With the Old Breed Quotes

“The Japanese fought to win - it was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting and dirty business. Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically for it whether we liked it or not. In the post-war years, the U.S. Marine Corps came in for a great deal of undeserved criticism in my opinion, from well-meaning persons who did not comprehend the magnitude of stress and horror that combat can be. The technology that developed the rifle barrel, the machine gun and high explosive shells has turned war into prolonged, subhuman slaughter. Men must be trained realistically if they are to survive it without breaking, mentally and physically.”
― E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Until the millennium arrives and countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to accept one's responsibilities and be willing to make sacrifices for one's country - as my comrades did. As the troops used to say, "If the country is good enough to live in, it's good enough to fight for." With privilege goes responsibility.”
― E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste... The only redeeming factors were my comrades' incredible bravery and their devotion to each other. Marine Corps training taught us to kill efficiently and to try to survive. But it also taught us loyalty to each other - and love. That espirit de corps sustained us.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“I am the harvest of man's stupidity. I am the fruit of the holocaust. I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can't forget.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the marines.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Courage meant overcoming fear and doing one’s duty in the presence of danger, not being unafraid.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“To the non-combatants and those on the periphery of action, the war meant only boredom or occasional excitement, but to those who entered the meat grinder itself the war was a netherworld of horror from which escape seemed less and less likely as casualties mounted and the fighting dragged on and on. Time had no meaning, life had no meaning. The fierce struggle for survival in the abyss of Peleliu had eroded the veneer of civilization and made savages of us all.”
― E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“The men digging in on both sides of me cursed the stench and the mud. I began moving the heavy, sticky clay mud with my entrenching shovel to shape out the extent of the foxhole before digging deeper. Each shovelful had to be knocked off the spade, because it stuck like glue. I was thoroughly exhausted and thought my strength wouldn’t last from one sticky shovelful to the next.
Kneeling on the mud, I had dug the hole no more than six or eight inches deep when the odor of rotting flesh got worse. There was nothing to do but continue to dig, so I closed up my mouth and inhaled with short shallow breaths. Another spadeful of soil out of the hole released a mass of wriggling maggots that came welling up as though those beneath were pushing them out. I cursed and told the NCO as he came by what a mess I was digging into.
‘You heard him, he said put the holes five yards apart.’
In disgust, I drove the spade into the soil, scooped out the insects, and threw them down the front of the ridge. The next stroke of the spade unearthed buttons and scraps of cloth from a Japanese army jacket in the mud—and another mass of maggots. I kept on doggedly. With the next thrust, metal hit the breastbone of a rotting Japanese corpse. I gazed down in horror and disbelief as the metal scraped a clean track through the mud along the dirty whitish bone and cartilage with ribs attached. The shoved skidded into the rotting abdomen with a squishing sound. The odor nearly overwhelmed me as I rocked back on my heels.
I began choking and gagging as I yelled in desperation, ‘I can’t dig in here! There’s a dead Nip here!’
The NCO came over, looked down at my problem and at me, and growled, ‘You heard him; he said put the holes five yards apart.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“I asked God "Why, why, why?" I turned my face away and wished that I were imagining it all. I had tasted the bitterest essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and it filled me with disgust.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“I think the Marine Corps has forgotten where Pavuvu is," one man said.
"I think God has forgotten where Pavuvu is," came a reply.
"God couldn't forget because he made everything."
