortar fire experienced in the Pacific and the prolonged close-in fighting with a fanatical enemy."

Sledge said Japanese statistics were hazy, but 107,539 enemy dead were counted.

The really gory details were in the later chapters, but overall it rates well up there with Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front in anti-war literature. 

Good fortune prevented Sledge from an early end like Remarque's hero Paul Baumer, reaching for a butterfly when a French sniper's bullet ends his life. There were several times when the then-future Zoology professor lost his protective battle focus when animals caught his sight. Birds, horses, and others could've made him a tragic figure like Baumer, but friends or the war brought him back to that battlefront reality.

Like many others, I finally got around to reading Remarque's most famous book when it was required reading in college. It's possible that Sledge's book could have, or could be, on such a list, too. Either way, it was well-written, and it looks like the old professor, who passed away in 2006, is still educating people. People who read.