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53 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hemingway would like this book, November 24, 2007
This review is from: China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II (Paperback)
E. B. Sledge's "With the Old Breed" is by common consent one of the finest -- if not the finest -- account of the life of a combat infantryman in World War II. At Pelieu and Okinawa, Sledge was one of only 10 men in his Marine company of 240 to escape being wounded or killed. "China Marine" is the follow-up to "With the Old Breed," a lesser work but one that tells of what happened to Sledge after the war.
With Sledge's experience, one would have thought that he would have been among the first among the military to be demobilized after the end of the war with Japan -- but no, he and his colleagues were sent to China to disarm the Japanese soldiers there and to maintain order in several northern Chinese cities. This is Sledge's account of the six months he spent in China. His view is that of a Private First Class -- but an educated and sophisticated PFC, the son of a medical doctor from Mobile, Alabama, and an outstanding writer. He delighted in Peking, fresh food, a clean bunk, light duties, and friendship with the sophisticated Soong family -- but the danger from attack by communist armies was always there.
Sledge goes on to tell of the trauma of his discharge from the Marines and homecoming to Mobile and, briefly, his long years of struggle with what we call today Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's a small book, only 160 pages, and an interesting, beautifully written, account of the decompression of a combat soldier and his return home.
Sledge died in 2001 but he was often quoted in Ken Burn's recent PBS series on World War II. Sledge is a true American hero.
Smallchief
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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
By a veteran of the physical and psychological scars of war, February 9, 2004
This review is from: China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II (Paperback)
China Marine: An Infantryman's Life After World War II is the powerful World War II memoir of E. B. Sledge and the sequel to his "With The Old Breed: At Peleliu And Okinawa". Sledge is a veteran of the physical and psychological scars of war, and this former Marine narrates the end of the old China and the rise of the Communist state through the eyes of someone who was there and saw it all. Sledge also presents the troubles of having to adapt to civilian life when the era of combat had faded. A moving true story of balancing life with the immense demands of nobly serving one's country, China Marine is a welcome and recommended contribution to the growing library of World War II era biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Title Says It All....Another Outstanding Book by Gene Sledge, August 11, 2008
This review is from: China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II (Paperback)
China Marine Gene Sledge is an old friend although I've never met him. Any book by him is more than worth the few dollars it would take to own it. Most Americans have no knowledge of the fact that immediately following WW II 60,000 U. S. Marines were sent into North China. Their real purpose was to keep that area from falling into the hands of Mao Tse Tsung's 8th Route Army when the Japanese withdrew. We Marines were to fill the gap, and then turn this critical ground that contained much of the coal available in China. The Russians raised hell in the UN about the US not repatriating the Jap troops to their mainland. The US objective was to maintain them in place as additional insurance in order to keep Mao's ChiComs in Manchuria the caves of Yemen where they had been kept in check by the Japs during WW II. With pressure from the UN, the last of the Japs and Koreans were sent home by about June of 1946, leaving a dwindling number of Marines to literally "hold the fort." Essentially, this is what Sledge writes about. Imagine to have survived the battles for Peleliu and Okinawa only to be sent to North China where too many Marines were to be killed. Sledge, because of his time overseas, was able to leave China early in '46, as I recall. Those of us who had arrived late to the Pacific Theater during WW II would remain guarding the railroads and bridges that moved the coal. And so, you say: "How come I haven't read anything about this? It was not mentioned in my History classes in high school or college."
I have a story on my web site that may interest you: http://www.sullyusmc.com/Hsin%20Ho/Hsin%20Ho.htm This story concerns one incident that occurred in April, 1947, shortly before the Marines were withdrawn from that area by our State Department. In my case I ended up in Tsingtao on the Shantung Peninsula, until 25Sep48 when I was commissioned a 2dLt and ordered stateside. Within a few months of my leaving China Chiang Kai Shek and his Kuomingtao withdrew to Formosa (Taiwan). My old regiment, the 5th Marines, oversaw the withdrawal of US and other civilians from Shanghai in early '49, and China was from that time under the control of Mao and the Chicoms. I and many other Marines saw a great deal of the latter when they intervened in the Korean War in November/December '50. We Marines were in and around the Chosin Reservoir. The US public knows little of the Korean War, but most at least connect the term Chosin Reservoir to that conflict.
http://www.sullyusmc.com
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