Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific, A Marine Tells His Story

by Robert Leckie

He had the “bone-cracking” malaria, the malignant kind that bakes your body in an oven and stretches your bones on a rack.

Dogs by the dozen were marching with us. They raced up and down the line of march, barking playfully. They were so silly and lovable and faithful, we had to laugh at them; a sort of sentimental laugh that moistens the corners of the eyes.

He slammed the bolt home. When I heard that deadly snick of cartridge into breech, I froze. We all froze. We contemplated the sentry in incredulity and consternation.

Had not our government been culpable enough in pampering the high-IQ draftees as though they were too intelligent to fight for their country?

Keep it up, America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are fit only for intellectual pigs. Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the lowbrow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly

of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it.

They were falling. It seemed unreal, it seemed a tableau, phantasmagorical, like a scene from a motion picture.