Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific

by Robert Leckie

with the beer. The Gentleman, or someone, would sweep out the hut. Perhaps Oakstump would help — Oakstump, that short, bull-like farm lad from Pennsylvania, who didn’t drink or smoke (at least not then) but loved to squat on the floor, throwing his dice, shuffling his cards, plastering his hair with scented oil. To Oakstump, this was living: dice, cards, hair oil. Then, with the fire alight, the beer case set in the middle of the floor, we would lie back on our cots, heads propped against the wall, swilling the beer and talking. What did we talk about those nights? There would have been much shop talk — gossip about our outfit and our destination, endless criticism of the food, the N.C.O.’s, the officers. There certainly would have been much talk of sex. Of course everyone would exaggerate his prowess with women, particularly the younger ones, as they would stretch the size of their income as civilians. I suppose much of our conversation was dull. It would seem so, now, I am sure. It was dull, but it was homey. We were becoming a family. H Company was like a clan, or a tribe of which the squad was the important unit, the family group. Like families, each squad differed from the other, because its members were different. They resembled in no way those “squads” peculiar to many war books — those beloved “cross sections” composed of Catholic, Protestant and Jew, rich boy, middle boy and poor boy, goof and genius — those impossible confections which are so pleasing to the nati...