"A grand and epic prose poem . . . The purely human experience of war
in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being
who--somehow--survived."--Tom Hanks
**
See Robert Leckie's story in the HBO miniseries The Pacific**
Here is one of the most riveting first-person accounts ever to come out
of World War II. Robert Leckie enlisted in the United States Marine
Corps in January 1942, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his odyssey, from basic
training on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging
battles in the Pacific, where some of the war's fiercest fighting took
place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the
brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleliu, Leckie spares no
detail of the horrors and sacrifices of war, painting an unvarnished
portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and often die in the
defense of their country.
From the live-for-today rowdiness of marines on leave to the terrors of
jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man,
Leckie describes what war is really like when victory can only be
measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie's hard-won,
eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war
and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet
for My Pillow will leave no reader untouched. This is a book that
brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as
it is safe to come.
