Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine [Paperback]

Elton Mackin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1993

In the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front, Elton E. Mackin's memoirs are a haunting portrayal of war as seen through the eyes of a highly decorated Marine Corps private who fought in every major World War I campaign in which the Marine Brigade participated - from Belleau Wood to the crossing of the Meuse on the eve of the Armistice. At age nineteen, Private Mackin joined the Marine Brigade's 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment on beleaguered Hill 142, where the Marines were fighting as part of the U.S. Army's 2d Infantry Division. The call soon went out for volunteers to serve as runners, carrying messages from headquarters to the front lines or guiding attacking units to the jumpoff point. Mackin accepted the challenge and became a member of what frontline marines called the "suicide squad." He miraculously survived some of the most vicious fighting of the war without serious injury - other than to his psyche. His narrative, written in a style evocative of the heyday of American literature, the 1920s and 1930s, is certain to become a classic in its own right. Mackin shares with the reader not just the horrors of war, but the subtle little everyday experiences that make the life of the combat soldier both tolerable and soul-shattering. Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die is a book that will leave you wondering how anyone can emerge from battle with sanity intact.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As a recent enlistee, Mackin (1898-1974) joined the 5th Marines in June, 1918, during the battle of Belleau Wood. He served with the regiment until the Armistice as a rifleman and then as a runner--a job with a life expectancy usually measured in hours. Mackin's memoir, supplemented by interviews taped in the 1970s, covers six months of action. In direct and simple prose, his taut, immediate account details a time when, with air support and field radios far in the future, machine guns and barbed wire still dominated the battlefield. In overcoming these obstacles virtually unaided, the courage and initiative of such front-line soldiers as Mackin and his comrades were tested to their limits and never found wanting. This immediate, eloquent report, meriting comparison with Thomas Boyd's Marine Corps classic Through the Wheat (1923), belongs in all collections on U.S. participation in WW I.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Edited from a combination of written records and tape recordings, this is the plain but powerful tale of a World War I marine. Beginning as a raw recruit who joined his regiment during the battle of Belleau Wood in June_ 1918, Mackin volunteered for the highly dangerous duty of runner. He survived all the subsequent major marine actions of the war right up to the armistice and received several decorations for his service. In unadorned but vivid prose loaded with details that bring the horrors of World War I battlefields to life, he tells an exceptional new version of the old story of battle transforming a boy into a veteran. The relative universality of this theme ought to gain his book an audience of more than just Great War buffs. Roland Green --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Presidio Press (November 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891415939
• ISBN-13: 978-0891415930
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #373,324 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poetic and pungent battlefield memoir, February 3, 2005

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine (Paperback)

"Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine," by Elton E. Mackin, has an introduction and annotations by George B. Clark and a foreword by Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, USMC (Ret.). Clark's introduction notes that Mackin was born in New York State in 1898 and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1917. This book evokes the combat experiences of Marines in Europe during WW1.

I found this book quite stunning. The sections often read like prose poems or very short stories. Mackin is graphic in describing wartime violence and suffering, but his writing is also at times quite beautiful. The narrative opens with the Marines preparing to advance upon German-held Belleau Wood. Mackin follows in particular the career of "Slim," a Marine who becomes a runner (battlefield messenger).

Mackin covers a number of subjects: encounters with German troops, relations with civilians, relations between "old-timers" and green replacement troops, and the dangers of the runners' job. The book contains many interesting technical details about war in that era: weapons, fortifications, poison gas, etc.

The narrator's voice is often ironic, satiric, sarcastic, and even bitter. But his voice is also humane--he sees moments of kindness and tenderness in the midst of the hell of war. At one point the author cites Walt Whitman. Like Whitman, Mackin is irreverent yet compassionate, with an eye for detail and a knack for rendering humanity in both its tragedy and beauty. This is a valuable addition to the canon of United States war literature.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A vivid and eloquent book, October 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine (Paperback)

Elton E. Mackin only had a high-school education but he wrote with a natural ability. Here is war. He dosen't glamorize it, he dosen't attempt to glorify it and he dosen't use his memoir as a soapbox. He dosen't judge or condem those who were in command. This is an account of a rifleman. He served at the very bottom and experience war at it's most basic and cruel. Next to the fear and horror of combat Mackin gives equal time to the everyday exsistence of a soldier or Marine. The lack of sleep, the poor food which there was never enough of, the boredom, all the physical discomforts of serving in the field during a war. A superb book. Of interest to both WW1 buffs and the general reader.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 67th Company, 1st Bn, 5th Marine Regiment, 2nd Division., October 21, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die: Memoirs of a World War I Marine (Paperback)

The American combat experience in World War I, brief and now out of living memory, mostly lacks the literary exposure of the British Great War writers, and produced nothing like the avalanche of memoirs of World War II. This has been something of an historical injustice to the "doughboy" , the American "grunt" of World War I. Dirty, hungry, poorly equipped and supplied, suffering as much from the elements as the enemy, the American civilian-soldier persevered, fought, and won, rather to the surprise of Allies and enemy alike.
Mackin, recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, and two Silver Stars, tells the story well, in a compelling narrative which will stand with Sledge's "With the Old Breed" as monuments to the American soldier in general, and the American Marine in particular.

(The numerical rating above is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does nor employ numerical ratings.)