"Then I bet he wishes he could forget he made Pavuvu.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“And I didn’t neglect to point out to my Yankee buddies that most of the high shooters in our platoon were Southern boys.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Would the war dehumanize me so that I, too, could "field trip" enemy dead with such nonchalance?”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“The other veteran said "Listen, mate, everybody gets scared, and anybody says he don't is a damn liar”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“If the country is good enough to live in, it’s good enough to fight for.” With privilege goes responsibility.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Lying in a foxhole sweating out an enemy artillery or mortar barrage or waiting to dash across open ground under machine-gun or artillery fire defied any concept of time.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“As the sun disappeared below the horizon and its glare no longer reflected off a glassy sea, I thought of how beautiful the sunsets always were in the Pacific. They were even more beautiful than over Mobile Bay. Suddenly a thought hit me like a thunderbolt. Would I live to see the sunset tomorrow?”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“To be under a barrage of prolonged shelling simply magnified all the terrible physical and emotional effects of one shell. To me, artillery was an invention of hell. The onrushing whistle and scream of the big steel package of destruction was the pinnacle of violent fury and the embodiment of pent-up evil. It was the essence of violence and of man’s inhumanity to man. I developed a passionate hatred for shells. To be killed by a bullet seemed so clean and surgical. But shells would not only tear and rip the body, they tortured one’s mind almost beyond the brink of sanity. After each shell I was wrung out, limp and exhausted.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you’ll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.*”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“In writing I am fulfilling an obligation I have long felt to my comrades in the 1st Marine Division, all of whom suffered so much for our country. None came out unscathed. Many gave their lives, many their health, and some their sanity. All who survived will long remember the horror they would rather forget. But they suffered and they did their duty so a sheltered homeland can enjoy the peace that was purchased at such high cost. We owe those Marines a profound debt of gratitude.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Earlier in the morning Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines had attacked eastward into the ruins of Shuri Castle and had raised the Confederate flag. When we learned that the flag of the Confederacy had been hoisted over the very heart and soul of Japanese resistance, all of us Southerners cheered loudly. The Yankees among us grumbled, and the Westerners didn’t know what to do. Later we learned that the Stars and Stripes that had flown over Guadalcanal were raised over Shuri Castle, a fitting tribute to the men of the 1st Marine Division who had the honor of being first into the Japanese citadel.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Kick him in the balls before he kicks you in yours”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war’s savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“A man’s ability to depend on his comrades and immediate leadership is absolutely necessary.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“Sitting in stunned silence, we remembered our dead. So many dead, So many maimed. So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past. So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us. Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy, the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“None of us would ever be the same after what we had endured. To some degree that is true, of course, of all human experience. But something in me died at Peleliu. Perhaps it was a childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that man is basically good. Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war's savagery will ever stop blundering and sending other to endure it.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“I am the harvest of man’s stupidity. I am the fruit of the holocaust. I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can’t forget.” During”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“After we had been back on Pavuvu about a week, I had one of the most heartwarming and rewarding experiences of my entire enlistment in the Marine Corps. It was after taps, all the flambeaus were out, and all of my tent mates were in their sacks with mosquito nets in place. We were all very tired, still trying to unwind from the tension and ordeal of Peleliu. All was quiet except for someone who had begun snoring softly when one of the men, a Gloucester veteran who had been wounded on Peleliu, said in steady measured tones, “You know something, Sledgehammer?” “What?” I answered. “I kinda had my doubts about you,” he continued, “and how you’d act when we got into combat, and the stuff hit the fan. I mean, your ole man bein’ a doctor and you havin’ been to college and bein’ sort of a rich kid compared to some guys. But I kept my eye on you on Peleliu, and by God you did OK; you did OK.” “Thanks, ole buddy,” I replied, nearly bursting with pride. Many men were decorated with medals they richly earned for their brave actions in combat, medals to wear on their blouses for everyone to see. I was never awarded an individual decoration, but the simple, sincere personal remarks of approval by my veteran comrade that night after Peleliu were like a medal to me. I have carried them in my heart with great pride and satisfaction ever since.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“My eyes grew moist. However reluctant I was to leave him, it was for the best. He would be peaceful and safe on the slopes of that green, sunlit hill. Being civilized men, we were duty-bound to return soon to the chaotic netherworld of shells and bullets and suffering and death.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“The bravest wearied of the suffering and waste, even though they showed little fear for their own personal safety. They simply had seen too much horror. The increasing dread of going back into action obsessed me. It became the subject of the most tortuous and persistent of all the ghastly war nightmares that have haunted me for many, many years.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

“None of us would ever be the same after what we had endured. To some degree that is true, of course, of all human experience. But something in me died at Peleliu. Perhaps it was a childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that man is basically good. Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war’s savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa