I don't remember who recommended this book, but I've just finished reading it.
It's an autobiography of Robert "Lucky" Leckie's serivce in the Marine Corp during Guadual Canal and Peleliu and all the hum drum in between. There were some serious parts and funny ones, too. It really kept my interest during the whole thing, he has an unusual writing style in that he doesn't refer to anyone by name but rather a name he's assigned to them, for instance here's a short blurb:
"In front of me marched No-Behind. He was a tall, slender, noisy fellow from Michigan who was oddly capable of exasperating anyone in H Company merely by marching in front of him. It was an odd affliction in that it was no affliction: No-Behind actually seemd not to have a behind. ...
This day, as we passed with fixed bayonets through the kunai toward the line of wood beyond which a round red sun had fallen, Corporal Smoothface marched behind No-Behind. Smoothface was drunk on the last of the sake. He seemed to be babbling happily enough when suddenly, with a crazy yell, he lowered his rifle and drove the bayonet at No-Behind."
As the author described later the insufficiency in the "target area" saved No-Behind and he was unhurt.
Brooke
