30 pages • 1 hour read
Eugene SledgeWith the Old Breed
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1981A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Letters
Mail from home offers a bright spot among the fighting from Company K members. News from home is not always pleasant, though, as one letter informs Sledge of the death of his beloved pet dog. Often the mail from home leaves the troops feeling disoriented, as civilian life becomes increasingly more difficult to envision. Still, it remains a savored distraction from the realities of war.
Souvenirs
Sledges notes what seems to be a fairly-standard practice among other soldiers: the gathering of souvenirs from corpses. This practice happens on both sides, with weapons, watches, teeth and sometimes even body parts taken from the deceased. At first, Sledge is horrified by this. Later, he comes close to joining in but is stopped by Doc Caswell, whom he credits with saving his humanity and compassion. The taking of souvenirs reveals a thoroughly-detached view of death, a numbness to loss and tragedy that the author decries.
Women
Among the terror and chaos of fighting, the men occasionally pause to swap stories of girlfriends back home. One fellow Marine is nicknamed Kathy because of the pin-up photo he carries with him of his chorus-girl mistress, a photo he shares with Sledge at Okinawa. The author notes that among the corpses, maggots and filth of war, “[s]he was a pearl in a mudhole” (257). In a similar fashion, two other young men fight over a ration card that is covered with a red-lipstick kiss. The idea of women at home gives the men courage and endurance.
Nature
The brutality of human nature is juxtaposed with the serenity of the natural world in different moments in the book. Among the horrors of Peleliu, the author notices intriguing frigate birds. He also stops and marvels at the charming Okinawan horses the company encounters as they pass through abandoned farms and villages. After the end of the fighting at Okinawa, the author turns and looks out at the beauty of the surrounding sea.
