With The Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa by E. B. Sledge

I decided to read this book after seeing the HBO series 'The Pacific." A very good series to watch about WWII Pacific side. "Band of Brothers" is the series that follows the German side of WWII. E.B. Sledge was one of the soldiers followed in the HBO series and is known for having one of the most straigh-forward, honest books about the war. If you don't want to read the book you can definately get a good feel of the war watching the movies (just remember that there are about 10, 45 min episodes that you have to watch so it will take you about the same amount of time as it would to just read the book). About 2/3 of the books content is seen in the series, but the other 1/3 is great to be able to read since you really get a good feel of why veterans hated new recruitments, how they felt during certain situations, their view of the war and Japanese, as well as how they felt towards officers. Some officers they admired and loved, others they really hated, but usually were trained enough to keep their thoughts to themselves. You tend to feel bad for enlisted men since they are left with crappy orders and situations while the officers get much nicer ammenities, food, etc... It's only during the actual fighting that officers and enlisted are on the same page. Just an example from the book is after the war has ended, the enlisted find a nice wooded area to eat, but are forced to move so the officers can have that area to eat their chicken while the enlisted have to move back to the open, dusty field to eat their k-rations. Doesn't always seem fair, but it's life. It was fun to read the embarrassing moments many of the soldiers encountered such as fleeing out of the bathroom with their pants still down when the guns start firing for practice. It was interesting to note that there were many times that names were left annonymous during touchy times such as a soldier goofing off and accidentally shooting and killing his comrad or other such incidents that could have easily been avoided had each man been trained completely and followed their training. Like I said, definately a book worth reading, but done at a much slower pace. I usually finish a book in 2-3 days, but this one took me 2 weeks since I couldn't skim over words and not miss vital sections of the story.